Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Editorial - Improper behavior equals improper regulations

We have commented many times, both on this page and in The Sportsman’s Corner, that improper behavior during outdoor activities will result in over-reaching government intervention into our lives.
The regulatory agencies of the federal government have consistently garnered more power. The regulations imposed by the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Environmental Protection Agency and many others have effectually added laws that have never been part of the legislative process. And, in many cases, those most impacted by those onerous regulations had little to do with the reasons they exist. A select few immoral, uneducated, and thoughtless people are giving the power-hungry regulators just what they want – more power and more regulations.
Not so many years ago a forest ranger conjured up visions of a tall manly person standing in a tower with a pair of binoculars watching for wisps of smoke. Now we are more likely to think of someone carrying a gun, handcuffs and a portable radio while manning a roadblock or standing by while a piece of heavy equipment plows up rocks and dirt to close off a trail that some hunter may want to use to get to a downed elk. There are more than 700 law enforcement officers working in the forests of our country.
BLM is not much different. Not that long ago the BLM responsibilities were largely accomplished through a bureaucratic process of paperwork dealing primarily with timber, forage, mining and energy development. Now, that agency has more than 200 uniformed officers and about 70 “special investigators” who deal with our public lands, mostly in the western United States. These are federal law enforcement people that are in many cases enforcing laws that we used to depend on our sheriffs to enforce. They are getting involved in alcohol related crimes almost as often as they are involved in resource management problems.
The sad thing, in our opinion, is that the actions of those ignorant few we mentioned above have either directly or indirectly caused many of the regulations, which in turn created more power, which then justifies more personnel, which soon creates a need for justification of the personnel by implementing more regulations, which manifests quickly as more power, which… Well, you get the picture.
When some goofball goes out to a piece of property that is under the blanket of protection of the BLM and shoots up a bunch of glass bottles and leaves the glass scattered upon the ground, the reaction of a regulatory agency is to outlaw glass. If that does not work, they will outlaw shooting, and if that does not work, they will outlaw people with guns. They will listen intently to the “scardey cat” that is upset over the sound of gunshots and completely ignore the fact that most people do not act unreasonably when they are target shooting. There is no evidence of the good guys left behind. That is the whole idea.
When some idiot with a souped up all terrain vehicle decides to create a series of ugly trenches up the side of a hill, some interfering tree hugger will undoubtedly find a forum whereby he or she will likely shout into a sympathetic ear and insist that the BLM outlaw the use of ATVs. And the regulators will too often listen to the tree-hugger without giving much credence to the majority, because, there again, the good guys are not leaving behind a lot of evidence that they are the majority and they are not standing up near often enough and proclaiming that fact.
Instilling a sense of responsibility is the first step in countering this constant effort to keep the public off of public lands, and that training must start at home and it must be both effective and punitive.

No comments: