24 Feb 2009 Tuesday

I thought I should tell y’all about the Hunting & Fishing Association that I joined when I took my gun carry permit class. From here on out I will be referring to the Association as the CCHFA so I won’t have to type it out every time.

As of right now we are sharing the pistol and rifle range with the local Sheriffs Dept, and the range is actually theirs, but we have access to it. The CCHFA is currently pursuing our own property with the help of a Gubmint grant. We’re looking at about 400 acres of land.

We have several things we plan to do. The first is to complete this areas very first completely environmentally safe rifle/pistol range. We will have a complete lead recapture area behind the target area so that none of the lead shot will get into the environment. This way animals cannot pick it up and die from lead poisoning, and the lead cannot escape into the ground water. Also there will be a complete brass reclaim area so that nothing will go to waste.  Right now there are NO ranges that have this, and there is fixin’ to be legislation coming that will make this mandatory for all ranges.

Once those laws pass, the CCHFA will have the ONLY range that complies with the laws and then the whole of East Tennessee will be coming to us to shoot on our range. This means that the State Police, four or five County Sheriff departments, and who knows how many city police department will need to use our range since they won’t be able to use their own! And they probably won’t have the money budgeted to rebuild their own ranges for several years.

Our second goal is to create a handicap accessible hunting area on the property and be able to do guided hunts for those with disabilities.

And the last thing is this. There are only 3 licensed instructors for the handgun carry class in our area. One of them is currently in some serious legal trouble for his conduct during the teaching of a class. And the other one only teaches once in a while. We have the last one and the best one, in my humble opinion.

So in the next few years expect to hear from me about how things are going with the CCHFA.

That’s it for now!

I’m Alive… So Far…