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.
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