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Illinois is in real need of more public shooting ranges. A
person should be able to get in his car and drive to a nearby range just as easy
as people go to golf courses. There was a set up ready to go plan to build a
state of the art shooting range at the Des Plaines Conservation Area. I was
wondering what happened to those plans.
The last I was told was from the site superintendent was that it was still a go,
but not one stone has been turned to start this project! The way the state is
laying off DNR help and not replacing retiring ones makes one wonder how
anything is able to run. Well I made a few calls to the DNR and talked to a
couple different people about it. The closest I could get to an answer was this.
Apparently the neighbors were concerned there would be too much noise. They must
have known or got in contact with someone that was able to put a stop to it!
Also there was a concern that it might upset the waterfowl resting areas nearby.
Funny but they shoot pheasant and ducks in the area all winter long and that
isn’t noise? How about dove season where probably about three thousand rounds go
off in one day! My personal feeling is someone caved in from pressure instead of
standing up and fighting for the shooters.
I doubt that it would scare the waterfowl. They seem to know when it’s just
noise and when they are being shot at. The range I shoot at has a pond 50 yds.
away from the rifle range. Geese and ducks sit there all the time while the guns
are blasting away. They pay no attention at all to it!
The last public range in Northern Illinois was the Fox valley range near
Carpentersville. Subdivisions caused its demise. There still is Buffalo rock
near Ottawa but that is a two-hour ride one way from the Chicago area. The Des
Plaines project would be great! It is only a one-hour ride from the Chicagoland
area. It would also be on state land, which means housing subdivisions would
never close it. We need to get more people involved in shooting and the only way
is to give them a place close and convenient that they can go to to shoot trap,
skeet, rifle and pistol. The range at Des Plaines was to be a state of the art
project which would have all of the above available to the public.
I can’t understand why investors will not put money into something that is
really needed with no competition around and buy land to build a shooting range,
from which they will reap the profits for a long time to come. It would be like
owning the only hot dog stand or pizza joint for 100 miles around!
We could definitely gain more ISRA members if we could get some of those people
out of the city and suburbs to a shooting range nearby, where they will come
back again and again. The revenue from this also could be a very exciting
prospect. If you ask most people in the Chicago and surrounding suburbs why they
don’t go shooting, ninety nine and nine tenths percent will answer “There’s no
place to shoot”! I know for a fact if this range was built, they would be so
busy and also so amazed at the response by the public to it.
Shooters in central and southern Illinois may not have this problem, but in the
very northern part of the state it is desperately needed. Think of how many
households we would be gaining on our side because they now have a place to do
what they always wanted to try. Maybe our state legislature could get this thing
approved and moving ahead at Des Plaines. I don’t know where else we can turn
to. If not and you’re a rich investor reading this or you know one, please give
it some thought for all of we sport shooters in Northern Illinois with no place
to go.
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