Some good news for shooters in Arizona: The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has turned over 315 acres of land in the Mohave Valley to the Arizona Game and Fish Department for construction of a new public shooting range.

To put it mildly, the decision has been long-awaited. Arizona Game and Fish submitted an application for development of a shooting range on public land about 10 miles southeast of Bullhead City in 1999. 

A decade of meetings and consideration of alternative locations followed.

The proposed shooting range site is two miles west of Boundary Cone Butte, which is a traditional cultural property considered eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. Boundary Cone Butte and its surroundings are of traditional importance to the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe and Hualapai Indian Tribe, and the Butte has figured prominently in the stories and histories of both Tribes.

In 2009, BLM State Director James Kenna, Colorado River District Manager Becky Heick, and Kingman Field Manager Ruben Sanchez held a series of meetings with the leadership of the Fort Mojave and Hualapai Tribes, and Arizona Game and Fish Department to work out a solution which addressed cultural concerns.

“The final design of the project is set up to be respectful of the traditional beliefs of the Fort Mojave and Hualapai Tribes,” said BLM Field Manager Ruben Sanchez. “Mitigation has been added to reduce the amount of actual ground disturbance; reduce noise levels with berm construction; monitor noise levels and report annually; and fencing to avoid culturally sensitive areas. In addition, the range may be temporarily closed during tribal cultural events.”

“The new range will replace one in Bullhead City that was closed in 1999 because of encroaching development,” said Susan Recce, NRA-ILA’s Director of Conservation, Wildlife and Natural Resources. “That case was one of the first that caught the attention of the Federal Lands Hunting and Shooting Sports Roundtable,” she continued, “which was created under an agreement signed by the NRA and 39 other national organizations and three federal agencies.” (NRA-ILA was a driving force in the creation of the Roundtable, whose purpose is to remove barriers to access for sportsmen and enhance opportunities for hunting and recreational shooting.) 

“It is great news for Arizona citizens,” Recce continued, “that after more than a decade of effort by Bullhead City, the State of Arizona, law enforcement, and a coalition of shooting sports’ interests, the range development can go forward.  But this case is also a good example of why there is such concern over closing a shooting range (such as Rampart Range in Colorado) or shooting areas without an accessible alternative made available to shooters. Although a new site for Bullhead has been finalized, it took nearly 12 years of searching, public comments and negotiations. The range has yet to be built.”