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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.""
Government just blames us gun owners to take away our rifles. The 2nd amendment will prevail over common sense! America! Fuck Yeah!
Officer: What I want to know is did you camp-fire get out of control or were you shooting guns? If it was your camp-fire you could be in serious trouble.
So destroying thousands of acres of public and private land, costing the state millions of dollars in firefighting costs, risking the lives of firefighters, and causing >9000 people to evacuate their homes and businesses doesn't really matter as long as nobody got killed and no homes were destroyed?
Even if the target shooters had the money to pay the firefighting costs (extremely unlikely), the burned lands, the threat to others' lives and property, and the loss of >9000 people's time would be worth a criminal conviction.
There have been around a dozen fires started by target shooters in Utah this year, and some were larger than this; this one gets the news because it was closer to homes.
Years ago the legislature seized power to keep counties and municipalities from enforcing anything related to shooting, and they've repealed any and all restrictions on gun use they could find. They too are responsible for the fires.
I don't have any idea who you think you're replying to. I'm not claiming gun ownership should be outlawed, and I don't see anybody who's making that claim.
You admit "Utah needs to change their local laws concerning the time and place it is appropriate to shoot" and that's precisely what I'm saying.
Your claim that these people did nothing illegal runs afoul of the reckless burning ordinance; this was a class A misdemeanor. But that's not enough to dissuade people from destroying land and endangering others' lives, because people are too stubborn to believe their irresponsible actions really cause any risk of fire, even when 19 fires had already been started by shooters in Utah this year.
Target shooting on public land during a red flag warning should be illegal, and it's farcical that the Legislature has not only refused to put in place reasonable regulations but has barred counties and municipalities from doing so.
No, that's "collective punishment"; not "common sense."
Why are the two mutually exclusive? As an outsider the problem I see with the US at the moment is that you have a society where nobody takes any responsibility for their actions (something which has also infected a lot of other countries) and you have guns freely available. This is not a good combination. Common sense tells you that either you need to alter your society so that people take responsibility for their actions i.e. learn gun safety before purchase, keep them locked away from kids, don't do target shooting in a dry forest etc. or that you need to take away the guns so people don't hurt themselves and others.
I'd much prefer a "responsible society" solution to the problem because it fixes a lot of other issues too and we know it works because that is how everyone's gun control used to work. However until we figure out a way to achieve that again people are dying due to the irresponsible use of guns and it is not just the people behaving irresponsibly who get killed. So until the we can figure out a way to gain a measure of self control as a society I would argue that gun control is common sense...but it is also a collective punishment.
But failure to put out a campfire, or a careless burning barrell, or throwing a lit cigarette on the ground CAN all be punished. And they ARE punished VERY severely in these states with wildfire problems.
A civil suit would be the way to go. Take names at the incident and hand them over to the 9000 people that had to be evacuated. It was a group that caused the fire without safety measures in place.
You just need a court that will allow the case.
I live in Utah. The only parts of the state where anywhere close to even a quarter of households have firearms are low-population areas far away from the Wasatch Front (and far from this fire, the smoke from which was easily visible from where I live). Also, having a firearm in the house certainly doesn't imply that you're a target shooter.
Gang activity and burglary may be lower in Kanab or whatever than in LA but that has little to do with gun ownership.
I don't have any problem with people owning guns. I do have a problem with people leaving spent ammunition and casings all over everywhere, behaving irresponsibly by target shooting outside of gun ranges during a red flag fire warning, and brandishing assault rifles in public. I have an even bigger problem with legislators who are more concerned with protecting irresponsible behavior by gun owners than they are with protecting the public.
Of course, a primary difference is, one deliberately starts a campfire.
One also deliberately fires a gun.
There, as with firearms, there was no intent to start a fire in the first place.
There was no intent with the campfire to start a wildfire. In both cases, a deliberate and irresponsible act (that is safe in normal wetter conditions) starts an unintended wildfire.
A better comparison would be to wildfires caused by vehicles (hot exhaust parked over dry grass, no spark arrestor, etc.)?
This is a fair comparison only if the driver of the vehicle was intentionally driving around without a spark arrestor or other deliberate *and* irresponsible act. As an example, a police officer who starts a wildfire while shooting his weapon in the course of his duties would be the fairer comparison to your accidental car exhaust fire (although if the grass was that susceptible, I would expect public wilderness areas to be closed to vehicular traffic).
Not really. They make up a heck of a lot less than 10% of the population, especially here along the Wasatch Front.
The people who camp and cause fires that way also make up a fairly small portion of the population. Larger than shooters, but not much larger.
Right. All the fires when people were shooting in red-flag warning "tinderbox" conditions were caused by fire fairies or gnomes.
I don't respond to sarcasm. If you'd like to make an argument make it like a grownup.
[citation needed]. I've seen the sections of state code which say "Unless specifically authorized by the Legislature by statute, a local authority or state entity may not enact or enforce any ordinance, regulation, or rule pertaining to firearms" and I've seen the legislature's tendency to try to trump/seize control from cities (esp. SLC) on all kinds of issues; I haven't seen the provision you cite.
UCA 10-8-47: "the municipal legislative body may regulate and prevent the discharge of firearms".
Note that they may not regulate possession or carry, only discharge.
If you could teach our state legislators this fact it would be a great accomplishment. They've passed scores of bills that their own legal counsel has said are unconstitutional attempts to trump federal law, and many of them are nullificationists.
I didn't say they couldn't try, only that they couldn't do it.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
But then children won't learn to grow up with an irrational fear of guns.
Yes, the U.S. under Teddy Roosevelt sure looked feudal. Seriously, dude, do you have any idea what the words you use actually mean?
Point of fact, the Greek economic crisis was largely a creation of banks; trying to fault progressivism is a serious disconnect from reality.
When conservatives run things, on the other hand, capitalism insures plenty of state-enforced feudalism. Under capitalism, the state creates and enforces "property rights" for the aristocrats, using the threat of death/imprisonment to keep the serfs in line. Property is force; if you don't believe that, go try to build yourself a cabin in the backyards of some 1%er's third or fourth house.
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You cannot wash away blood with blood