A proposed shooting range near Houston

I grew up in a shooting family. My father always had firearms around the house and taught us kids how to safely handle them and to respect them as useful tools in our daily lives. He also showed us what a firearm could do if improperly used. He showed us how much fun shooting can be if done in a safe and friendly environment.

We would regularly go shooting for as long as I can remember, and almost always the shooting was done at a developed shooting range. Initially, some of the shooting was done on our 40-acre farm in Michigan, where we had the space and topography to shoot safely. After we moved to Illinois, my dad joined a gun club which had developed several shooting ranges with proper backstops, target frames and supervision to ensure safety for the folks using the facilities.

After my folks moved to Georgia, and I was back there after college looking for a permanent job, my dad joined another gun club, and we did all our shooting there. This facility also had the proper set up to allow safe and supervised shooting.

I keep mentioning supervised shooting. What do I mean by that? Nobody was looking over your shoulder to ensure you were doing things correctly. However, folks were on sight and keeping an eye on how the shooters were interacting on the ranges. The club rules were posted on each range and shooters were expected to read and abide by them. If someone was acting in an unsafe manner with their firearm or ignoring the rules about handling firearms while someone else was downrange pulling or posting a target, the range safety officer would have a word with them, asking them to correct their misbehavior. If they didn’t, they were asked to leave.

Since I’ve been back in Alaska, a lot of my personal shooting has occurred at informal shooting sites which, over time, had developed into shooting areas where folks came to check rifle sights and such, but with no supervision. People brought stuff to shoot at and left it as garbage when they left. Interactions between shooters wasn’t always pleasant and respectful.

As I learned about formal shooting ranges like the Palmer (Noel Woods Range) facility and the Upper Susitna Shooters Association facilities (Mile 94 Parks Highway), I joined these groups. I’ve also utilized the Rabbit Creek Range south of Anchorage and the Birchwood facilities north of Anchorage. Apart from the Palmer range, all these places are 100 miles or more round-trip from my house, and the Palmer site is over 50 miles round-trip.

The Mat-Su Borough has talked about building shooting ranges for decades to provide a designated, safe place to shoot that was more centrally located to the population centers. A site was selected, and a range constructed, probably a decade ago, over in the Maud Road area (Kenny and Patti Barber Shooting Range), but that site is even further away from my house than the Palmer range.

I recently saw an official Borough notice that a site, located on Borough land off Zero Lake Road north of Houston, is being considered as a potential place to develop another shooting range. Looking at the map which accompanied the notice, the site is located on Borough land just off Zero Lake Road and is surrounded by either Borough or state land except for two private parcels on the opposite side of the road from the potential range location.

There has always been informal shooting in the Zero Lake Road area and a lot of garbage left at the commonly used sites where shooting has occurred. Personally, I would welcome a developed shooting range within a 10-minute drive of my house with facilities specifically intended to allow rifle and handgun shooting. However, I’m just one person.

The Borough is asking for public comment on this intended land use. Comments need to be submitted by Nov. 10 to Peter Burton at 907-861-7847 or you can stop into the Borough Land and Resource Office and leave comment. If you email comments, be sure to send them to this address (LMB@matsugov.us) and include a reference to MSB008238 Zero Lake Classification when making your comments.

I haven’t been out Zero Lake Road in a few years, so I don’t know the status of the private property, whether it has buildings (homes) or not. Hopefully, any range construction would be done to minimize the noise factor if folks are living in the immediate vicinity of the proposed range location.