County aims to build shooting range

El Paso County officials are considering the creation of a shooting range on county-owned land next to Fort Carson.

County commissioners began mulling the idea after the U.S. Forest Service closed the South Rampart Shooting Range following a fatal accident in July.

Commissioners Dennis Hisey, Amy Lathen, Sallie Clark and Wayne Williams said Friday they’re in favor of establishing a new shooting site. Commissioner Jim Bensberg could not be reached for comment.

“It makes sense,” said Clark, who represents the district in which the closed shooting range is located. “It will be more accessible and give us the ability to clean up the Rampart facility so it can be used as an access to mountain terrain.”

Williams said closure of the Rampart range has left gun owners with no place to go. “Right now there are insufficient places for folks to shoot,” he said. “It’s providing a different form of outdoor recreational park. We have trails set up for bikes and horses. In this case it would be for the use of guns.”

The proposed shooting range is in the early stages; details such as who would operate it, how it would be funded and when it would open are being discussed.

The Rampart shooting range, used by 40,000 people a year, was unsupervised and had been plagued in recent years by illegal dumping of appliances, such as refrigerators and televisions, and drunken visitors. The July fatality was the first in its two decades of operation.

Jace Ratzlaff, a spokesman for the Pike & San Isabel National Forests, said in a prepared statement that the Forest Service is drafting a contract to clean up the range and drawing up preliminary plans for improvements.

Lathen maintains that the Forest Service has kept the facility shuttered for political reasons. “Why else would the range be closed? People die in rafting accidents on the Arkansas, but everybody keeps rafting. In this case, we have a gun range, and it’s still closed.” 

The tentative location of the new range would be on county-owned acreage east of Fort Carson, west of the Pikes Peak International Raceway and south of land owned by Colorado Springs Utilities.

The county began purchasing land in that area with Department of Defense money five years ago to create a buffer between private landowners and the military post.

“It seems like a perfect marriage for land use,” said Lathen, a gun enthusiast.

The proposed shooting range, which would encompass several hundred acres, would have to be graded and bermed. Commissioners are also looking at adding amenities, such as shooting benches and picnic tables.

Commissioner Hisey said he is hopeful the county can enlist the financial support of such entities as the National Rifle Association. He said the county may be able use lottery dollars earmarked for outdoor recreational activities.
“We wouldn’t use general fund tax dollars,” Lathen added.

Hisey said he would like to have an attendant on site. One option for paying for such a position, he said, would be to partner with the Forest Service. “It’s to their advantage to have the range open.”

Clark said she doubted the Rampart range will re-open. “I don’t think it’s likely to happen. I think it’s a political and environmental liability for the Forest Service,” she said.