(May 20, 2002) The days when someone could put up a safe backstop in his yard and enjoy an afternoon of plinking are long gone. Okay, we all knew that. Nobody expects we'll return to the days when a youngster could learn sight alignment and trigger control by hiking afield with Dad and a .22 rifle. But how far politicians will go to discriminate against gun owners on safe shooting ranges goes beyond anything I could have imagined.

This article is the first in a series of occasional reports on Maryland ranges. The bottom line is this: Any facility is an endangered species. Owners who aren't taking pro-active steps to protect ranges now won't be using them in the near future. I've volunteered as a clearinghouse for legal material on range issues in recent years (linked to our Legal Attack Fund) so upcoming articles will report on well-loved ranges of the past, threatened facilities of today, and steps clubs should take for the future.

This is the story of Berwyn Rod and Gun Club, that safely operated its ranges in Bowie for more than fifty years until running into the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission. The organization most know as just "Park and Planning" is the epitome of in-your-face big government, fueled by whatever taxes it wants and sheltered by state politicians that exploit it for their own ends. Park and Planning's aggressive anti-gun tactics have kept Berwyn's ranges closed - we hope temporarily - for nearly a year and a half.

Park and Planning's hostility to Berwyn began several years ago when the state bought a rail line next to the Club and began planning on a hiker trail. As the new neighbor, Park and Planning set the tone by issuing a flat threat: Negotiate concessions to them or have club property condemned and seized by the state. Not surprisingly, the Club negotiated, even though with a gun to its head. The resulting contract was fundamentally good: Members agreed to build new range facilities they more or less wanted anyway in return for Park and Planning's agreement to let the Club alone.

Once Park and Planning had a signed agreement, its tax-funded legal shenanigans had no bound. Berwyn agreed to add new facilities with the expectation it could continue shooting on the old ones, and did so for nearly a year of the trail's operation. Club members safety co-existed with trail users. But this state can't abide a successful arrangement involving gun owners, so it initiating an administrative dispute about the pace of Club improvements. Normally this would have been arbitrated in the due course of time, but the state played bait and switch. It created a separate claim that the range might become unsafe. For this they got an immediate hearing, at which the safety complaint was abandoned in order to argue the contract dispute. The judge simply agreed it should be arbitrated, but because of how the case came before him, he was free to order the club closed until the dispute was resolved. This he did.

And what of proposed improvements? Berwyn hired the top range expert in the country and gave him a free hand to design what they needed to reach all range safety goals. The architect, with full technical support from NRA Range Engineering Services, provided a plan that met and exceeded all goals. Yet all proposals from the club have been denied by Park and Planning, based on the paid opinion of an unlicensed consultant, Dick Whiting, who gave supposedly expert opinions in court. Even though Whiting admitted under oath that he never reviewed key documents or set foot on the property for this project, he testified that no club like Berwyn could be safe, that NRA's safety reviews are biased, and that designs of the Club's architect will not work. Whiting gave Park and Planning what he was paid to deliver.

Berwyn litigated Park and Planning's latest denial, claiming that Park and Planning unreasonably withheld its permission for the Club to build new facilities, contrary to plain language in the agreement. Shockingly the Club's latest attempt failed last month, when Judge Paul Dorf, acting as an arbitrator, issued a six-line rejection of the Club's claims. He not only backed Park and Planning but gave it more than was in the agreement: a uni-lateral right to disapprove club plans.

Without ever having been shown unsafe, Berwyn Club became enjoined from using existing facilities until new facilities are added. Meanwhile, another arm of Park and Planning can deny approval and permits for the proposed upgrade.

Though run by the Wayne Curry family business in Prince George's County, Park and Planning is a state agency, and Maryland's top officials have stepped aside from the matter to let Park and Planning do what it wants. The bottom line is a hard one for Club members: State government won't let Berwyn shoot until it builds range improvements that state government won't let Berwyn build. Berwyn officers are currently working on the next litigation package, but warn other gun clubs that the full solution for protecting ranges is political, not just legal.