Just what we needed for July 4. This is a problem I never imagined ever hearing about, certainly not in connection with the Second Amendment.
The Seattle Times has published what it credits as an Associated Press article by Geranios and Skoloff "Guns Blamed for Starting Wildfires in Parched West." (I didn't see it on the SeaTimes website when looking for a link, but as an AP product, someone will see it in some place which did post it digitally.)
According to the article, people firing guns in dry forests, the status quo in a lot of the forested parts of the nation right now, can and do start forest fires when the bullets bounce off rocks and shed sparks.
The article credits rebound sparks for at least twenty one forest fires in Utah, a dozen in Idaho and fires in Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico at least. One fire allegedly so caused burnt nine square miles of forest in a site south of Salt Lake City which required the evacuation of over two thousand people. Another reportedly in New Mexico involved a fire which burnt eighteen thousand acres started by one idiot loading one incendiary shell into a shotgun and pulling the trigger while standing in a very dry place. Of course the US government does not keep statistics about fires started by 'shooting' - that would be too easy.
And Utah has taken steps to impose gun and/or type of ammunition restrictions on public lands as a result,using a law giving foresters the right to act in emergencies. The head of the Utah Sports Shooting Council is reported to say that perhaps five percent of the forest fires in the state have been caused by shooters and the resulting sparks, although the article does not mention which fires and how small or large they were. I do remember that last year's monstro fire in Arizona and New Mexico was supposedly started by one campfire, so it is not in fact clear that small acts can only have small consequences, where forests and fire are concerned at least.
As a result, steel jacketed bullets, the presently alleged species of ammo charged with sparking on rebound against rocks, have reportedly been banned on state and federal lands in Utah, and, appalling as it sounds to environmentalists, lead slugs are being encouraged as not having the potential for sparks, no matter what else lead in the environment does.
There are details in the article about various fires started by bullet rebound sparks.
This is plainly one of those places where common sense is required. The quoted shooting club is reportedly planning to test ammunition to determine in its own view what the situation is with various kinds of ammunition, and says "If it turns out the problem is with a few types of rounds, we will not be an apologist for them." I hope we will someday hear about how that came out, and not in a Second Amendment lawsuit.
This is an appalling and interesting development, which sets up still another debate about balance and gun rights. Whether the fire started by a rebounding slug clears nine square miles or eighteen thousand acres, as reported, or whatever else it does, it raises the question about whether there are limits to the insulation of the Second Amendment since it is unlikely that the Founding Fathers contemplated starting fires with shells in Eighteenth Century configuration which could be used in hand carried weapons, which would reach out and touch folk literally miles away as forest fires do.
And of course,the problem with gun slugs is that they are not the kind of propelled weapon, like an arrow, where the shooter goes out and retrieves them after firing, even if that were possible, once they have missed whatever target they were fired at. For example, those who love to pot shot at beer cans or do target shooting of one sort or another when in the country are usually careful to see that people are not behind the beer cans, but don't do the same as to rocks and other things, as long as the resulting line of fire does not lead into a neighbor's glass window or a visible passing vehicle.
It will also be interesting to see whether the shooting club in fact does the ammo tests, and what it does with its results, since IIRC regulation of ammo is as important to some Second Amendment supporters as the firing devices themselves.