by You shoot trap or skeet. You live in the ‘burbs. You aspire to a Perazzi or Krieghoff custom shotgun to go with your Beemer. You don’t particularly care for the NRA as all they care about is protecting those mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging Neanderthals and their evil black rifles. Besides, Mayor Bloomberg and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) have always said they are only after the illegal guns and that they respect American sporting traditions like trap and skeet.
Sorry to intrude on your dream world but you might want to think again.
Fox 32 News out of Chicago has just done a nice hit piece on the home of the Grand American – the World Shooting and Recreational Center in Sparta, Illinois. They are saying it is an expensive boondoggle that has cost and continues to cost Illinois taxpayers millions of dollars.
Chances are you’ve never heard of the World Shooting and Recreational
Complex; which is too bad, because you almost certainly paid for it. In
fact, Illinois taxpayers kicked in tens of millions of dollars for the
downstate tourist attraction. The problem is, it isn’t attracting a lot
of tourists and it continues to lose money.
And who is leading the charge to get rid of it? None other than Illinois State Senator Dan Kotowski (D-Park Ridge) who is one of the leading gun prohibitionists in the Illinois General Assembly.
“The state must live within its means. Fund what works. Get rid of what
doesn’t,” Kotowski says. “Should we be in the business of making sure
that we have sport shooting competitions, shooting competitions should
the state government be in that business whether it makes people feel
good or not? I think we should be in the business of educating our
children.”
Unfortunately, the World Shooting and Recreational Center is also being targeted by the free-market leaning Illinois Policy Institute. They have consistently called for the state’s spending on it to be cut. They call it a “giant white elephant” in the Fox 32 report which can be seen below.
It should be pointed out that the World Shooting and Recreational Center hosts more than the Grand American and skeet and trap shooting competitions. There are regular SASS, IDPA, and USPSA pistol competitions held there. You can also shoot trap, skeet, and sporting clays most days of the week when competitions are not being held.
Would the World Shooting and Recreational Center be better served by being in private hands? Maybe. That said, the attack on it now by Dan Kotowski and others is a backdoor attack on shooting in general. If they can limit places to shoot, they will make it harder to exercise our Second Amendment rights.
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