One reason a lot of folks move to places like Nevada is the proximity of the wide open spaces.
Hikers and rockhounds -- particularly hunters and recreational shooters -- come from parts of the country where an outdoorsman has to cross a state line before stumbling on wide-open land that isn't posted "no trespassing." To such folks, it can seem like a dream come true to find a land of canyons where the only sounds are those of the hawks and the wind.
But in Southern Nevada, that dream of "wide open spaces" has been fraying, particularly with an influx of newcomers who bring their urban anti-firearms prejudices with them.
Only a decade ago, Las Vegans could drive out of sight of inhabited buildings in any direction, locate a box canyon or other area with a safe backstop, and target shoot or sight in a hunting rifle to their heart's content.
Some of the closer-in areas have been posted against shooting due to the incursion of new housing. But most of the valley's other traditional safe shooting areas have been ruled off limits by purely administrative fiat, as maps have been redrawn to vastly expand "protected" areas.
(The government's primary charge used to be "protecting" the individual rights of the citizens, of course. Now it "protects" the land (start ital)from(end ital) the people.)
Many Valley shooters have been driven to commit ever more time driving over the Spring Mountains to shoot on dirt roads halfway to Sandy Valley -- though even in those abandoned wastes they've found themselves braced and patted down by Metro officers, who admit target shooting is legal but take the opportunity to grill these "suspects" and search them for contraband, anyway.
Not that the increasing difficulty of finding a safe and legal place to shoot has been accompanied by any decrease in per capita gun ownership. Far from it: Local gun shops were busier than toy departments this Christmas season -- partly due to concerns that California-style victim disarmament laws may eventually spread this way.
Combine that with recent academic research showing wider gun ownership leads to reduced rates of violent crime, and one member of the Recreation Advisory Board of the Las Vegas Leisure Services Division estimates 60 percent of Las Vegas households now contain at least one firearm.
Fortunately, a portion of the federal taxes paid upon purchase of firearms and ammunition is appropriated back to the states by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, specifically to be used for developing shooting ranges.
Using those funds, the Wildlife Division has built public ranges in northern Nevada, but never in the Las Vegas valley.
Now, the Las Vegas Recreation Advisory Board is evaluating five potential sites identified by the BLM and the state Department of Wildlife as suitable for such a use.
Good. (Though as ever, it would be better to see the local funds raised voluntarily and kept right here, rather than "laundering" them through Washington City.)
Not only is shooting an American birthright, it's a skill the armed forces have never found in oversupply, and a traditional discipline through which fathers can bond with their children -- Department of Justice statistics actually showing that children who are taught to use firearms by their parents are less likely to ever engage in any sort of violent crime.
A society without firearms is, in the end, a society of dim-witted, collectivist bean farmers. They may hang on for a few decades by allowing themselves to be herded onto the most marginal lands. But in the end the attack will come, and they will have no option but to hide in the caves and watch their women being led off into slavery, there to be bred to those more adept at metallurgy.
The entire epitaph of the independent, indigenous cultures of North America may be summed up in the two syllables of the first Indian war chief ever to face a European cannon: "Uh-oh."
Braving the tide of Political Correctness, commentator Hugh Downs pointed out in a recent "Perspective" broadcast for ABC News: "Our most ancient hominid ancestors learned to throw stones to kill game ... combining binocular vision and distance estimation with delicate hand-eye coordination.
"One of the consequences of mastering this technique was a more robust nervous system; a nervous system that may be responsible for opening the door to humanity's unique intellectual activity.
"Spears turned into bows and arrows ... and then to firearms. The development of field artillery created a demand for sophisticated mathematics. ... The manufacture of firearms gave birth to precision engineering, concepts of mass production, and breakthrough insights in metallurgy.
"As a result of the intellectual achievements, master gunsmiths in New England and elsewhere created an economic powerhouse. Guns and intellectual progress seemed to have been intertwined. Rocket science is a direct outgrowth of humankind's fascination with ballistics.
"Perhaps the most stunning of all these fruits is the development of the computer. The purpose of the world's first computer, Eniac, was to calculate artillery and missile trajectories. In other words, humanity's most astonishing intellectual artifact, the computer, is an offspring of our love affair with guns."
In a pinch, Americans have even been known to use these tools to win their independence, and defend their freedoms.
So, let's have no more apologies for the proud tradition which has given America a populace armed and free.
Dragging their feet as usual when it comes to allowing citizens to actually use "their" public lands, state Wildlife officials warn a southern Nevada range will need a larger staff of bureaucrats than ranges in more rural areas.
Wrong. No bureaucrats are needed to demand "Your papers, please."
BLM spokesmen, meantime, foresee long delays as they search for ancient fire pits or some endangered weed or bug. They further moan that bullets flying into earthen berms create dreaded "lead pollution." But that's absurd. Lead is a valuable commodity which can be melted and re-used; setting up a system to occasionally screen the dirt and recapture this natural element should not be an insurmountable problem, especially in our arid desert.
To preserve and exercise their vital Second Amendment rights, Southern Nevadans need more safe places to shoot. This project deserves enthusiastic support.
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. His new book, "Send in the Waco Killers" is available by dialing 1-800-244-2224.
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Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com
"The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it." -- John Hay, 1872
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken
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