Look what I found at the range today!

[SlippShodd]

Usually after a trip to the desert with my dogs, you would expect me to post a pic of a pile of found brass and a bucket full of range scrap.
But not today:

63564

This is not my first, nor likely my last, rant about the krap that people take to the desert, shoot the snot out of, then leave behind to tarnish my beloved public lands. The dogs and I had a pretty good run in the desert today and I was circling my way around to finish out the afternoon picking up lead at my favorite berm. When I got there, this is what I found. Well, not exactly like this because the picture was taken in my garage in the back of my truck. The cooler had been used as a target stand for several bottles. The box was beside the cooler, shot up and still half full of six packs of empty bottles. The berm behind was a catastrophe of broken glass, wine and beer bottle necks stuck in the dirt with their busted bodies strewn across the face of the berm. The cretins had set a board up on the berm which was littered with jagged bottle bottoms and glass debris. And a bunch of shot up dinner plates. Oh, if you see Kay, I was pi$$ed!
It's not because I couldn't mine some free lead. It's because unlike the a$$holes that brought this $#!+ and left it, I reversed the process used to get it there by using the same cooler and box to collect it all up and bring it home with me. After I locked my dogs in the truck so they wouldn't cut up their paws trying to help me. After I got out my collapsible rake and raked down the berm to get all the broken glass in one place to be picked up. You know, the way the $#!+forbrains that did this could have.
I like frangible targets as much as the next guy. That's why Zeus or somebody made clay pigeons, which by the way are mostly biodegradeable. And milk jugs full of colored water; the remains of which are large enough to be accounted for easily and don't require leather gloves to be picked up and placed in a large trash bag that fits neatly in the recycle bin when you get home. Hell, I don't even mind if you shoot cans of cheap beer, pop or creamed corn as long as you take it home with you when you're done. And if you don't, I'll be along in a week or so and pick up your cans and sell them for 52 cents a pound.
But glass? GLASS?!?! Only a stupid farging bastidge shoots glass in a public place (also used for grazing cattle and training military personnel) where other people, their kids and their dogs go to play. Stupid sonsabitches are ruining our reputations as responsible gun owners.

Anybody got a Valium?
I need a Valium.

mike

[geargnasher]

Sounds like it's time to plant a trail camera. If I were in your situation and the littering was in a predictable spot (which it appears to be), I'd be mad enough to spend the money on one.

Gear

[mongoosesnipe]

i love the idea of shooting glass but hate the mess and so i never do it but it is despicable to leave such a dangerous mess for others actually my favorite no traditional targets is blocks of ice they shatter very much like glass which is awesome but there inst squat to clean up which is a huge bonus

i would actually make a sign to put near where you found the glass warning of trail cameras being placed on the road in to record licenses, don't bother with actually putting cameras the will just get stolen but the idea of them may straighten the idiots out and maybe they will spend hours trying to find said cameras instead of shooting glass

[Sasquatch-1]

I am sure a lot of this is directly traceable to people who watch the Jerry Springer type gun show on TV, where they are always shooting at glass targets and never shown cleaning up the mess. As mentioned, there are plenty of objects that cna be shot that will not leave shards of shrapnel on the ground. Balloons filled with talcum powder or water come to mind.

I am sure as long as there are people like you who will clean up other peoples mess you will continue to have the work when ever you go to this location. Heck, they probably think you are payed by the local government to clean up the mess.

[P.K.]

I am sure a lot of this is directly traceable to people who watch the Jerry Springer type gun show on TV, where they are always shooting at glass targets and never shown cleaning up the mess. As mentioned, there are plenty of objects that cna be shot that will not leave shards of shrapnel on the ground. Balloons filled with talcum powder or water come to mind.

I am sure as long as there are people like you who will clean up other peoples mess you will continue to have the work when ever you go to this location. Heck, they probably think you are payed by the local government to clean up the mess.

If they are not picking glass up, they are not going to police up busted ballons either. I really like Gear's idea of the trail cam or two. One
at the entry point to the area to catch the make/model/plate and one near the "line" to hopefully catch the vehicle full of micreant's doing the deed. Then it's just a matter of passing the evidence along.

[Olevern]

Sounds like it's time to plant a trail camera. If I were in your situation and the littering was in a predictable spot (which it appears to be), I'd be mad enough to spend the money on one.

Gear

They'd shoot the trail camera, gear.

[WILCO]

Anybody got a Valium?
I need a Valium.

mike

Good job picking the garbage up Mike. It's frustrating, but a problem as old as glass and firearms itself. Best advice is to post a sign, educate shooters and add a burn barrel. No need for a valium once you realize it's a fact of life on public ranges and you choose to shoot there.

[WILCO]

Sounds like it's time to plant a trail camera. If I were in your situation and the littering was in a predictable spot (which it appears to be), I'd be mad enough to spend the money on one.

Gear

Drama and waste of time Gear.

[Wal']

Sadly its as geargnasher sez.................you can't fix stupid.

[dbosman]

Teach the cretins to use ice balls.
I fill balloons to about four inches and freeze them. A cooler can hold a couple of dozen for a nice range session. They explode well and usually leave a chunk large enough for a follow up shot. If you tear the balloon off when placing the ice for targets, there's nothing to clean up later.

[Freightman]

Leave trash at our range or shoot a bottle you will be ask to turn in your key, and there is a two year waiting list of people wanting to join. Shameful saw a range at the lake closed down because of dummies who can't pick up after themselves, bet they expect someone to pick up there dirty titty Whites also, and the say pigs are dirty!

[Charlie Two Tracks]

We just changed the combo to the lock on our range. Hopefully, this will slow down some of the people who just don't care. I like the idea about the trail cam. There are trees and bushes all over the place so it would be hard to find a camera.

[Sweetpea]

Hard to type this, but I was this dumb once.

Then I was taught better.

I'd like to find a good way to "educate" these folks, but unfortunately it seems that only time will teach some of them.

Others, well, a nice fine for littering and some community service will do nicely.

Brandon

[WILCO]

Others, well, a nice fine for littering and some community service will do nicely.

Brandon

Careful what you wish for. That type of thinking has brought us to where we are now as a nation.

[shooterg]

The same happens on private ranges, the "1%" as I call 'em, that think the planet spins around their "axis"(not the word I want to use !). We change locks every year, but we've finally saved for a security gate(card access) so we will know who was there when-maybe we catch more pf 'em now. Next step cameras. A shame 'cause this money coulda bought a LOT of steel targets/etc.

[dudits]

i shot a bunch of bottles once when i was young, took hours to clean up....
but i was raised like that. it is sad what this planet is coming to

[izzyjoe]

i shoot at a pulic range on Natl. forest property, and the scumbag's shoot up the billboard at the entrance. funny thing is, if look at the direction there shooting, it's towards the parking area! that's smart. i've not be up there in 3 months, so i'd hate to see it now. the thing about the beer bottles, and can's is they consumed that product while they where shooting. that's scary!!!

[Jim Flinchbaugh]

I hate slobs.
Fortunately, at our club range, we have the masses trained well enough we don't even have garbage cans anymore :)
Pack it in, pack it out seems to be working well. It is a locked gate range, that helps. The "public" places that people shoot at though
resemble the photos the OP put up

[km101]

"Sorry people have sorry ways!" my Granddad used to say. You can try to educaate them, or try to fine them, but in the end all you can do is clean up after them if it's on public land. Some people are such poor stewards of our natural resources. It makes you wonder what their house looks like. But I'll bet that they dont make messes like that at home.

[x101airborne]

I don't even drop my cigarette butts either on public or private property. I even made my BIL pick his up when I saw him throw one down. Field strip and place in pocket for later disposal. I shoot bottles. In the bottom of the dump at Dad's house, but that is different.

You did a good thing, picking up. I know it is a pain in the posterior, but glad to have folks like you around.

[quilbilly]

That is why most of the logging roads around here get closed and "tank-trapped". Particularly when they get filled with old TV's and PC's. The counties have made it so hard and expensive to get rid of them at the landfills that they end up on the logging roads. Then the county raises thje prices at the dump then complains about illegal dumping.

[MUSTANG]

I always carry a small package of Large Heavy Duty Trash Bags with my shooting Kit. There are 1/2 Dozen places I go to shoot in the desert, and over time I have collected quite a bit of trash from those locations and jeep trails along the way. What is surprising, is that over time I seem to have influenced others because I still find range brass at these locations from other shooters (goody-goody, leave that behind); but I am seeing less and less trash, maybe the example has influenced others.

The reason I started carrying the Trash bags was to head off the BLM bureaucrats. They are notorious for sitting in their office in Las Vegas, and going to the field once or twice a year, then becoming Irate over "How the Public Treats Their Public Lands". I listened to one of the BLM Bimbo Spokes Persons (My wife says I shouldn't use that term in a public forum, but that's how the woman came across) at a Town Hall meeting where she was threatening to close off access to all the Public Lands in the area if it did not stop. No action by those lazy ********, just threats or actual closing of Public lands. Any way, I decided a few years ago to try and head off the threatened action by cleaning up after others. Hopefully it will spread to others doing the same.


Mustang

[LUBEDUDE]

That's the way it always is - I take home more than I brought. If we don't, we WILL lose our shooting spots.

[TheGrimReaper]

When I was out in Colorado the range out in the mtns we shoot at people would take all kinds of stuff and shoot it and leave it. Hot water heaters, old dryers, furniture, etc......made the place look like a dump.

[lars1367]

The range back in my home town is better than most NRA certified ranges that charge over $500 a year. They charge a mere $25.00, but there is nobody there to watch over the grounds. Every summer and Christmas I go back and clear out a bunch of garbage that people leave. Old appliances, TV's, etc that fools leave behind after having their fun. Once I caught somebody doing that and gave them a royal A** chewing. The idiots don't realize that somebody is going to have to pick up after them. Eventually, that somebody is going to get sick of doing it and simply close off the range or make it illegal to shoot on open lands like they have in many of the areas around here. When I introduce people to the shooting sports, I always make it clear that if you don't pick up after yourself, you don't deserve to handle a firearm.
-Corey

[mtnman31]

I used to shoot east of San Diego in the desert. I'd always come home from each trip with the bed of my truck full of trash and junk. There were a few popular spots where the ground literally sparkled with all the broken glass and left behind brass. Leather gloves and a few big boxes made the pick up safer/easier. I felt that was my "range fee"; shoot for free and take home a load of others' trash.
I love shooting bottles - plastic two-liters filled with water and/or ice are fun shootin'. They are easy to pick up and don't leave the ground littered with glass.

Follow the old camping wisdom - you pack it in, you pack it out.

[Love Life]

Don't get me started...

[SlippShodd]

Don't get me started...

No. Please? Start.
The responses have been interesting, and of course, I assumed I was preaching to the choir. But I had to vent somewhere. Locally, we've been booted from areas much more convenient for shooting than what we have today. Various reasons, but slobbery has always been mentioned when an area closed. Like many of you, I figure it's my price of admission to use public lands by cleaning behind those who won't. I try to always bring back more than my own (not just brass and lead), hauling in old TV hulks, bags of trash. The place we use is part of the military training range for the National Guard. They mostly don't shoot in the areas the general public do and we stay out of the tank and bombing ranges. I've been "caught in the act" by range patrol officers who either thanked me, or actually pitched in and helped me. And all the people I shoot with are converts to the cause.
A few years ago, I started photo-documenting some of the atrocities, intending to write an article encouraging those like us to step up their efforts at both leaving our public lands cleaner and self-policing/educating other shooters to the ramifications of their actions, i.e., losing access to public lands for shooting. The troubling part for me in the political climate of late is that I fear such an article would backfire, be used as evidence in the attacks against us regarding access. That conundrum leaves me no choice but to do my venting where I'm understood best.
So, since it probably won't ever be published elsewhere, I'll share my favorite photo:

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Spring is in the air and the cattle will be returning to graze soon. This calf happens to be eating a plastic shopping bag he found around one of the popular shooting areas.
Being raised on a cattle ranch myself, I feel sorry for the poor ba$+ard that holds the grazing permit out there.

mike

[Silver Eagle]

It is not just the shooting ranges! It is almost any place some people go. Go for a walk in the forest preserves or parks and you will find all of the garbage people leave behind. They can haul in their 24 pack of beer, food and whatnot for a day's fishing and then just leave it behind. Sad thing is in some places there is a trash can not 50 feet away! Same goes for the parking lot, just toss the trash out the window instead of walking or driving by a trash can or dumpster.

[Love Life]

I live in Nevada now. I come from the south east originally. Public lands in the south east are pretty much non-existent. Go ahead and pull off the side of the road and pop a few off. $100 says you are shooting on some ones private property.

That being said I have immense appreciation for the public lands here. It angers me to no end to go to the public range to shoot and you see:

Propane tanks
Refrigerators
Washers/dryers
A dishwasher
TV sets
Computer sets and monitors
Glass, glass, glass
Scrap metal
Bags of garbage
etc.

I clean up as much as I can and end up making a dump run almost every time I go shooting. Not for attaboys or to save the environment, but because I understand what it means to not have public lands to shoot on. I swear if I didn't rake up the glass it would be knee deep by now. Twice a year I go with the BLM guys to help clean up the ranges to show them that somebody cares. Build that rapport you know?

People disgust me. They shoot EVERYTHING!!! Some friends and me put up target stands once to try and keep people from using washer machines as target stands, and subsequently leaving the washing machine behind. You know what they did? They shot the frigging uprights in half, and plain stole one of them!!!

Several times I have gone out and the people shooting random stuff were still there. I asked them politely to take their stuff with them. They usually left it. No worries. I just took pictures (I always have a camera to take pictures of the birds of prey) and called the law. Douchebag thing to do? Yes, but it is a douchebag thing to do to leave your garbage in the desert. Sometimes things have gotten out of hand with more boisterous people, but those stories are for other times...

So does going to the range or hiking, and finding a used appliance store in the desert make me mad? You bet it does!!!!!

I applaud you for taking the time to clean up. If more people did it, then we would not have as much fear of our public lands being closed to shooting and recreation.

Sorry for the long rant, this is something I am very passionate about. Now if you'll excuse me I need to get down from my horse and go get some supper.

[Digger]

Thank you Love life and everyone else here for your efforts .... last few years I have used the local county managed range here just outside of town and do my part when there , but yes it is disappointing (putting it diplomatically)
the amount of garbage left out it the open ...
Have cleaned up a spot or two on my own in the past just hiking thru the open range out of frustration.
The ##&&*^@#%@$ left sometimes even at the managed range is astounding at times ....
Just read in the Carson paper they were shutting their range down for a day to clean up the trash , the dump is just over the hill !! . . go figure !!
Never ending it seems at times but persons like your selves do make the difference I am sure.
Thanks
digger

[Love Life]

Digger do you shoot at the range at the south end of Minden/Gardnerville? I go there every now and then after making a dump run.

[khmer6]

I've been meaning to go to the deserts here and mine lead and brass

[DIRT Farmer]

An earlier poster stated that the people who leave trash behind don't do that in their houses. After more than 37 years in emergency services, the last twenty as a paramedic, I can tell you that I have been in several haz-mat areas in residental areas. We even named one subdivsion the sticky floor district. And yes there were guns in most of those houses. Around here any corn field in the river bottoms seem to be a shooting range/dump/ mud truck areana.

[Digger]

Yes , the range next to the dump here in G-ville on the occasion when I can get a little time , which is not enough these days there Love life.
Years back , used to go out to the pits south of the Ranchos but the houses have been creeping closer as time goes on ...
digger

[OeldeWolf]

Back when I lived in Reno (too many decades ago) I shot in an lds gravel pit. brass was aboout akl i remember finding there.

Years ago, when the local range had a membership option, I did some cleanup on my own. Nobody seemed to care. those times I have gone out there since, I always put more trash in the cans than I came in with, mostly targets and cardboard. Being a mechanic, I am inside some of these peoples' cars, sometimes see their homes. they live in garbage everywhere. their behaviour on the ranges is just their usual behaviour.