You didn't make any attempt to retain it as you shot it, hence it was discarded onto government property. Constitution upholds that you've abandoned it, just as if you had put it in your trash. If you used a catcher, that would be quite different, even if it was just a board that bounced it back into your bay.
Picking brass at range, not allowed!
- Thread starter ninosdemente
- Start date
You didn't make any attempt to retain it as you shot it, hence it was discarded onto government property. Constitution upholds that you've abandoned it, just as if you had put it in your trash. If you used a catcher, that would be quite different, even if it was just a board that bounced it back into your bay.
Sometimes I forget how lucky I am until I read a post like this one.
My hangout is one of the outdoor ranges that kmw1954 mentioned. Within reason, I can pickup any brass I want to. I always ask other customers if they keep their brass and most don't. The range has struggled with what to do about brass since before I was even a member. (many years) I believe they actually have more brass than they can handle because of customer volume. I've actually bought 5 guns, maybe more, just because I had so much brass for one. I reload for every gun I have save my .22s. As a matter of fact, I'm still trying to decide what I should do for a 10mm.
While I fully understand how good I have it, like so many others have said, I wouldn't go to a range what wouldn't at least let me pick up my own brass. 4th Amendment power ho!!!
My hangout is one of the outdoor ranges that kmw1954 mentioned. Within reason, I can pickup any brass I want to. I always ask other customers if they keep their brass and most don't. The range has struggled with what to do about brass since before I was even a member. (many years) I believe they actually have more brass than they can handle because of customer volume. I've actually bought 5 guns, maybe more, just because I had so much brass for one. I reload for every gun I have save my .22s. As a matter of fact, I'm still trying to decide what I should do for a 10mm.
While I fully understand how good I have it, like so many others have said, I wouldn't go to a range what wouldn't at least let me pick up my own brass. 4th Amendment power ho!!!
Briandg
Haha , nice try . Same question but now use your logic . Your cellphone drops from your pocket and you make no effort to catch it . Is that now the states property since you made no attempt to stop it from hitting the ground ?
We can take it to the next level if you’d like . What if your gun falls off the bench ? Who’s is it then ? That seems silly I know but your property is your property correct , the value should not matter ???
Again what other items of yours that hits the ground that you would otherwise keep is OK for others to take regardless of how it got there ?
FWIW ( this is to everyone ) I'm not trying to be argumentative . I'm truly trying to see what other personal items one means to keep but for what ever reason lands on the ground is ok for the state or others to keep regardless if you want to keep them or not ?
Haha , nice try . Same question but now use your logic . Your cellphone drops from your pocket and you make no effort to catch it . Is that now the states property since you made no attempt to stop it from hitting the ground ?
We can take it to the next level if you’d like . What if your gun falls off the bench ? Who’s is it then ? That seems silly I know but your property is your property correct , the value should not matter ???
Again what other items of yours that hits the ground that you would otherwise keep is OK for others to take regardless of how it got there ?
FWIW ( this is to everyone ) I'm not trying to be argumentative . I'm truly trying to see what other personal items one means to keep but for what ever reason lands on the ground is ok for the state or others to keep regardless if you want to keep them or not ?
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armoredman
New member
I shoot at an unmonitored city maintained public range. Sometimes I find brass, but usually the local junkies come in and snag it to sell for scrap. I did have one scrounger snagging my 9mm brass as I was firing. Didn't realize it until I turned and found all my brass disappearing into a bucket. Was not happy.
A local gun shop is planning on opening our first indoor range and the owner told me proudly that they would have that policy, brass on the floor belongs to them, I stated regretfully that since I shoot 100% reloads, I wouldn't be able to patronize his yet unbuilt establishment.
A local gun shop is planning on opening our first indoor range and the owner told me proudly that they would have that policy, brass on the floor belongs to them, I stated regretfully that since I shoot 100% reloads, I wouldn't be able to patronize his yet unbuilt establishment.
Metal God has excellent points to refute this. Just because it falls on the ground in your vicinity does not mean that you've abandoned the property. By constitutional or any other law.
With all that being said, you do in fact have a constitutional right from having your property seized for no reason. Even if it fell to the ground at your feet. You DO NOT have a constitutional right to shoot at specific public ranges. When you go there, it is entirely voluntary that you went to that range at that time. Ranges do not violate constitutional rights for establishing rules, even arbitrary rules, for their property under their control. You are there as a guest, or patron, and they can refuse service and attach conditions on you being there. From reading here, apparently many ranges do not allow you to draw and fire from a holster (never seen that locally). You have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms, and I would argue to practice with those arms for self defense. None-the-less, if you don't like the range's rules, they aren't violating your constitutional rights because you are there voluntarily. Go find another range.
The above is definitely true with privately owned ranges open to the public. I'm not so sure about ranges on public lands. That would pose an interesting legal question, but one very unlikely to ever be brought to court.
metal god, did you throw your cell phone away?
Discarded material such as fired brass is not the same as dropping a twenty at the store. The owner of the property or his representative can claim the brass as your firearm throws it off, and you know that this happens.
This isn't a constitutional matter. It's a matter of whether or not you can throw what is considered trash onto a property that you don't own and the owner of that property can lay claim to that property.
As such, it is an issue between gentlemen as to whether or not you are allowed to retrieve and keep your five or ten dollars worth of brass that gets tossed.
Discarded material such as fired brass is not the same as dropping a twenty at the store. The owner of the property or his representative can claim the brass as your firearm throws it off, and you know that this happens.
This isn't a constitutional matter. It's a matter of whether or not you can throw what is considered trash onto a property that you don't own and the owner of that property can lay claim to that property.
As such, it is an issue between gentlemen as to whether or not you are allowed to retrieve and keep your five or ten dollars worth of brass that gets tossed.
Brian,
One man's trash is another man's treasure. I don't think an automatic assertion that it is trash is justified, but if it is, then you have a violation of littering laws involved in tossing it around on public land.
Metal God,
It's an interesting question. For a range with target runners (so nobody has to go downrange to change targets) it is easy to make a safety argument about brass that falls forward of the firing line becoming "lost" to the shooter. But for the state to constitutionally say you cannot pick up any of your own brass, not even behind the firing line, would, I think, require a statute saying that ejection from a firearm is a special act of abandoning, as you aren't specifically ejecting the cases into a trash bin. On the other hand, someone who packs up and leaves his brass behind, even .22 rimfire brass, is technically littering, as I mentioned above. There might be an argument to be made that requiring you to abandon your brass is requiring you to violate state littering laws and that one department of government can't legally require you to violate the law. If they then insist you hand the brass over to them afterward, that becomes an issue of confiscation of property you clearly have not abandoned and that would be arguable.
Based on personal experience I think you'll find, in the end, there are any number of government rules involving minor costs that violate the constitution in principle but that continue to be enforced because it isn't worth anyone's time or money to sue government in court over it. I can think of several examples. When it comes to costs too small for someone to take to court, they just get away with it. Collecting fees, fines, and, in this case, another few dollar's worth of scrap from shooters all adds up over time, and for that reason government jealously guards its income sources, no matter how small. You have to decide how much cost and grief you are willing to deal with before you try to fight it.
One man's trash is another man's treasure. I don't think an automatic assertion that it is trash is justified, but if it is, then you have a violation of littering laws involved in tossing it around on public land.
Metal God,
It's an interesting question. For a range with target runners (so nobody has to go downrange to change targets) it is easy to make a safety argument about brass that falls forward of the firing line becoming "lost" to the shooter. But for the state to constitutionally say you cannot pick up any of your own brass, not even behind the firing line, would, I think, require a statute saying that ejection from a firearm is a special act of abandoning, as you aren't specifically ejecting the cases into a trash bin. On the other hand, someone who packs up and leaves his brass behind, even .22 rimfire brass, is technically littering, as I mentioned above. There might be an argument to be made that requiring you to abandon your brass is requiring you to violate state littering laws and that one department of government can't legally require you to violate the law. If they then insist you hand the brass over to them afterward, that becomes an issue of confiscation of property you clearly have not abandoned and that would be arguable.
Based on personal experience I think you'll find, in the end, there are any number of government rules involving minor costs that violate the constitution in principle but that continue to be enforced because it isn't worth anyone's time or money to sue government in court over it. I can think of several examples. When it comes to costs too small for someone to take to court, they just get away with it. Collecting fees, fines, and, in this case, another few dollar's worth of scrap from shooters all adds up over time, and for that reason government jealously guards its income sources, no matter how small. You have to decide how much cost and grief you are willing to deal with before you try to fight it.
I'm talking about this from strictly an ethical code. Seizure and search of trash cans during an investigation doesn't even require a warrant, once it hits the street. It's not really valid, IMO, to draw the fourth amendment into it. Search and seizure in person, home, etc, it's hard to link that to whether the saloon can seize the aluminum cans that you drank. I'm not well versed in constitutional or other law.
Lots of businesses have the policy that brass that hits the ground is claimed as their property, and so far, I haven't seen it challenged legally, or won. I know that lots of ranges where tournaments are held claim dropped brass as well. scraping up the brass or mining the backstops just doesn't go well at most ranges.
I don't like the idea of a business or government taking what was once private property, the brass, but I can't see that it is inherently a violation of any law. Until enough people gather together and file a class action lawsuit against the numerous private ranges, we are never going to know what the courts will say.
Yes, if this is in fact true that brass dropped at the government owned range becomes property of the owner of the range, it is akin to the five dollar fees for so many things from not only government entities but all sorts of businesses. It's unethical in many cases, but not illegal.
One of the first principles of mankind is "can I get away with it? Woo hoo, I'm going to do it!
That is actually spelled out on a great big sign at our state range. 'fired shotgun shells are litter. collect them and dispose of them along with all targets or other debris.' They will charge you if you walk off and leave them. They could do it with brass, the salvage value of it isn't important. Leaving it there is illegal, but taking it is illegal, quite a conundrum.
The constitution is a few vague principles that are constantly being challenged, and when we get to tiny things like whether a city can legally feed traffic ticket fines into the block party fund instead of a more specific fund, neither the constitution nor the agencies that it is involved in will care. without some sense of urgency or importance, these tiny problems aren't given the time of day. But then something comes along like ATM fees that collect millions of dollars annually, and that gets attention
Let's define it this way then. A group of friends and I go to the city park to play baseball. I'm batting and hit a ball to the outfield and then throw my bat to the side to run to 1st base. Is that discarded bat now the property of the city? After all I did throw it and then run off!
Posted by me.
I did change ranges a few years later and I the range I'm at now caters to reloaders.
They told me I could take all my brass with me but only mine. My 9mms send my brass into the abyssal unknown so they watch me shoot 15 shots and pick up 15 9mms and leave the rest there and just smile.
They are fair with me and I am fair with them. I like this range.
Well, some people might try to make that argument, but its just barking STUPID!
Most of us would agree, and I am emphatic on this point, personally, my brass isn't "discarded" until I leave it on the range. And that doesn't mean when I leave the immediate firing line area to use the porta-potty, or get something from my car, or go three stations over to chat with a buddy. It means when I pack up my stuff, get in my car and leave the range. If I do that, and leave brass behind, THEN its yours...but not until.
I'm fine with a range saying I can't pick up brass other people have 'abandoned' but I'm not at all ok with the attempted theft of my property, simply because it landed on "their" ground.
They don't get to commandeer my car, because I 'left" it in their parking lot, either...
I can tell you a private business taking your brass (your property) as a condition of using their property as a range will not be any violation of law, especially constitutional as the constitution places restraints on government and not business. Government, on the other hand, keeping your brass on public lands? It could be seen as an unreasonable seizure, maybe, but still could be found reasonable as a conditional use of the facility.
As has been said, I highly doubt we would ever see any jurisprudence on this because of two things. I can't see a judge entertaining such a trivial matter, and this...
My club demands you pick up your brass and any other brass laying around. If you want it, keep it. If not, throw it in a bucket provided for it.
Good system. Keeps things tidy.
I'll admit tho that it seems no one picks up the rimfire brass.
We have separate ranges for CF handgun, CF rifle, rimfire and shotguns and they better not mix.
Good system. Keeps things tidy.
I'll admit tho that it seems no one picks up the rimfire brass.
We have separate ranges for CF handgun, CF rifle, rimfire and shotguns and they better not mix.
Signing a contract that details responsibilities and regulations at a private range settles it right there. Don't most private ranges require a signed conditions sheet? That's an agreement, a contract.
That's enough for any range. As long as there are written rules, using the property acknowledges the rules and shows acceptance of them.
I'm pretty sure that most if not all ranges have this or a similar notice in place.
Let's just take it back to basics. The owner of the land and facility writes the rules. He doesn't have to justify them or make any excuse, even if it's a federal facility. if you choose to use the range, you do so after promising to obey all regulations. Your semiauto pistol tosses the brass to the ground? If the regulation says that fired brass cannot be collected from the ground, that's once and forever the end of it. They aren't stealing your brass. You fired that ammunition under the conditions that the brass belongs to the owner of the range.
That's enough for any range. As long as there are written rules, using the property acknowledges the rules and shows acceptance of them.
I'm pretty sure that most if not all ranges have this or a similar notice in place.
Let's just take it back to basics. The owner of the land and facility writes the rules. He doesn't have to justify them or make any excuse, even if it's a federal facility. if you choose to use the range, you do so after promising to obey all regulations. Your semiauto pistol tosses the brass to the ground? If the regulation says that fired brass cannot be collected from the ground, that's once and forever the end of it. They aren't stealing your brass. You fired that ammunition under the conditions that the brass belongs to the owner of the range.
I don't know how anyone could possibly clear away the thousands of rounds of rimfire brass from an outdoor range. I'm not even sure how the nine and larger brass is collected from a gravel range. Hire school children?
Something that I have wondered about for years. A book that I read once referred to the lead shot being collected from an outdoor trap range for recycling.
How in the name of god does one collect tons of #9 shot from the dirt and do it cost efficiently?
buck460XVR
New member
I too am anxious to see what they answer, not that it pertains to me, but so there is a definitive answer. Again, arguing over what constitutes "discarded" is foolish since we don't know what the rules are. As briandg says, it's more of an ethical thingy than constitutional. Again, iffin you join a club/range and agree to abide by their rules, you really have no room to whine. Iffin the state wants to collect brass from it's free public ranges and use it to by backerboards and target stands, why would anyone with a reasonable amount of intelligence, complain? Now if a government employee is collecting pay and misrepresenting state policy, while picking up brass to pad his own pocket, I do have a issue. Still all of this is moot until we get a definitive answer.
The thread seems to have run it's course in so much that it appears everyone has dug in on there beliefs but I will say this to the above quote . If we are talking 9mm or the like brass that's pretty much worthless in the grand scheme of things then yes , what ever keep my brass . How ever there are odd ball cartridges in which the cases are quite expensive and hard to come by . Having to give those up just to shoot the firearm would be a big ask IMO .
I would add that "IF" I were willing to give up my brass as it hit the ground . The owner and or whom ever best not ask me to clean it up when I'm done . If they want it they can pick it up them selves
