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Fires Sparked By Utah Target Shooters Prompt Evacuations
Hugh Pickens writes "The Salt Lake City Tribune reports that more than 9,000 people have been driven from their homes by a wind-whipped wildfire started by two shooters at landfill popular with target shooters who won't face any charges because they were not breaking any laws. The fire was the 20th this year in Utah sparked by target shooting where low precipitation, dry heat and high winds have hit the West hard, exacerbating the risk that bullets may glance off rocks and create sparks. Despite the increasing problem, local agencies are stuck in a legal quandary — the state's zealous protection of gun rights leaves fire prevention to the discretion of individuals — a freedom that allows for the careless to shoot into dry hills and rocks. When bullets strike rock, heated fragments can break off and if the fragments make contact with dry grass, which can burn at 450 to 500 degrees, the right conditions can lead to wildfires. Utah Gov. Gary Herbert has called on Utahns to use more "common sense" in target shooting urging target shooters to use established indoor and outdoor ranges instead of tinder-dry public lands. "We can do better than that as Utahns," says Herbert, calling on shooters to "self-regulate," since legislation bars sheriff's officials from regulating firearms. "A lot of the problem we have out here is a lack of common sense.""
does the right to pointlessly shoot random shit trump a home-owners right not to have his house burned to a cinder
christ....
Don't ban shooting, just make the shooters responsible for any fires they start. I bet they start self-regulating real quick when multi-million dollar fines start getting handed out.
"We can do better than that as Utahns," says Herbert, calling on shooters to "self-regulate," since legislation bars sheriff's officials from regulating firearms. "A lot of the problem we have out here is a lack of common sense.""
If you're relying on common sense from a state most of which fell in a big way for the Joseph Smith con-job that is Mormonism, you're gonna be waiting a very long time.
== Jez ==
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And recreational shooters are no different. In tinderbox conditions like this you can shoot safely, but you have to be careful. Don't shoot steel jacketed or steel cored ammunition, stick to plain lead or copper jacketed only. Don't shoot tracers, don't use gimmick ammo like Dragon's Breath shotgun shells. Above all, pay attention and be prepared to put out a fire. If you're not prepared to do all of that, then maybe you should just do something else until the weather changes.
I'm an avid shooter and probably own more guns than most of the people reading this. My knee jerk reaction is to defend "my" side, but I also want to smack down the morons making the rest of us look bad.
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Col. Jeff Cooper
It's not about a "right" to do anything trumping anything else. If there was no law against (target-)shooting in the area in which the shooters were, how do you suggest they be prevented from having done something that caused an accidental fire?
If your issue is with the fact they won't face punishment for something they couldn't have possibly predicted and didn't intend, how is the lack of punishment in any way related to the fact that thousands of people are now without homes?
If your issue is the fact that there is no framework of law to prohibit, e.g., shooting under certain conditions, in a similar manner as, say, open fires when weather conditions are not safe for fires, then I might begin to agree with you.
Article is completely off-topic
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We should blame the construction industry?
Ban home remodeling?
WTF?
The shooters tried to put the fire out and called 911. They acted fairly responsibly, though with some forethought they would have taken some preventative measures to prevent sparks.
Sometimes stuff happens. Using it to promote your particular social engineering agenda is bullcrap.
As another poster said, hold the shooters responsible for this. If there are not already laws in place that do so, there can be fairly quickly.
There are fires burning all over Colorado and Utah because of the very dry conditions. This one might have been caused by target shooters, but where's the outrage against the causes of all the other fires? Most are caused by campfires, burning trash, tossed cigarettes, lightning, railroad trains, etc. Target shooting is way down on the list of threats.
And this story is unfairly associating this lack of common sense with firearms, apparently for some political agenda. 20 fires have been associated with firearms activity. But, there have been 218 human caused wildfires so far this year in Utah, so that's less than 10%. The same, official Utah government website informs us of the "...three major preventable causes of fires in Utah. They are campfires, debris burning, and vehicle fires."
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Great plan! Make sure to extract similar vengeance on:
Children with fireworks
Children who intentionally light fires
Grills
Campfires
Throwing out a lit cigarette
Yard/Trash burning
etc, etc, etc, you know, the things that typically cause these fires. This was just an accident, it happens. I think what we need to do is take a similar stance that we have on any activity that could lead to a fire, educate people on the dangers and how to handle it. Remember Smokey the Bear? Meet Slashdot's most wanted. I dare you to stare into the face of evil!
I don't quite get why the law can't handle this without running afoul of the second amendment, either. In Canada, I regularly see "fire bans" - when the conditions are poor (i.e., dry tinder), even fires that require and have received permits are not allowed. Open-pit fires are banned. (BBQs, being enclosed, are still permitted.) A similar fire ban, not targetting firearms per se, should pass muster just fine, as long as it allows for emergency use (self-defense), active militia use (again, largely defense), and firing ranges and such.
Thank you for helping prove the point that this is political, having nothing to do with fires, and all about people who are afraid of private citizens owning firearms.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Looks like they left off steel penis extensions, which also cause fires. This fire caused by a gun also had 9000 people running for their lives. Boo-frickety-hoo. Maybe the problem of this desperate need to extend ones' penis will solve itself . . . when people get sick of grown men acting like 12-year-olds with their guns.
Attempting to shame people who hold a different point of view stopped working 20 years ago after the feminist movement used it for the eleventy thousandth time. The fact that you still think insulting someone's manhood is still a viable coercion technique is a sad commentary on the success it once had. However, its now easily recognized as the shriek of the sackless, leftist, we-don't-need-liberties-the-government-will-take-care-of-us babble that it is, and has no effect.
I dont think people give a fuck about others owning fire arms. It is more about people giving a fuck that if they are this stupid to shoot in dry grass, they are stupid enough to do other things.
Stupid guns dont kill people, stupid people kill people.
You are missing a lot of the details and only hearing one side. The law allows for the recovery of damages and the imposition of penalties for starting fires. In this case the people responsible for starting the fire accidentally were also the ones who immediately reported it. Apparently the local authorities decided that they had not been acting irresponsibly, otherwise they would have been charged with some offense and would possibly be responsible for the entire cost of fighting the fire. (Yes, that does happen from time to time.)
Also, there are all sorts of fire bans in effect in different areas. If the people weren't charged with anything then they probably weren't violating any ban.
The main problem with this report and some of the comments is that someone is attempting to use it as an argument against guns and completely exaggerating the rules which are in effect.
You're counting a whole lot of zero-acre fires. If you look at the damage caused, target shooting accounts for a good deal more than 10%. Also, target shooters make up a rather small proportion of the population and cause a vastly disproportionate number of fires.
Any target shooting outside of a gun range during a red flag warning shows a lack of common sense, and trying to excuse these people's rampant irresponsibility by saying other people sometimes act irresponsibly too shows you're the one with the political agenda.
You're wrong. One need only look at the text for the links in the article, which aren't about fire prevention, but firearms. ("gun rights," "target shooting," "regulating firearms")
Campfires are the most frequent preventable cause of wildfires, where's the article about careless campers? If campers who don't give a fuck are so stupid to let their campfires cause wildfires, they're stupid enough to do other things.
Stupid campfires don't kill people, stupid people kill people.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Whereas insulting something by comparing it to the feminist movement is perfectly valid?
Yes, those laws are ridiculous as well. These fires are caused by decades of idiotic policy that has built up enough dry tinder to roast the entire country. Instead of having small, controlled burns on a regular basis, we build and build and build, then blame the spark for our idiocy. Think about what would have happened if we eliminated 100% of human caused fires, and wound up with just one natural fire every fifty years. We'd be left with nothing but ashes from sea to soot covered sea.
WTF? You really want an article on Slashdot about how campfires that get out of control get prosecuted? I.e., a story about a law that everyone agrees with gets applied? Do you also want stories about how the mugging at your local Denny's was investigated, and the perp prosecuted? Or maybe you want a story about how a campfire causes a wildfire? What the hell is your point? And even if that story would exist, what the hell does it have to do with the fact that prosecution is a-ok for a wildfire started through any means, except when it is started through guns? I mean, outside of aiming for Gold in mental gymnastics.
Seriously, take off your blinders here. Not everyone is coming for your guns, and not every use of a gun needs to be sanctioned. If you're so insecure that you can't see that.... yeah, you're really not helping your cause here.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Firstly, it's a private property matter. The Mall can say "no guns" and post that and then the firearm owner is doing something wrong on the mall's property. If there is no mall policy, and there is an open-carry law in the state in question, nothing is wrong with the assault rifle. Sure, it's gaudy. It's like someone in a mohawk and 30000 piercings. Tasteless? Yes... could either be part of something more sinister? Yes... but until there's more proof than the gun (or the mohawk) itself, you're just projecting your irrational fears onto others because you have a problem with guns (or mohawks.)
Secondly, unless it's being pointed at you and you are in a state with open-carry laws, ignore it until you need to dial 911. Being "proactive" and "reacting" to seeing a gun on someone's person is being a fucking busybody. The 2nd Amendment, and the right of freedom on one's own property, while currently under assault (no pun intended) are two of the cornerstones of personal liberty. The Founders spoke of the freedom to bear arms as much as they did about property rights. It's not a veiled interpretation looking back into the misty past. They were keen on what it meant to be free from tyranny.
Oh, I forgot, people who hate firearms are just well-intentioned busybodies.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
I can empathize, and I think that the target shooters were not thinking. But what I can't stand is the summary's blatant attempt to turn this into a gun debate, as if the "zealous protection of gun owners' rights" is somehow wrong and anti-American. It's the 2nd fucking Amendment (I'm not ranting at you, I just had to get this off my chest.) The Supreme Court has correctly interpreted "the People" in the clause of the 2nd Amendment to be individuals. (Just like "the People" in the 1st Amendment)... Utah is not doing anything overtly criminal in making sure all rights, even those that people hate (like free speech and the right to bear arms) are protected. This is purely a matter of fire safety. It has 0 to do with guns. It could've been a cigarette. It is not the gun's or 2nd Amendment's fault.
I think they should be charged and fined as a person(s) who violated a Red Flag warning and built a fire. Nothing about the guns should matter. But I can see /. (in general) loves individual freedom only sometimes. :)
"Guns are bad, mmmmkay?" -- random /. consensus. :-)
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
We believe in Individual liberty as codified in our Bill of Rights. Those aren't rights granted by the government. They are rights we have as humans and the Founders knew government (any government) would attempt to curtail those rights, so they wrote them down in the Constitution. While we have had quite a few attempts to circumvent those rights, we generally right the ship and shake the yoke of government tyranny off.
Since you're not an American, I don't expect you to understand. If you'd like to understand, read "The Federalist Papers"... Or anything by Thomas Jefferson.
It's not perfect, but I'd take the Constitution over any other document sanctioning government power any day.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
You haven't heard of the 1st amendment?
Hint: It precedes the 2nd amendment you're so zealous about.
OK, fine. Then let's agree that you leave the 2nd Amendment alone, and we'll leave the 1st Amendment alone.
See, that's exactly the kind of crap I'm talking about. You don't mind at all trying to take away people's rights under the 2nd Amendment, but you scream bloody murder when it's a right YOU care about.
Once you go down the road of removing/crippling/restricting rights, don't act all surprised when they get to a right YOU care about.
They came for the gun owners, but I wasn't a gun owner, so I did not speak out. Then they came for my freedom of speech, but there was no way for me or anyone else to defend my free speech.
Just an FYI: Why do you think the founders put those two things as first and second in the list of rights? According to them, it's because without the 2nd Amendment, you can't defend the 1st Amendment, and will quickly lose it.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
You have an irrational fear of firearms.
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Since when does sensible regulation = totalitarianism? I'm not saying firearms should be regulated, but private companies? Fuck yes they should be regulated.
Sensible regulation doesn't equal totalitarianism anymore than small government = fuedalism. However, we do know from both history and human nature that power corrupts and tends to draw more power to itself and that experiments in having big government tend to end badly.
A sensible position is to always remember that government=force, remember that individual liberty had intrinsic value, and whenever someone suggests using the government to solve a problem question whether or not non-government people and government can solve it and whether a government solution is worse than the problem. Too often our first question is "how can government solve this?" rather than "why can't this be solved by people exercising their liberty?"
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
As far as purpose, automatic weapons were designed for one purpose: antipersonnel.
Ever since semi-automatic weapons have been approximately as accurate as single-shot weapons they have been the preferred family of firearm for hunters and target shooters alike because they're easier to use. The M1 Garand was the assault rifle of its day, but before that, the musket was that, and before that the blunderbuss and before that the short bow and before that you'd carry a few spears and so on down the line until you get back to where we just picked up rocks and threw them at one another.
So while you're right that this weapon is descended from a weapon designed to kill a whole bunch of people at once, that doesn't make it an assault weapon... in the eyes of the law. I understand that you don't think that's relevant, but it is. The truth is that an assault rifle makes a dandy hunting rifle, and the same things that make an assault rifle better for killing people make it better for killing dinner. The only thing you're never going to need is fully automatic fire, which is why it's not present in the civilian models. Otherwise, a bullpup-configuration carbine with a synthetic stock is desirable to the hunter for the same reasons it's desirable to the soldier; it's lighter, there's less climb so if you're firing consecutive shots you're going to be more accurate, and the weapon is physically smaller which means it's less likely to catch on something while moving through brush or traversing obstacles. (You're supposed to put your rifle down when doing that sort of thing... but sometimes that's just not practical.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Too many rights over your own property leaves a mess that persists beyond your lifetime which is harmful to society
Except that the US and the Constitution aren't meant, and were never meant, to protect society, they were and are meant to protect individual freedom.
Once you put collective interests above individual freedom, you have tyranny. History shows this has always been true, and unless humans suddenly change into something other than human, it will always be so.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Its so strange watching what people latch onto. Like the story about the blind men trying to describe an elephant, one has it by the tail and thinks its an elephant is a stick, another by the leg and thinks its like a tree, and another by the trunk and thinks it like a snake. All right, and all completely wrong. First there are no pure "ISM" governments left on the planet save maybe North Korea, and they're just bugfsck. Capitalism is PRONE to serious problems, especially when corporations hijack the government. Even Adam Smith warned about the dangers of concentrating wealth and the absolute essential need for a healthy middle class. Capitalism with strong regulations in place to ensure they don't abuse labor, or too strongly influence cultural thinking through pervasive media, or destroy the environment they need in which to operate, is a wonderful thing. But like any reactor you watch it, guide it, steer it, and most certainly keep it in that dynamic tension between strict control and free progress.
There are strong arguments for limiting banks before you limit governments, because banks arguable have had a greater impact on human suffering than the all the governments of the world combined. Which isn't to say that governments are blameless, or shouldn't be strictly controlled. That's why we used to have checks and balances (until corporate America began dismantling them 30 years ago.) Twenty-first century America is living proof why Plutocracies and Fascist states are inherently doomed enterprises. Pyramids balanced on their points, they're unstable and dangerous. They do double harm, first as they bleed a culture dry, then as they begin to topple struggling ever harder against the very culture in which they exist causing collateral damage as they strive to keep wealth and power. There are fascinating conversations regarding the amazing wealth of the United States shortly after winning its independence and the disastrous effects of tying American currency to British Banks and the formation of our own Federal Bank.
As for your attack on Liberalism, I attribute none of the "ISMs" of which you speak to liberalism. Conservatism is the tendency to avoid in fact prevent change. Conservatism looks at the world framed in past based conversations and tries to preserve a consistent and workable status quo through tradition ideals and methods. This worked well when the period of significant social and technological change was greater than a single human life span. Its a full on disaster today. Liberalism is embracing change, looking for new solutions to new problems, looking to hit the moving target of social advance as it continues to accelerate. There will be failures, that's part of the scientific method. The whole point is that our world is changing at an every increasing rate, and that conservative thinking is inherently more broken, less tied to physical reality, and more prone to growing distortions of perception based on forcing reality into those inappropriate past frames of reference. Look at the last President and his cabinet trying to force a 2000 world into a 1980 frame of reference and the social disasters that ensued. This isn't to say that some expressions of Liberalism aren't flavored with excessive moralizing, emotional attachment or equally fixed past perspectives. It is to say that at its best, liberal thinking is profoundly better at dealing with and confronting accelerating change than conservatism.
Just as an aside, though conservatives like to claim fiscal austerity as one of their key planks, dealing with financial resources consistent with the simple tenets of basic accounting, seems to me to be just a simple act of sanity. Those that suggest we consistently spend more than we make, conservative or liberal are simply poor stewards of the future. Bill Clinton proved we could provide a fair tax structure, build the nation's infrastructure, promote a successful economy and still pay off the national debt. Anybody remember the "Surplus".
The right to bear arms is not a right to fire them indiscriminately. Making it illegal to discharge firearms in circumstances where doing so is not in the public interest is very much allowed. For instance, you're not allowed to discharge firearms in the city limits of the town I live in, despite strong support for the right to carry them.