Fires Sparked By Utah Target Shooters Prompt Evacuations 709
Hugh Pickens writes "The Salt Lake City Tribune reports that more than 9,000 people have been driven from their homes by a wind-whipped wildfire started by two shooters at landfill popular with target shooters who won't face any charges because they were not breaking any laws. The fire was the 20th this year in Utah sparked by target shooting where low precipitation, dry heat and high winds have hit the West hard, exacerbating the risk that bullets may glance off rocks and create sparks. Despite the increasing problem, local agencies are stuck in a legal quandary — the state's zealous protection of gun rights leaves fire prevention to the discretion of individuals — a freedom that allows for the careless to shoot into dry hills and rocks. When bullets strike rock, heated fragments can break off and if the fragments make contact with dry grass, which can burn at 450 to 500 degrees, the right conditions can lead to wildfires. Utah Gov. Gary Herbert has called on Utahns to use more "common sense" in target shooting urging target shooters to use established indoor and outdoor ranges instead of tinder-dry public lands. "We can do better than that as Utahns," says Herbert, calling on shooters to "self-regulate," since legislation bars sheriff's officials from regulating firearms. "A lot of the problem we have out here is a lack of common sense.""
Only in America... (Score:4, Insightful)
does the right to pointlessly shoot random shit trump a home-owners right not to have his house burned to a cinder
christ....
Easy Fix (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't ban shooting, just make the shooters responsible for any fires they start. I bet they start self-regulating real quick when multi-million dollar fines start getting handed out.
"Common sense" (Score:2, Insightful)
"We can do better than that as Utahns," says Herbert, calling on shooters to "self-regulate," since legislation bars sheriff's officials from regulating firearms. "A lot of the problem we have out here is a lack of common sense.""
If you're relying on common sense from a state most of which fell in a big way for the Joseph Smith con-job that is Mormonism, you're gonna be waiting a very long time.
Every group has its careless idiots (Score:5, Insightful)
And recreational shooters are no different. In tinderbox conditions like this you can shoot safely, but you have to be careful. Don't shoot steel jacketed or steel cored ammunition, stick to plain lead or copper jacketed only. Don't shoot tracers, don't use gimmick ammo like Dragon's Breath shotgun shells. Above all, pay attention and be prepared to put out a fire. If you're not prepared to do all of that, then maybe you should just do something else until the weather changes.
I'm an avid shooter and probably own more guns than most of the people reading this. My knee jerk reaction is to defend "my" side, but I also want to smack down the morons making the rest of us look bad.
Has nothing to do with "trumping" anything (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not about a "right" to do anything trumping anything else. If there was no law against (target-)shooting in the area in which the shooters were, how do you suggest they be prevented from having done something that caused an accidental fire?
If your issue is with the fact they won't face punishment for something they couldn't have possibly predicted and didn't intend, how is the lack of punishment in any way related to the fact that thousands of people are now without homes?
If your issue is the fact that there is no framework of law to prohibit, e.g., shooting under certain conditions, in a similar manner as, say, open fires when weather conditions are not safe for fires, then I might begin to agree with you.
Off-topic (Score:5, Insightful)
Article is completely off-topic
So if sparks from a nail gun caused it ... (Score:2, Insightful)
We should blame the construction industry?
Ban home remodeling?
WTF?
The shooters tried to put the fire out and called 911. They acted fairly responsibly, though with some forethought they would have taken some preventative measures to prevent sparks.
Sometimes stuff happens. Using it to promote your particular social engineering agenda is bullcrap.
As another poster said, hold the shooters responsible for this. If there are not already laws in place that do so, there can be fairly quickly.
Re:Has nothing to do with "trumping" anything (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFS:
The fire was the 20th this year in Utah sparked by target shooting
and it's only half way through the year!
That's one fire a week
Re:Easy Fix (Score:5, Insightful)
Terrible idea, superficially a good one, but it would result in massive losses and deaths.
You see, legal shooting happens mostly in the wilderness. If you start handing out the economic death penalty to people who accidentally start a fire, then they would have to be economically suicidal to ever report a fire.
Imagine a tiny little grass fire starts while target shooting or poaching or whatever. You can "do the right thing" and call it in and 99% of the time the local fire department waters it down and its all good, and 1% of the time its not completely controlled but at least the FD is on it and it may wipe out a house or two, but at least the FD knows about it so evac is successful and no one dies.
With your ridiculous requirement, the shooters would be insane to economically kill themselves, so once a tiny little fire starts, rather than stomping it out themselves and calling the local fire department to water down the area, they run like hell. Obviously they'll get away every time. However 100% of tiny little grass fires will uncontrollably spread and sweep thru town killing everyone and destroying everything.
It seems a heck of a lot less people will die and a lot less destruction will occur if there is no liability to calling in a grass fire. Your plan would fail miserably.
Dozens of fires (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Only in America... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is exactly why nothing changes. Gun nuts won't accept any responsibility for any bad thing associated with gun ownership. Guns purchased in the U.S. used by Mexican drug cartels, fueling gang violence, or ending up in the hands of the mentally desperate who take out other people with them, it's never because there are just too many guns on the street or that they're too easy to purchase.
If they accepted responsibility for anything it would open the door to some kind of intelligent gun regulation, but we can't have that. So the fault is always somewhere else.
Just like this guy. Guns caused a massive wildfire that prompted the evacuation of thousands of people, but it's all okay. We can't possibly consider restricting outdoor shooting during periods when conditions are bad, that would be limiting their 2nd amendment rights. Even though we restrict campfires, outdoor burning and other activities.
They made an effort to put it out, so the thousands of families living in shelters and firefighters risking their lives, that's all okay. It wasn't the poor gun owner's fault.
Re:Has nothing to do with "trumping" anything (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah right, there was no way to predict it. After all, it only has happened 19 times this year before this one.
Re:Only in America... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is exactly why nothing changes. Gun nuts won't accept any responsibility for any bad thing
Gun nuts, no. Gun owners, yes. There is a difference. A gun owner stores his firearms properly (ammunition separate from the firearm), uses judgment as to where and when he fires his weapon, and above all knows the dangers and risks associated with a firearm and treats it as such. A gun nut is the guy you see posing for a picture by pointing the gun into the camera and rides around shooting road signs with a .22. There is a big difference between the two.
Re:Has nothing to do with "trumping" anything (Score:3, Insightful)
If there was no law against (target-)shooting in the area in which the shooters were, how do you suggest they be prevented from having done something that caused an accidental fire?
The problem is the "no law against" part. The government is too afraid of the NRA to suggest any laws that might offend them. As they take the same attitude when people are murdered by gun users it's entirely consistent.
Any home owners, and/or their insurance companies, affected by such fires should start a class action and sue both the state government and the NRA for creating this entirely predictable hazard. The actual idiots who started the fires should be given some frontier justice, in line with their philosophy. String them up on the nearest tree.
Re:General observation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Only in America... (Score:5, Insightful)
And the fact that these people exist mean you have to regulate.
I would atleast consider 'improper use of a firearm' to be a crime, and firing your weapon when it's possible it would start a wildfire would, to me, be considered improper use. If someone was shooting a gun in the middle of a a fuel leak, you bet your arse they'd be prosecuted for something regardless as to what they were shooting at. Why is shooting on a hot, dry, tinderbox any different?
Re:The point where vigilante justice makes sense (Score:2, Insightful)
Children with fireworks
Children who intentionally light fires
Grills
Campfires
Throwing out a lit cigarette
Yard/Trash burning
etc, etc, etc, you know, the things that typically cause these fires. This was just an accident, it happens. I think what we need to do is take a similar stance that we have on any activity that could lead to a fire, educate people on the dangers and how to handle it. Remember Smokey the Bear? Meet Slashdot's most wanted. I dare you to stare into the face of evil [hd.org]!
Re:Only in America... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, and the current administration has just been cited for contempt by a House oversight committee for allegedly accelerating the number of American weapons in the drug wars in order to elicit the exact response you are having, so that the populists will support the new Brady Bill.
Before Obama was elected, the pro-gun lobby said HEY, HE'S GOING TO COME FOR YOUR GUNS! Then, guess what? He didn't. So now, you've got to make up this incredibly elaborate plot [wikipedia.org] that the administration supposedly has to get rid of guns in the US. By sending some guns to Mexico, causing violence there, maybe having them come back into the US, and getting people shot? What? He wants to get rid of guns and gun violence, so he's intentionally distributing the guns and causing causing gun violence?
That's quite the theory. "A lot of the problem we have out here is a lack of common sense," indeed.
Re:General observation (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't quite get why the law can't handle this without running afoul of the second amendment, either. In Canada, I regularly see "fire bans" - when the conditions are poor (i.e., dry tinder), even fires that require and have received permits are not allowed. Open-pit fires are banned. (BBQs, being enclosed, are still permitted.) A similar fire ban, not targetting firearms per se, should pass muster just fine, as long as it allows for emergency use (self-defense), active militia use (again, largely defense), and firing ranges and such.
Re:Has nothing to do with "trumping" anything (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know how things work in Utah, but where I live, the state fire department declares that on certain days (based on the predicted temperature and humidity) that nobody may light fires in the open air. That includes incinerators, camp fires or what have you. Practically nobody intends for their camp fire to get out of control. Nobody of consequence wants to ban camping or the use of camp fires. Nonetheless, camp fires are regulated on days where there is a serious risk of them getting out of control.
It seems, to me, completely irrational not to impose the same restriction on target shooting.
Re:Only in America... (Score:5, Insightful)
Surely this is why the right to bear arms should only be part of a "well regulated militia".
Re:Has nothing to do with "trumping" anything (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFS: The fire was the 20th this year in Utah sparked by target shooting
As compared with the 188 human-cause wildfires in Utah so far this year which were sparked by causes other than target shooting. Not that this lets shooters off the hook, but if you're going to impose regulations to prevent wildfires you should probably start with the low-hanging fruit: campfires.
Re:General observation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:General observation (Score:1, Insightful)
Looks like they left off steel penis extensions, which also cause fires. This fire caused by a gun also had 9000 people running for their lives. Boo-frickety-hoo. Maybe the problem of this desperate need to extend ones' penis will solve itself . . . when people get sick of grown men acting like 12-year-olds with their guns.
Attempting to shame people who hold a different point of view stopped working 20 years ago after the feminist movement used it for the eleventy thousandth time. The fact that you still think insulting someone's manhood is still a viable coercion technique is a sad commentary on the success it once had. However, its now easily recognized as the shriek of the sackless, leftist, we-don't-need-liberties-the-government-will-take-care-of-us babble that it is, and has no effect.
Re:Has nothing to do with "trumping" anything (Score:4, Insightful)
More fires are started by firefighters doing controlled burns that get out of control than target shooters.
In that case there is a risk (of starting a wildfire) /benefit (preventing fires). There is no benefit to allowing gun nuts to shoot at junk in the countryside and start fires.
Perhaps you wish to hang the firefighters?
Perhaps you are a fuckwit?
Re:Has nothing to do with "trumping" anything (Score:4, Insightful)
There's no law against driving. There are laws against "reckless driving".
Why can't this be applied to guns?
Re:General observation (Score:5, Insightful)
Stupid guns dont kill people, stupid people kill people.
Re:General observation (Score:5, Insightful)
You are missing a lot of the details and only hearing one side. The law allows for the recovery of damages and the imposition of penalties for starting fires. In this case the people responsible for starting the fire accidentally were also the ones who immediately reported it. Apparently the local authorities decided that they had not been acting irresponsibly, otherwise they would have been charged with some offense and would possibly be responsible for the entire cost of fighting the fire. (Yes, that does happen from time to time.)
Also, there are all sorts of fire bans in effect in different areas. If the people weren't charged with anything then they probably weren't violating any ban.
The main problem with this report and some of the comments is that someone is attempting to use it as an argument against guns and completely exaggerating the rules which are in effect.
Re:Easy Fix (Score:4, Insightful)
The shooter that you refer to under fear of the enormous financial repercussions of accidentally starting a fire will fail to report the fire and run away. This makes the firefighters' jobs more difficult because the fire does not get reported as quickly. The most important thing in an emergency situation like this is the speed of response on the part of the firefighter. Who caused it and what happened is secondary or even tertiary.
The same thing holds for policing in a community. If an undocumented immigrant observes or is a victim of a crime, they are less likely to report that crime to the police in parts of the US where the police will check your immigration status just for calling them. Those locations are less safe than locations where the police leave the checking of immigration status to after charging an individual with a crime. In communities where the police pretend to be an immigrations service, the conservatives and the tea baggers might feel like they're being protected from the boogeyman of the criminal immigrant, where in reality they are much less safe because the law abiding immigrants fear even calling the police to report a real crime.
Who's the one with an agenda? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're counting a whole lot of zero-acre fires. If you look at the damage caused, target shooting accounts for a good deal more than 10%. Also, target shooters make up a rather small proportion of the population and cause a vastly disproportionate number of fires.
Any target shooting outside of a gun range during a red flag warning shows a lack of common sense, and trying to excuse these people's rampant irresponsibility by saying other people sometimes act irresponsibly too shows you're the one with the political agenda.
Re:Has nothing to do with "trumping" anything (Score:5, Insightful)
As I've said elsewhere, there aren't that many target shooters, and they start a vastly disproportionate number of fires, and these fires have caused considerably more damage than the vast majority of the fires on that silly list (many of those were zero-acre fires).
But more to the point: counties, municipalities, and the BLM, Forest Service, and NPS all have the power to restrict campfires, and they often do put restrictions in place during fire season. But the state legislature has not only failed to put reasonable shooting regulations in place but has barred anyone else from doing so.
Re:General observation (Score:2, Insightful)
Campfires are the most frequent preventable cause of wildfires, where's the article about careless campers? If campers who don't give a fuck are so stupid to let their campfires cause wildfires, they're stupid enough to do other things.
Stupid campfires don't kill people, stupid people kill people.
Re:Only in America... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:General observation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who's the one with an agenda? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:General observation (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:General observation (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF? You really want an article on Slashdot about how campfires that get out of control get prosecuted? I.e., a story about a law that everyone agrees with gets applied? Do you also want stories about how the mugging at your local Denny's was investigated, and the perp prosecuted? Or maybe you want a story about how a campfire causes a wildfire? What the hell is your point? And even if that story would exist, what the hell does it have to do with the fact that prosecution is a-ok for a wildfire started through any means, except when it is started through guns? I mean, outside of aiming for Gold in mental gymnastics.
Seriously, take off your blinders here. Not everyone is coming for your guns, and not every use of a gun needs to be sanctioned. If you're so insecure that you can't see that.... yeah, you're really not helping your cause here.
Re:Only in America... (Score:3, Insightful)
By sending some guns to Mexico, causing violence there, maybe having them come back into the US, and getting people shot? What? He wants to get rid of guns and gun violence, so he's intentionally distributing the guns and causing causing gun violence?
Whether or not that was the intention this time, it's a time-honored tradition, and a successful one at that.
The government did the same thing [slate.com], effectively, with alcohol during prohibition (TL;DR: randomly poisoning bootlegged alcohol with methanol so that people would be afraid to drink it).
Whenever you want to force policies on people that they naturally don't want, you have to do some scare-mongering first.
So, the premise isn't invalid, though the conclusion might be.
Re:Bunk. (Score:3, Insightful)
Firstly, it's a private property matter. The Mall can say "no guns" and post that and then the firearm owner is doing something wrong on the mall's property. If there is no mall policy, and there is an open-carry law in the state in question, nothing is wrong with the assault rifle. Sure, it's gaudy. It's like someone in a mohawk and 30000 piercings. Tasteless? Yes... could either be part of something more sinister? Yes... but until there's more proof than the gun (or the mohawk) itself, you're just projecting your irrational fears onto others because you have a problem with guns (or mohawks.)
Secondly, unless it's being pointed at you and you are in a state with open-carry laws, ignore it until you need to dial 911. Being "proactive" and "reacting" to seeing a gun on someone's person is being a fucking busybody. The 2nd Amendment, and the right of freedom on one's own property, while currently under assault (no pun intended) are two of the cornerstones of personal liberty. The Founders spoke of the freedom to bear arms as much as they did about property rights. It's not a veiled interpretation looking back into the misty past. They were keen on what it meant to be free from tyranny.
Oh, I forgot, people who hate firearms are just well-intentioned busybodies.
Re:General observation (Score:5, Insightful)
I can empathize, and I think that the target shooters were not thinking. But what I can't stand is the summary's blatant attempt to turn this into a gun debate, as if the "zealous protection of gun owners' rights" is somehow wrong and anti-American. It's the 2nd fucking Amendment (I'm not ranting at you, I just had to get this off my chest.) The Supreme Court has correctly interpreted "the People" in the clause of the 2nd Amendment to be individuals. (Just like "the People" in the 1st Amendment)... Utah is not doing anything overtly criminal in making sure all rights, even those that people hate (like free speech and the right to bear arms) are protected. This is purely a matter of fire safety. It has 0 to do with guns. It could've been a cigarette. It is not the gun's or 2nd Amendment's fault.
I think they should be charged and fined as a person(s) who violated a Red Flag warning and built a fire. Nothing about the guns should matter. But I can see /. (in general) loves individual freedom only sometimes. :)
"Guns are bad, mmmmkay?" -- random /. consensus. :-)
Re:General observation (Score:2, Insightful)
We believe in Individual liberty as codified in our Bill of Rights. Those aren't rights granted by the government. They are rights we have as humans and the Founders knew government (any government) would attempt to curtail those rights, so they wrote them down in the Constitution. While we have had quite a few attempts to circumvent those rights, we generally right the ship and shake the yoke of government tyranny off.
Since you're not an American, I don't expect you to understand. If you'd like to understand, read "The Federalist Papers"... Or anything by Thomas Jefferson.
It's not perfect, but I'd take the Constitution over any other document sanctioning government power any day.
Re:Only in America... (Score:4, Insightful)
You speak of the military like they are some kind of brainless machine that just automatically does whatever politicians want, the politician just says "kill all those civilians" and the military will just do it without question.
I've got news for you. I've lived almost my entire life in and around the military, as did my father. If such orders came down, a significant portion, if not the majority, of the military would be pointing their weapons back at the politicians and removing them from power, not killing the citizens.
Strat
Re:Bunk. (Score:5, Insightful)
You haven't heard of the 1st amendment?
Hint: It precedes the 2nd amendment you're so zealous about.
OK, fine. Then let's agree that you leave the 2nd Amendment alone, and we'll leave the 1st Amendment alone.
See, that's exactly the kind of crap I'm talking about. You don't mind at all trying to take away people's rights under the 2nd Amendment, but you scream bloody murder when it's a right YOU care about.
Once you go down the road of removing/crippling/restricting rights, don't act all surprised when they get to a right YOU care about.
They came for the gun owners, but I wasn't a gun owner, so I did not speak out. Then they came for my freedom of speech, but there was no way for me or anyone else to defend my free speech.
Just an FYI: Why do you think the founders put those two things as first and second in the list of rights? According to them, it's because without the 2nd Amendment, you can't defend the 1st Amendment, and will quickly lose it.
Strat
Re:Bunk. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:General observation (Score:4, Insightful)
Since when does sensible regulation = totalitarianism? I'm not saying firearms should be regulated, but private companies? Fuck yes they should be regulated.
Sensible regulation doesn't equal totalitarianism anymore than small government = fuedalism. However, we do know from both history and human nature that power corrupts and tends to draw more power to itself and that experiments in having big government tend to end badly.
A sensible position is to always remember that government=force, remember that individual liberty had intrinsic value, and whenever someone suggests using the government to solve a problem question whether or not non-government people and government can solve it and whether a government solution is worse than the problem. Too often our first question is "how can government solve this?" rather than "why can't this be solved by people exercising their liberty?"
Re:Bunk. (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as purpose, automatic weapons were designed for one purpose: antipersonnel.
Ever since semi-automatic weapons have been approximately as accurate as single-shot weapons they have been the preferred family of firearm for hunters and target shooters alike because they're easier to use. The M1 Garand was the assault rifle of its day, but before that, the musket was that, and before that the blunderbuss and before that the short bow and before that you'd carry a few spears and so on down the line until you get back to where we just picked up rocks and threw them at one another.
So while you're right that this weapon is descended from a weapon designed to kill a whole bunch of people at once, that doesn't make it an assault weapon... in the eyes of the law. I understand that you don't think that's relevant, but it is. The truth is that an assault rifle makes a dandy hunting rifle, and the same things that make an assault rifle better for killing people make it better for killing dinner. The only thing you're never going to need is fully automatic fire, which is why it's not present in the civilian models. Otherwise, a bullpup-configuration carbine with a synthetic stock is desirable to the hunter for the same reasons it's desirable to the soldier; it's lighter, there's less climb so if you're firing consecutive shots you're going to be more accurate, and the weapon is physically smaller which means it's less likely to catch on something while moving through brush or traversing obstacles. (You're supposed to put your rifle down when doing that sort of thing... but sometimes that's just not practical.)
Re:General observation (Score:4, Insightful)
Too many rights over your own property leaves a mess that persists beyond your lifetime which is harmful to society
Except that the US and the Constitution aren't meant, and were never meant, to protect society, they were and are meant to protect individual freedom.
Once you put collective interests above individual freedom, you have tyranny. History shows this has always been true, and unless humans suddenly change into something other than human, it will always be so.
Strat
Re:General observation (Score:5, Insightful)
Its so strange watching what people latch onto. Like the story about the blind men trying to describe an elephant, one has it by the tail and thinks its an elephant is a stick, another by the leg and thinks its like a tree, and another by the trunk and thinks it like a snake. All right, and all completely wrong. First there are no pure "ISM" governments left on the planet save maybe North Korea, and they're just bugfsck. Capitalism is PRONE to serious problems, especially when corporations hijack the government. Even Adam Smith warned about the dangers of concentrating wealth and the absolute essential need for a healthy middle class. Capitalism with strong regulations in place to ensure they don't abuse labor, or too strongly influence cultural thinking through pervasive media, or destroy the environment they need in which to operate, is a wonderful thing. But like any reactor you watch it, guide it, steer it, and most certainly keep it in that dynamic tension between strict control and free progress.
There are strong arguments for limiting banks before you limit governments, because banks arguable have had a greater impact on human suffering than the all the governments of the world combined. Which isn't to say that governments are blameless, or shouldn't be strictly controlled. That's why we used to have checks and balances (until corporate America began dismantling them 30 years ago.) Twenty-first century America is living proof why Plutocracies and Fascist states are inherently doomed enterprises. Pyramids balanced on their points, they're unstable and dangerous. They do double harm, first as they bleed a culture dry, then as they begin to topple struggling ever harder against the very culture in which they exist causing collateral damage as they strive to keep wealth and power. There are fascinating conversations regarding the amazing wealth of the United States shortly after winning its independence and the disastrous effects of tying American currency to British Banks and the formation of our own Federal Bank.
As for your attack on Liberalism, I attribute none of the "ISMs" of which you speak to liberalism. Conservatism is the tendency to avoid in fact prevent change. Conservatism looks at the world framed in past based conversations and tries to preserve a consistent and workable status quo through tradition ideals and methods. This worked well when the period of significant social and technological change was greater than a single human life span. Its a full on disaster today. Liberalism is embracing change, looking for new solutions to new problems, looking to hit the moving target of social advance as it continues to accelerate. There will be failures, that's part of the scientific method. The whole point is that our world is changing at an every increasing rate, and that conservative thinking is inherently more broken, less tied to physical reality, and more prone to growing distortions of perception based on forcing reality into those inappropriate past frames of reference. Look at the last President and his cabinet trying to force a 2000 world into a 1980 frame of reference and the social disasters that ensued. This isn't to say that some expressions of Liberalism aren't flavored with excessive moralizing, emotional attachment or equally fixed past perspectives. It is to say that at its best, liberal thinking is profoundly better at dealing with and confronting accelerating change than conservatism.
Just as an aside, though conservatives like to claim fiscal austerity as one of their key planks, dealing with financial resources consistent with the simple tenets of basic accounting, seems to me to be just a simple act of sanity. Those that suggest we consistently spend more than we make, conservative or liberal are simply poor stewards of the future. Bill Clinton proved we could provide a fair tax structure, build the nation's infrastructure, promote a successful economy and still pay off the national debt. Anybody remember the "Surplus".
Re:General observation (Score:4, Insightful)
The right to bear arms is not a right to fire them indiscriminately. Making it illegal to discharge firearms in circumstances where doing so is not in the public interest is very much allowed. For instance, you're not allowed to discharge firearms in the city limits of the town I live in, despite strong support for the right to carry them.