Trapshooting among young people is on the rise in the North of the Country. Locals say state bill could endanger sports

May 30, 2024 —

Lucy GrindonTrapshooting among young people is on the rise in the North of the Country. Locals say state bill could endanger sports

Members of local hunting clubs have raised concerns about a state Senate bill that proposes new rules for shooting ranges, the Sporting Range Good Neighbor Act.

They say its requirements would cost too much to implement, forcing some clubs to close their doors. With the state's current legislative session ending next week, the bill is unlikely to move forward, but it has alarmed youth trap shooting teams.

In recent years, this sport has become increasingly popular throughout the North Country. In St. Lawrence County, about half of the school districts have teams.

Sunday, May 19 was the last day of regular season competition for the Potsdam team. At the Norfolk Rod and Gun Club, students took turns shooting at fluorescent orange clay targets as a machine launched them into the sky at about 50 miles per hour. Most of them broken in mid-flight.

Coach Tim Flint said the team has multiple benefits for the students.

“You learn gun safety, you learn shooting skills, and a friendship develops here,” Flint said. He added that the team requires students to maintain good grades.

Potsdam High School freshman Liam Hubbard set a new personal best this past Sunday: 23 out of 25.

Hubbard said being on the team has improved his aim, so he's able to make cleaner kills when he goes deer hunting, and the animals don't suffer as much.

“When I gut a fish on the hook, it sucks for me, because I don’t want the animal to suffer,” Hubbard said. “I feel really bad about myself if I make a bad shot and don't kill it quickly, because after all, I'm just trying to put meat in the freezer, so being able to practice 50 times every Sunday really helps.”

Hubbard said he shot a deer last fall and dropped it where it was.

“Before shooting [with the trap team] for three years, I definitely couldn’t have done that,” he said.

The Potsdam team and others like it train at local rod and gun clubs. But members say the Sporting Range Good Neighbor Act would force some of them to close.

Potsdam coach Tim Flint said the teams would have nowhere to go.

“It would be devastating for some of these kids. They love to come here and shoot sports balls or trap,” he said.

The goal of the bill is to reduce the amount of lead from firearm ammunition that ends up in the environment.

It was introduced by the chairman of the Senate Environmental Conservation Committee, Democrat Pete Harckham of the Hudson Valley.

According to a local news site, Halston Media News, residents met with Senator Harckham last fall to complain about a nearby gun club. They said lead ammunition and clay targets ended up on their property and the water and soil tested positive for lead.

Harckham's bill would try to prevent this by setting a minimum size for skeet fields, or requiring them to use safety nets to catch ammunition. It would also prohibit them from including wetlands or open water sources.

Harckham's spokesperson declined to comment on this report.

Jason Coller, president of the Norfolk Rod and Gun Club, where Potsdam's team and three others train, said the bill's requirements might be too costly to meet. He spoke at an April 15 meeting of the St. Lawrence County Board of Legislators.

“We operate on a pretty tight budget, and anything that can affect us financially can sometimes create a burden that we may not be able to overcome,” Coller said.

“We would have preferred [students] come shoot at a shooting range rather than go to their backyard and shoot in a place that is not safe or is designed as a haven for shooting sports,” he added.

Although the bill has virtually no chance of passing this session, discussions around the bill have reinforced the stereotype that upstate lawmakers don't understand rural gun culture fire.

“This is just another example of people upstate who don't understand our way of life, trying to impose another way to restrict and hinder the responsible use of firearms,” he said. Ogdensburg County Legislator Jim Reagen said.

Madrid lawmaker Ben Hull said the bill tried to stifle gun culture, while saying it could have environmental benefits.

“I see this as an attempt to extinguish a cultural legacy of responsible gun ownership and use, for perhaps a valuable marginal benefit to the environment, but at what cost is the real question,” said Hull.

Legislator Glenn Webster of Norwood called the bill “an attack on the Second Amendment.”

The Council of Legislators ultimately adopted a resolution (see page 275) against the bill.

“[The bill]”, although formed under the guise of an environmentally friendly bill, appears to be designed to restrict the development and participation in skeet, thereby limiting the exercise of Second Amendment protected activities,” the resolution states .

Emily Shaw is the mother of one of the freshmen on the Potsdam trap team. She says she supports stricter gun control laws, but she also wants her son to be able to learn more about gun safety.

“I think gun control is extremely important,” Shaw said. “I think you can fully support teaching children about responsible gun safety in outdoor cultures, like in the North Country, and also fully support groups that work to prevent gun violence and to ensure strict gun control measures, especially for automatic weapons.

Shaw is not from the North Country. She and her husband didn't grow up hunting, but since moving here, their son Oscar has gotten into it thanks to his new friends.

“He loves doing it. He loves competing with his friends and he loves target shooting. But for us, the safety aspect, the fact that he's going to be working with these experienced instructors week in and week out and getting some tons of experience with them, that’s one of the most valuable aspects of the trap team for us,” Shaw said.

Each student on a team must successfully complete an official hunter training course to participate.

At the Norfolk Rod and Gun Club on the day of the competition, Shaw's son Oscar, a freshman, said he felt safer with a gun because he had been able to practice with it. the team.

“I definitely feel safer shooting with people I know, and when I have that experience it also prevents accidents in the woods. It allows me to better adapt to my own gun so that doesn’t happen,” he said. said.

His friend Liam Hubbard said he wouldn't want state regulations to take away the activity.

“It's fun for us, it's a way to enjoy our weekends. It's way better than sleeping in until noon and playing video games. I don't think I see a frown It’s always fun here, and even when someone has a bad turn, your teammates are there to pick you up,” Hubbard said.

For him, it's like any other sports team.