animalpest wrote:It is unclear whether all property letters will be cancelled and you need a new one, whether you need to renew every year or three.
If all property letters are cancelled then there will be a lot of shooters in strife.
This issue is because a few decided there was a loophole and exploited it purely for monetary gain. And have stuffed it for everyone else.
Selling property letters was not illegal but was bound to attract criticism from some. And given you couldn't shoot on the property anyway, and in some cases thousands of property letters issued for single property, it was bound to cause an issue.
Blame the greediness from a few
While I get that plenty of people have 'Safe Queens' that were purely obtained via a property letter and only go out for the occasional shoot. I don't personally think that the few individuals selling property letters to large rural properties is really the problem.
While yes, WAPOL created the problem in the first place by adopting an internal policy for property size which in many cases has probably forced shooters to buy a property letter to obtain a firearm for Recreational Shooting or Hunting in cases where they still own or have access to a large enough property to safely shoot the firearm.
What I think is a bigger problem with WAPOL's Frustration over losing at SAT, Caliber Bans and Proposed Firearm Limits/Property Letter Overhauls is that it demonstrates that WAPOL do not see Recreational Shooting as a valid reason to own a firearm in WA in spite of there being provision for it in the act from Day 1. "Shooting of a Recreational Nature" has been in the Firearms act of 1973 as a Genuine Reason along side hunting since that act was introduced.
Yes, WA is in the unique position among other states that Crown Land hunting is not permitted but as others have stated, it is legal in other states and interstate travel with firearms is not uncommon.
A bit late to the party but my 2c
