This nibbling away at closing shooting areas started a long time ago with piece-by-piece closures of large areas to shooting sports by declaring them "primitive areas," "refuges," "national monuments," "parks" and the like.
I don't know if Clinton started this technique to "choke off" the opportunities to shoot in vast areas, but that was when I first started to notice it. I bitched about it here and there when I could, including at the beginning of the internet era, but nobody seemed to care much, "Ooo, more parks, more primitive areas for the birdwatchers and day hikers.... yay!" was the attitude I kept running up against.
The gun community did not seem to notice this trend, apparently "Colorado has umpteen million acres of National Forest --how could they take that away?"
After all, the Forests are, by law, "multi-use" areas... which includes free-range shooting and hunting.
Well, now you see the results of this gradual choking off of shooting opportunities. They decided to try to go whole hog.
Yay for the nature photographers and birdwatchers.
And screw us.
Terry, 230RN