The latest entry into the embedded-journalists-only-tell-half-the-story canon appeared in a lengthy, December 3 New York Times story on Nevada’s use of $3 billion in federal land-sale monies. Lumping the $64 million Clark County Shooting Park in with other items purchased via our federal largesse—gardens, volleyball courts and, egad, toilets at Lake Mead—the 3,710-word story insinuated that we’re behaving like free-spending trust-funders.
“It was great publicity for us,” says Clark County Shooting Park Manager Don Turner of his facility’s cameo in the paper of record. He sounds enthused, not bummed in the least. Why bother? At 2,880 acres, the park will be the nation’s largest recreational shooting facility when it opens next year. “Shooters have been waiting 35 years for this.”
According to the National Rifle Association’s Institute on Legislative Action, 47 percent of Las Vegas Valley homes have firearms, 13 percent above the national average. Turner, the only Nevadan on the NRA’s board of directors, says we needed a large shooting park, like, yesterday.
“Years ago, a Metro officer was killed by a bullet shot by a girl who was target-shooting. Not only will this be a great place to teach children about gun safety, but it will help to build family ties,” says Turner, envisioning parents and children cementing bonds at the range. Estimates are for the park to annually generate 300,000 visits. By comparison, the Las Vegas Art Museum will attract 13,000 visitors this year. “Ranges are as popular as museums and performing-arts centers, and they perform a public service that’s just as important.” 
A cursory review of shooting-range websites (including ours) shows they are woven into the fabric of their host communities via kids’ camps, shooting classes, police training and corporate outings. And make of this what you will: New York has 229 shooting ranges, more than every state except Pennsylvania, with 262. Nevada has a whopping ... 20.
Dave Daughtry, who manages the shooting-range program for the Pima County Natural Resources, Parks and Recreation Department in southern Arizona, says ranges help curb illegal shooting and litter. “When people shoot illegally, they often take their trash out and use it as targets. This creates huge environmental and public-safety problems.”
Less touted, Daughtry says, is how shooting ranges can counter perceptions of gun owners: “I’ve seen young people, trained early in using firearms, become responsible adults. The role guns play in our heritage is more important than what’s depicted in video games and the violent crimes you see in the media.”