National Guard Seeking Bids for Proposed Gun Range

Potential location for the Joint Base machine gun range showing initially proposed 1,500 firing lanes. Town of Barnstable

BOURNE – National Guard officials are still interested in finding bids to build the proposed machine gun range for Joint Base Cape Cod, despite lack of approval from the Environmental Protection Agency and some opposition from neighboring communities, as well as funding lapsing this fall.

An ad from the national guard seeking a bid to build a 3-lane gun range was in a local newspaper, with an estimated cost of the project at $8.9 million dollars.

The Guard has $9.7 million dollars in funding to work with that is going to expire in September after lawmakers chose not to approve an extension.

The EPA has also released a preliminary report saying the range could pose a threat to drinking water, though hasn’t issued a final determination.

The Guard could also go around the EPA’s jurisdiction by putting forward the range as an Army project, instead. 

National Guard officials previously scaled back proposals to only 800-yard lanes from 1,500-yard ones and said a range on-site would cut down on costs and travel for required training. However, 800-yard lanes would not be long enough to meet training requirements for large-caliber firearms originally cited by the Guard.