As many as 90% of eagles brought to The Raptor Center at the U are tainted with lead, and a third of those birds die. Strong evidence also exists that some Minnesota loons (and grebes) that ingest certain pieces of lead fishing tackle die.

Should something be done legislatively about these threats? Arguably, yes. But McEwen and Acomb's bill doesn't make a case for these changes. Nor do they offer counterarguments to Department of Natural Resources reports — which their opponents will surely cite — that say the state's loon population has been stable for 29 years and its eagle numbers are increasing.

Grasping at still more straws, the bill lumps together all "gun ranges,'' whether indoor, where rifles and handguns are routinely fired using lead ammunition, or outdoor, at which shotguns are triggered in trapshooting and similar competitions such as those authorized by the State High School League.

Lead inhalation and other threats have been well documented at indoor ranges and the federal government has stringent regulations regarding their exhaust systems, employee protection protocols and so forth. No comparable risk has been established affecting shooters at outdoor ranges.

Perhaps good reasons exist to regulate shooting sports in Minnesota in ways no other state does — not even California. But considering this bill would deflate, almost overnight, Minnesota's fastest-growing prep sport by boosting their ammunition costs by as much as $500 a season, those reasons should be cited.

"Our son is 20 now, but when he was in high school, we didn't have a trap team so I drove him 70 miles one way to shoot with the Detroit Lakes team,'' said Shawn Ramsey, a farmer from Fertile, Minn. "Since then, we've started a trap team at Fertile-Beltrami High School, and even though we only graduate 35 or 40 kids a year, we'll have 50 kids on the trap team. It's important to these kids to be part of something positive, part of a team.''

About 39% of youth shooters don't participate in any other extracurricular school activity. The entire Fertile-Beltrami community helped field its local shotgunning squad. A farmer donated 30 acres for a trap range. The DNR helped with a shooting range grant. Raffles were held. Supplies and labor were donated.

"We're at about $600 a kid to field a team, figuring in shells, targets and uniforms‚'' Ramsey said. "But we charge no student more than $200, and if they can't afford that, we'll figure out a way to get it done through fundraisers and donations.''

McEwen and Acomb are correct that no one — kids, especially — should be put at risk while shooting trap, skeet or sporting clays, or by joining 4H. But they're wrong in proposing such slipshod and costly legislation without demonstrating harm.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of state residents shoot at outdoor ranges. As with other scatter gunners who have done so safely, and enjoyably, for generations, they're relaxed and "in the zone'' while cradling a shotgun and calling for a clay disc to rocket from a trap house.

It's when the Legislature is in session that they start to worry.

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