APRIL - JUNE 2001

The legislative activities are at a low ebb. Monthly interim committee meetings are being held. The Joint Law Enforcement and Public Safety Committee discussed concealed carry permits in conjunction with several rules which have been adopted by various branches of State and Local Government Units. The Deseret News proffered a summary report on this meeting in its Wednesday, May 30, 2001 edition. This bears active watching. Your comments to your State Legislative Representatives make a huge difference. Please give them a call with your thoughts.

Your State Association is looking for members and other interested individuals who will help with manning a Shooting Sports booth at the Utah State Fair, September 6 to 16, 2001. This booth will focus on educating fair attendees about the gun initiative and other firearms topics which will be the focus of the 2002 Legislature. The Initiative is found at http://governor.state.ut.us/lt_gover/guninitiative.htm Please contact our legislative chairman, Bryan Lindsay, about helping at this booth.

Considerable effort is being made by your State Association leadership to help with the location and development of a new regional shooting complex in the Vernal-Roosevelt area. Virtually all of the public shooting facilities in both Duchesne County and Uinta County have or are in the process of being closed due to encroachment of adjacent subdivisions. The County Commissioners in both of these Counties are working together to find, purchase, and develop such a facility. There are several parcels of BLM land that are being looked at. Chad Crosby is our State Association member and our principal contact. If you are interested in participating in this effort, and every one of you should be, please contact him and offer your assistance. His office telephone number is 435-789-3103. His e-mail address is nrdwr.ccrosby@state.ut.us. The most likely location for this range is just East of La Point on the north side of the highway. This property can be obtained from the BLM in the same manner that land for the new shooting complexes in Green River, St. George, and Cedar City was obtained. It is through the federal Recreation and Public Purposes Act which allows State and local governmental entities to acquire land for a shooting complex among other things.

Our State Junior High Power team is always in need of funding, and more importantly, new juniors who are interested in developing their marksmanship skills. If you know of any such juniors, please contact Will Smith, our high power chairman. We have a mixed team of new and old shooters. Hopefully, our most experienced two man team will be able to repeat by winning the Whistler Boy Championship again at Camp Perry.

The Wendover range improvements are moving forward at a snails pace. We are again waiting on Tooele County to schedule their road trucks for additional routine maintenance work in the Wendover vicinity. At that time hopefully, dirt will be moved for the new firing points. We are hopeful that the Green River facility will be able to host an across the course high power match, 200/300/600 yards, sometime this fall. Please watch the web site for announcement of this event.

I have not hear a peep from anyone on suggested new facility sites in Northern Utah. Certainly, you are out and about. Please let me know what you see that has the potential for a new shooting complex.

Woody