Thread: Otorohanga rifle range closed

Originally Posted by Rushy

Agreed, however the requirement to submit annual accounts is an expensive exercise for any club.

And the amount of time involved, usually by volunteers, puts people off volunteering for such roles.
And the downward spiral continues.

For rifle and shotgun clubs that reporting requirement has been rescinded. It only applies to pistol clubs (as it always has)

Originally Posted by Hugh Shields

Name them.....

Perhaps you should contact Nicol and ask the question, some NZDA branches may not want to be named publicly and anyone naming them would need their permission to do so given this topic.

Two NZDA branches closed their ranges, I don't think either paid the fees they closed them prior to that. Neither range had any safety problems prior to the new regulations and had been operating with no complaints for many years.
Another NZDA branch used a farmers property, they never paid the money or applied.
I can also think of 2 community ranges that were not registered.

Some I will not name as this is a public forum and the communities maybe flying under the radar.

There were a number of clubs, usually small clubs ceased to exist because the fees and reporting requirements exceeded their budgets and time constraints.
I know of several NZDA branch committee members didn't re stand for committees because they didn't want the personal liability

Considering the safety record of rifle ranges around the country what problems were these regulations trying to fix?
Why do clubs have to report to the incorporated societies and then supply the same information in a different format to the police when the information is available on the incorporated societies website.
Why do all the committee members need to be named and available publicly?

Originally Posted by Tentman

Actually the "new" template is way less restrictive and permits alternative approaches that were impossible to get across the line in the recent NRA template days. I found the FSA range guys excellent to deal with, and our recently certified range offers vastly more options that we ever could under NRA e.g. couldn't shoot steel, couldn't shoot a 22-250 (ffs) or 45-70, couldn't shoot a 375 H&H, couldn't use magazines, on it goes. Doing all that stuff now.

The range danger area hasn't changed - but if you have a compliant backstop and can control range floor strike then the older NRA range restriction around muzzle velocities and energy limits can be relaxed. The magazine fed thing came from NRA to assist them controlling their Cone of Fire down to +/-5MIL.

Originally Posted by BSA

Precisely, if it has no permanent fixtures it is not a range. 'Tis a paddock.

That is not the current definition of a range by the Police / FSA... If you want to run an organised shoot or as part of a club then is doesn't matter if there is permanent fixtures or not.

Originally Posted by Basenjiboy

Actually all NZDA permanent Ranges were certified, and NZDA had their own Range Manual - it's referenced in Section 9.1 of the current Police Range Manual.

"Had" being correct... NZDA refer to the Police Range Manual now is my understanding. The Police Range Manual refers to it, but my understanding is it is now defunct.

Originally Posted by Basenjiboy

The other problem was that under the new legislation; the farmers paddock with big bank, if used by an organised group (for example forum members in South Canty) requires that organised group to be an incorporated Shooting Range Operator even if it was 1 annual shoot. There is now a cost to certify 'one off' use ranges, which is a waste of that organised group's time and money

BB.

Yep, as others have said clubs only need to be incorporated if they are selling ammo. Otherwise they don't need to be incorporated - I haven't dealt much with the clubs side of things but my understanding is it is "encouraged" but is not a requirement. Being incorporated has advantages for the committee members to say the least.
And I agree for a "one off" range the cost, and more so the work involved in putting together the RSOs, danger area validation, range inspector, etc. can be pretty onerous.

Originally Posted by 19Badger

Considering the safety record of rifle ranges around the country what problems were these regulations trying to fix?

This I agree with... How would the effectiveness of the range regulations be measured in a few years time? Against an incident rate? There wasn't one to start with? So how would the cost of the range certification regime be justified?

Originally Posted by Basenjiboy

Actually all NZDA permanent Ranges were certified, and NZDA had their own Range Manual - it's referenced in Section 9.1 of the current Police Range Manual.

There were many NZDA branches and other shooting groups that also used the farmers paddock with big bank instead. these we not required to be certified until last year.

The other problem was that under the new legislation; the farmers paddock with big bank, if used by an organised group (for example forum members in South Canty) requires that organised group to be an incorporated Shooting Range Operator even if it was 1 annual shoot. There is now a cost to certify 'one off' use ranges, which is a waste of that organised group's time and money

BB.

Greetings,
You learn something every day. I have been in NZDA for closing on 50 years and have not seen that document. I assume from the date it was brought out as a means of compliance with the Police Range Manual July 2005.
GPM.

Meanwhile………
does anyone know the specifics of why Otorohanga has closed. Is the issue resolvable?

As I understand it from FB and prior posts the issue may have already resolved. The basic problem appears to me to have been building and private property within the template but don't know the details.

Originally Posted by 19Badger

Yes I know of several NZDA ranges that closed, perhaps you should put your question to NZDA.
I also know of a couple of areas that were used as community ranges that closed

To be fair though Id say the ranges you are probably referring to were already on the slippery slope of closing before the new regs came in due to compliance issues under the old systems, in my experience both the NRA and NZDA manuals were no longer fit for purpose, and were not being modernised - as far as I can tell due to "fudd" issues. An example being the 5 mil COF, its easily achievable by means of proper procedure/discipline on the firing point as per the new manual . . .

The local clubs RSOs stipulate a 10 mil cone of fire for supported and 20 mil for unsupported.

Originally Posted by Fee Knicks

The sort of bickering happening here is a fine example of why we get steamrolled because we cant or wont present a united from in the face of relentless attack on our sport

Yep. The antis must laugh their slimy laughs. As I've said before, unless we can get past "gun snobbery" and "as long as my sport is ok" we're forked.

Originally Posted by Gillie

The range danger area hasn't changed - but if you have a compliant backstop and can control range floor strike then the older NRA range restriction around muzzle velocities and energy limits can be relaxed. The magazine fed thing came from NRA to assist them controlling their Cone of Fire down to +/-5MIL.


That is not the current definition of a range by the Police / FSA... If you want to run an organised shoot or as part of a club then is doesn't matter if there is permanent fixtures or not.


"Had" being correct... NZDA refer to the Police Range Manual now is my understanding. The Police Range Manual refers to it, but my understanding is it is now defunct.


Yep, as others have said clubs only need to be incorporated if they are selling ammo. Otherwise they don't need to be incorporated - I haven't dealt much with the clubs side of things but my understanding is it is "encouraged" but is not a requirement. Being incorporated has advantages for the committee members to say the least.
And I agree for a "one off" range the cost, and more so the work involved in putting together the RSOs, danger area validation, range inspector, etc. can be pretty onerous.


This I agree with... How would the effectiveness of the range regulations be measured in a few years time? Against an incident rate? There wasn't one to start with? So how would the cost of the range certification regime be justified?

This is so correct, how do you measure the effectiveness of regulation when there wasn't a measurable problem previously.
Range design and requirement are so high the likely hood of a safety issue is pretty remote, pity they didn't design roads to the same standard that road fatalities are not able to happen.

The clubs and ranges regulation came about because of false accusations made in the media, mud seemed to stick.

Originally Posted by grandpamac

Greetings,
You learn something every day. I have been in NZDA for closing on 50 years and have not seen that document. I assume from the date it was brought out as a means of compliance with the Police Range Manual July 2005.
GPM.

No it predated 2005 although it wasn't widely distributed.

Originally Posted by Tentman

To be fair though Id say the ranges you are probably referring to were already on the slippery slope of closing before the new regs came in due to compliance issues under the old systems, in my experience both the NRA and NZDA manuals were no longer fit for purpose, and were not being modernised - as far as I can tell due to "fudd" issues. An example being the 5 mil COF, its easily achievable by means of proper procedure/discipline on the firing point as per the new manual . . .

Actually prior to the new regulations there was no need to have a rifle range certified which is why some ranges remained open, they didn't have any safety issues causing them to close, they closed because the new laws/regulations created required all ranges to be certified.
A number of range operators spent huge sums of money so their range would comply and pass the new range certification process, I know one range operator spent $80,000, how much did others spend?
I know one community range was created to stop people shooting road signs in the area, which it achieved. The farmer whose property the range was on wasn't going to pay the fees and do all the work for certification and either was any other organisation so the range is officially closed.

The new range certification documents were created by the police because ranges under the new law/regulations had to be certified, nobody wanted to do all the work to the NZDA or NRA range manuals so they are both now non compliant.

While the FSA will say that the new laws/regulations have not caused any ranges and clubs to close they are being dishonest in that claim, because they know from the list of ranges compiled prior to registration/certification that some range operators didn't file any paperwork for some ranges, therefore the requirements did cause some to close.

Originally Posted by 19Badger

The new range certification documents were created by the police because ranges under the new law/regulations had to be certified, nobody wanted to do all the work to the NZDA or NRA range manuals so they are both now non compliant.

There was a few of us that got together and wrote our own Range Manual, our own 3 tier range danger area templating system, our own risk based, our own RO and Officer on Duty qualification, etc. It has been accepted by Police / FSA and a bunch of ranges have been certified using it. It hasn't yet been referenced to in the FSA Range Manual (should be in the next issue). It was a considerable amount of work to get it all together and implement it.

Originally Posted by 19Badger

No it predated 2005 although it wasn't widely distributed.

There are actually at least 2 manuals. The earlier of the two I have, published by the Police and Mountain Safety Council in November 1998, deals with the establishment and upgrading of ranges and the second published by the Police in July 2005 deals with principals of design. This document places the responsibility for inspection and certification of ranges with the National Shooting Organisations like NZDA.
There were also earlier NZDA Range manuals but I can't put my hand on them at the moment.
GPM.