To the Editor:

I am writing about the proposed informal shooting range at the Brox property. Upon the Milford police chief’s valid public safety concerns about the current target shooting at the Brox site and his recommendation that target shooting be banned from the site, all but one selectman concurred with the police chief. That lone dissenting selectman is Gary Daniels.

Despite the fact that the Brox site is bounded by residential neighborhoods, that an elementary school is located within the site and that local residents utilize the site for outdoor recreation, Selectman Daniels was not swayed by his constituents’ concerns, nor those of the police.

His problem with eliminating target shooting at Brox: It would potentially interfere with people’s gun rights. Apparently, the rights of the local residents who pay significant property taxes to live in peace and quiet in their own neighborhood near Brox do not amount to much for Selectmen Daniels. Nor do the rights of Milford parents, whose children attend Heron Pond Elementary School, to be free from worry about harm coming to their children from gunfire, have any significance to Selectman Daniels. Nor does the potential liability to the town of Milford as a whole should a shooting accident occur there concern him.

It appears that only the rights of target shooters are of importance to Selectman Daniels.

As a concerned Milford citizen, I wonder about this, and why this is so. Could it be that Selectman Daniels may be influenced by his deep connection to the American Legislative Exchange Council?

ALEC is the libertarian-leaning lobbyist foundation funded by the billionaire Koch brothers that hosts state legislators on free family vacations at “conventions” in order to prepare ready-made bills for these legislators to present to their respective legislatures. As an N.H. state senator, Mr. Daniels is a state chairman of ALEC, and he is also on the national board of directors. Personal freedoms are a high priority at ALEC.

It seems ironic that in this situation, libertarian concepts such as the individual’s rights do not appear to matter when applied to actual Milford taxpayers. Apparently, to Selectman Daniels, only the target shooters have rights that need to be safeguarded, while the rights of Milford residents and their children don’t seem to matter at all.

I urge the Board of Selectmen to heed the police chief and eliminate target shooting at Brox.

Denise Clark

Milford