Wasatch Shooters Association seeks to manage Morgan gun range

After the closure of the Davis County Gun Range to the public in August, the Wasatch Shooters Association has been looking for a home. They’re hoping to find it in Morgan County. On Oct. 29 association president Edward Welch approached the Morgan County Commission about taking over management of the Morgan County Gun Range.

With more than 700 members, the association already has a $2 million liability policy, along with a rider policy for its range masters, Welch said. They could manage the gun range for up to seven days a week and significantly increase the revenue over what the county is making on the range; they would offer Morgan County residents a discount, he said.

If county officials are open to the possibility, it’s an “option for more people to come and drive traffic to Morgan as well,” Welch said.

With the increased distance for his members to travel to the Morgan range, Welch expects he will lose some members but will retain about 500 he estimated.

“We would cover all the expenses of the site 100 percent; the county would not be liable for any maintenance, any upkeep, any changes that I propose,” he said.

Such changes could include increasing the range size to 100 yards (it’s 50 yards now), making it a U shape with 10-foot-high dirt berms, and adding pistol ranges on the north along with skeet and trap shooting. 

The association would also construct an enclosed facility over the existing benches with a canopy and heaters so it could be used year-round, Welch said. “We are a nonprofit organization so all the money stays in the company and in the organization and is used to improve the site, he said. We have a lot of assets now; we would bring up targets and benches and things like that.”

With these improvements the range could be used “for training exercises for the police and for county officials or those in any other law enforcement that wanted a range that they could utilize,” Welch said.

In the discussion Commissioner Matt Wilson brought up the noise nearby homes could be subject to from the range. 

“I guess my biggest concern would be the noise for the neighbors next door,” he said. “I don’t know how you could mitigate that or not, but we have that subdivision right to the west of it and there’s a lot of people that live there.”

That noise could be addressed by the large berms, Welch said. “Eighty percent of the noise follows the direction of where the gun is aimed so placement of the barricades at 100 yards in that direction should address that issue,” he said. “I’m a contractor by trade and builder; I’ll bring all my heavy equipment up and if I’ve got to, [I’ll] put a 12-foot wall of dirt across that whole fence.”

If the county commission does not think the current range would be suitable, the association is open to looking for another parcel in Morgan to make a new, improved range, he said “If the county’s got a piece of trash property you don’t want, I’ll be more than glad to purchase it and put one there.”

In the end, commissioners said they were willing to explore the possibility with the Wasatch Shooters Association and suggested scheduling an upcoming work session to hear more information. No date for the work session was set that night.λ