Editor’s note: This commentary is by Justin Lindholm, a member of the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Board from Rutland.
[A] very unsafe public firearms shooting range, the first state-owned public range in Vermont, has recently been created by the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department (F&W). Every Vermonter should be concerned about this dangerous range because F&W would like to build more public shooting ranges, possibly 13 more, one in each county in Vermont. This one is the Hammond Cove Shooting Range, in Hartland.
Having taken multiple shooting range design and safety courses, I can clearly see that the Hartland range was very dangerously sited by F&W, who placed it so that a village as well as Interstate 91 are in a direct line of fire beyond its backstop, within the trajectory kill zone of bullets that errantly fly over this backstop. What’s more, a neighbor has photographed many bullet scarred trees where bullets have actually flown over the backstop.
When shown photos of these bullet scarred trees, Louis Porter, commissioner of F&W, who is in charge of this range, minimized the danger of those strikes by writing that, though concerning, “… these strikes are unlikely to be a danger at the trajectory required to escape the backstop.” This statement by the commissioner is scientifically wrong. (He has not revealed any report signed by his ballistic expert backing his statement.) The scientific fact is that bullets can have a trajectory even higher than the strikes on those trees and still retain deadly power at one to three miles.
With countless thousands of shots being fired at this range every year, horrible things can eventually happen in the trajectory kill zone behind the backstop.
Studies have also shown that even bullets ricocheting off the soft ground of the range floor or off target stand frames can retain most of their power and travel in unpredictable directions. In the photos, it can be seen by the splintering of some of the trees behind the backstop that some of the bullets struck with great force. Many more bullets, no doubt, travelled between the trees without striking them, leaving no evidence of their dangerous journey.
The solution, short of shutting down this range and moving it to one of what must be many safer sites, is to install bulletproof baffles on the range, which is very expensive but has been done at many ranges in this country.
The commissioner’s solution to prevent bullets from leaving the range is to set up cameras to photograph shooters, and to assign a range officer to oversee them while they are shooting. The only thing the cameras are going to show is the impossibility of even the best trained range officer of keeping things safe when there are four to eight shooters shooting from the firing line at the same time. Many of these shooters will have little or no experience with firearms. I learned while being a range officer that the only way to deal safely with an inexperienced shooter is for me to be within reaching distance to immediately take control of the gun when things go wrong.
With countless thousands of shots being fired at this range every year, horrible things can eventually happen in the trajectory kill zone behind the backstop. Even experienced shooters will fail to consistently keep their guns pointed only at the backstop while loading and unloading (the most dangerous time in the handling of a gun). Also, safeties won’t always work, and guns will hang fire and double fire, and who knows what else. All of these things can and eventually will send bullets over the backstop or side berms and toward houses and the interstate.
We were taught at the shooting range safety course that officials in charge of a shooting range who minimize, rationalize and bemoan monetary cost are the most dangerous aspect of any range, and that these officials can be personally criminally charged if bullets kill people after these officials have been warned about safety problems they failed to fix. It is a shame to think that this state-owned range will remain less safe than most private ranges in Vermont because of the bad attitude of the officials in charge of it — until after someone dies.
