Make sure you have a backstop.
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Sad story, made possible by the apathy and stupidity of two dumbasses.
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Are there any recognized standards as to what safety devices should be in place for a privately-owned shooting area? Backstop design, signage placement, etc.
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Not to my knowledge. More legislation and laws will not fix this issue. Not that I'm saying you're advocating it, but it's pretty self evident that a backstop is important when taking shots.
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If dems has their way the atf would have to inspect each time before any shooting could be done. We need to be careful about this so as not to give anyone an excuse.
I used to think that bullets burried up in the ground when shooting on flat ground. However most of them glance up off of the ground. Where I shoot there is a large hill behind the field. When I took my metal detector out on the hill I found pills from 308, to 45 acp, to 50bmg, to 22lr and all had glanced off the ground to hit that hill in the distance.
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Just a week or so ago a young lady, 22 years old, was killed by a stray bullet while ATVing out in the general area were I've done some shooting here in AZ. It's somewhat of a popular area for shooting and typically the shooters are shooting toward large hills for a back stop. But there's idiots who find a way to be shooting there in directions they have no business shooting (like shooting in the direction of a major busy freeway (because they can't see it). There were so many people shooting out in that desert area that there's no idea whose bullet could have killed her.
When shooters see other shooters doing improper things, I feel it's important they be proactive an let these people know what they're doing inappropriately and/or alert authorities. If we don't self regulate, that's when stupid laws are enacted.
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@orkan said:
Not to my knowledge. More legislation and laws will not fix this issue. Not that I'm saying you're advocating it, but it's pretty self evident that a backstop is important when taking shots.
I wasn't necessarily talking about local laws, just more referring to standards of safety. We are going to set up a range on my wife's family farm and I would like to do whatever we need to do for safety reasons. It is pretty remote, but people can still be wandering around out there, especially during deer season. So I want to do things within reason to prevent an unforeseen tragedy, as well as avoid the resulting law suits.
This is the property, most of what is pictured belongs to the family. The land is all rolling hills and ravines, so finding a suitable backstop is easy. But as you can tell it is also almost completely covered in a mature mixed forest, so we would need to cut something of a clearing to have a line of sight. But cutting a really wide area to provide a line of sight for someone entering the area would be difficult. If we wanted to really be thorough, we would need to string ropes or wire with warning signs through the woods well past the clearing line. I am just not sure as to what is accepted as reasonable.The power line clearing at the bottom has a couple of good cleared areas to shoot, I just don't know what they would think about us shooting on their right of way, next to some 100,000V HT lines. Probably not much if I am guessing.
