Government has shut down recreational shooting, closing a public shooting range built with public money on public lands and operated for the public solely by volunteers. Without notice and with officials avoiding scrutiny, Maricopa County, Arizona, has closed the General Joe Foss Shooting Complex to the public. (Note: As of Monday, August 19, it appears that Maricopa County has reversed its decision, but there is no firm date for reopening the Joe Foss Shooting Complex.)
Named for World War II hero, statesman and past NRA President, the General Joe Foss Shooting Complex (JFSC) was available to the public on weekends only, the rest of the week the range being utilized for law enforcement training. Situated in the fastest growing county in the U.S., the Complex has been the only outdoor range available to residents in that part of the county. Shuttering JFSC is particularly frustrating at this time, as wildfire conditions during the summer months routinely prompt officials to ban target shooting on public lands across Arizona. Closure of the Complex leaves the public no nearby outdoor options where they may exercise their rights.
Volunteer Operation
Maricopa County acquired 120 acres of federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands which the County designated Buckeye Hills Regional Park, upon which the County built JFSC. Opened first in 2008 as the Buckeye Hills Shooting Range, in 2009 the name changed to the General Joe Foss Shooting Complex.
Volunteers from local Buckeye Sportsman’s Club operated the range from its opening until NRA affiliate Arizona State Rifle and Pistol Association (ASRPA) assumed those volunteer duties in 2017. Until 2023 the public range was open for 12 hours on weekends under a special use permit from Maricopa County Parks & Recreation Department. Volunteers ran the range for the public only six hours each day, from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
After eight years under ASRPA, the non-profit Arizona Citizens Defense League Foundation assumed duties as Operations Manager of JFSC in January 2024 when the Parks & Recreation Department issued the Foundation a six-month special use permit. However, without discussion or prior notice, the Department declined to renew the permit two days before its expiration on June 30, 2024, closing the range.
Locked Out
“The AzCna Citizens Defense League Foundation] received notice, via email, concerning the non-renewal of the Special Use Permit (SUP) on Tuesday, May 28, 2024,” AzCDLF President Cheryl Todd said in an email exchange. “The reasons given for MCP&R [Maricopa County Parks and Recreation] to not renew the SUP with AzCDLF was that the various entities involved in making the decision were ‘focused on the importance of providing adequate training for law enforcement personnel.’”
Maricopa County Parks and Recreation had led AzCDLF to believe the Foundation would operate JFSC for the long term, all the while apparently planning to lock the public out on July 1.
“The AzCDLF [had] meetings with MCP&R about our ideas to expand and improve JFSC, and our initial impression was that MCP&R was on the same page and agreed that the range had much untapped potential for use by the public, law enforcement groups, and special user groups,” Todd said.
No Explanation
Sparse information posted on the Parks and Recreation website said only that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) needs the range for “public safety.” The poor communication prompted angry phone calls and emails to the Sheriff’s Office from frustrated residents upset that MCSO had absconded with their shooting range.
“I didn’t really have anything to do with this,” Acting Sheriff Russ Skinner said in a telephone interview. “Parks and Recreation put out a statement that their agreement with the public range operators ended in June, and they reached out to me.” This was the second time, Skinner said, that the Parks and Recreation Department had sounded him out about transferring the Complex to MCSO, indicating the County has been quietly intending such a transfer for some time.
Skinner welcomes taking over the weekend morning hours of range time. The present large MCSO range is situated close beside the public range, and it provides training space for many agencies beyond MCSO.
“We support 23 agencies and a multi-agency academy,” Skinner said. “Our range is booked 365 and there’s a waiting list for everybody to get on.” Skinner was unsure, but estimated the MCSO range has two ranges of perhaps 40 and 50 firing points each; acquiring the JFSC public range will add another 40.
Asked why MCSO or Maricopa County should be concerned about providing training space for so many other law enforcement agencies that have their own funding, he said, “In the best interest of the community, I have the responsibility to share range space with the other agencies. Some of them can’t afford to build or pay for a range. We larger agencies have an obligation to do what’s right for the entire community. I would not leave somebody hanging.” Skinner said that FBI, DEA and large, well-funded metropolitan agencies, such as Phoenix PD are among those that train on the MCSO range at no cost to those agencies.
Possible “Balance” From MCSO
Acting Sheriff Skinner said that, when the County transfers JFSC to the Sheriff’s Office, he would “consider” allowing the public to utilize the range in some capacity. “I would definitely evaluate the community needs and balance that with the needs of public safety,” Skinner said. “I certainly think we can strike a balance.”
MCSO itself, however, won’t operate the range for the public. “There would have to be some kind of group to run it during off hours,” Skinner said. “You’ve got to have a rangemaster, range safety officers and others to operate the range. We would need to partner with someone.”
Fighting For The Range
Ivy and Kyle Barrett, owners of the America Fidelis Guns & Ammo gun shop in Buckeye, Arizona, are spearheading an effort to convince the County to reopen JFSC to the public.
“We’re organizing the effort to keep the range open because it's such an asset to our community, and to see it closed to the public is a travesty,” Ivy said. “I had to dig through a lot of junk to find out who to call and what to do to save the range.”
A page at the America Fidelis website shows exactly who to contact in Maricopa County government, providing email addresses and phone numbers, to demand resuming public access to the Complex. The page also lists the time, date and place of the next County Board of Supervisors meeting, where the public can speak directly to the Supervisors, who have final control over transferring operation of JFSC from Parks and Recreation to the Sheriff’s Office.
That effort is already bearing fruit. At the July 24, 2024, regular public meeting of the Board, 28 residents opposed to the closure of JFSC submitted applications to speak to the Board. Because the controversy was not a meeting agenda item, the Board could not discuss it, only listen.
Maricopa County has generated so many angry complaints in locking the public out of its range that officials appear to be avoiding any discussion with the public. Three requests here to interview Maricopa County Parks and Recreation Department Director R. J. Cardin met with flat refusal. Only one of the five County Supervisors responded to requests for Supervisors’ positions on the matter, and that one response, from a secretary, offered no information.
No Legitimate Reason
Budget-saving is not a factor behind transferring the range to MCSO.
“Based on the revenues received by the non-profits running the range over the years, it would be difficult to recover staff costs if Parks operated the range,” Parks and Recreation Communications Director Fields Moseley said in an email exchange. “Parks has never operated the range and doesn’t have another facility like it. When these non-profits were not available, the range closed temporarily.”
Investigation points to the logical conclusion that it has been the intent of Maricopa County Parks and Recreation to transfer the General Joe Foss Shooting Complex to MCSO for quite some time, and that claiming “public safety” is a deliberate obfuscation. Most tellingly, the proposition to surrender the public range to MCSO did not come from the Sheriff’s Office—MCSO never requested it—rather, the plan’s origin is the Parks and Recreation Department. Law enforcement has already been using JFSC during the week. Claiming that ousting the public to add a few weekend hours to train the large numbers of personnel among 24 agencies will increase “public safety” for 4.4 million county residents is a conveniently altruistic-sounding, unverifiable and unquantifiable claim.
If budgeting and “public safety” are not the real issues, why, then, transfer the range to MCSO? What officials won’t communicate is that, with this transfer, Parks and Recreation—and Maricopa County—is divesting itself of all association with recreational shooting, which appears to be the true impetus behind the transfer. Cardin’s adamant refusal to answer questions and the Supervisors’ unresponsiveness reinforces that conclusion. Permanently terminating all recreational shooting as a program of the Parks and Recreation Department, not “public safety,” appears to be the true motive behind the closure.
“Pull Together”
Being made aware of events unfolding at the Joe Foss Shooting Complex, NRA Executive Vice President and CEO Doug Hamlin offered encouragement to Maricopa County residents fighting to reacquire their public shooting range.
“The late Joe Foss is a U.S. Marine Medal of Honor recipient. His courage and intrepidity in the skies over the Pacific is legendary,” Hamlin said. “He lived an exemplary life and served as President of the NRA. We need to pull together as NRA Members and do what we can to reopen the Joe Foss Shooting Complex. I had the high honor of meeting Brigadier General Foss at a SHOT Show many years ago. It is one of the highlights of my life.”
“Now that we have a path forward, we’re trying to rally the troops and get as many people on board as possible,” Ivy Barret of America Fidelis said. “I've already gotten an angry phone call from a politician, so hopefully that means all of our phone calls and emails are getting us somewhere.”
