The Ft. Devens Rifle & Pistol Club, Inc., is growing and it’s well deserved. The small gun club took on the United States Army over range access and won after a lengthy legal fight. This week, several club members returned to the ranges of Fort Devens for the first time in nearly five years.
There have been some changes, which the club’s lawyers fought hard for during several pitched legal battles. The club must now pay only $16.98 per range outing—that’s the club’s total cost, not an individual fee. If members want to shoot at plastic “Ivan” torso targets on automated ranges, the club will pay $18.61.
“That’s quite a bit less than the $250-per-range-outing Fort Devens tried to charge us, which the federal court knocked out,” said club treasurer, James Gettens, an attorney and Iraq War veteran.
The club can use two rifle ranges per month, but it gave up the right to shoot handguns at the Fort. However, most members belong to other ranges where they shoot handguns. They come to the Fort for the rifle ranges.
Another new rule requires the club’s range safety officers to complete NRA’s RSO training, even though many are already NRA certified. This is a major change. For years, Fort Devens range officials belittled NRA training.
Also, the club is no longer billed $140-per-day for “Porta-Johns” on the ranges, which cost the base only $2.29 per day. In fact, the Porta-Johns are no longer even mentioned by range officials.
History
The Ft. Devens Rifle & Pistol Club held regular shoots at the large military base for decades. After suddenly being denied access to the range, the club first filed suit in August 2022. The club won the lawsuit March 20, 2025. The Fort had 60 days to appeal the court order but allowed it to expire without filing any appeal.
Club members showed up to shoot on May 13, 2025, but officials wouldn’t allow them access. The club had been told they would be allowed to shoot handguns, so all of the members brought handguns. However. when they arrived at the base, they were told they had been reassigned to a rifle range without any notice.
As part of their initial legal response, the gun club filed a motion for an order of contempt against Fort officials, which scared base leaders. “Apparently, the Fort would have just strung us along indefinitely had we not filed the motion for contempt,” Gettens said Wednesday.
Two months ago, the gun club even sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Peter Hegseth, notifying him of the five-year history of problems that the gun club has had with Fort officials. The letter was written by Gettens. Gettens notified Hegseth that Fort Devens still wasn’t allowing access, despite its court loss.
“That dishonesty and obstructionism forced the club to file its motion for a finding and order of contempt, with supporting documents,” Gettens told the Defense Secretary in his letter.
Copies of the letter were also sent to LTG Omar J. Jones, IV, the three-star general in charge of U.S. Army Installation Management Command, Stephen Miller, Esq., the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, the Second Amendment Foundation and the National Rifle Association.
Gettens wants other private gun clubs to know they too can shoot at active-duty, Reserve or National Guard military bases nationwide.
“A federal statute provides that civilians can use any military rifle range constructed with congressionally approved funds,” Gettens said. “However, civilian gun clubs invoking this statute can expect to run into resistance. Our lawsuit is the one and only legal action applying that statute, so far.”
Trump Drops MOTHER OF ALL BOMBS On Dems With Census Demand… They’re DONE After This [note: Trump is ordering the census not to include illegal aliens and wants a new census. The democrats are counting on their sanctuary area illegal aliens to be counted to give them seats, which is why they invaded the country with illegal aliens and set up sanctuary areas. The census affects voting by determining how many representatives each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives, which is based on population counts. This process, known as apportionment, also influences the drawing of electoral district boundaries, ensuring fair representation for voters. The democrats were loading up ‘sanctuary’ areas for this purpose, to count illegal aliens in the census. And of course the democrats don’t like it, and there could be a constitutional question as well but the constitution is not really clear on if its just citizens or not although the democrats claim its everyone which would include illegal aliens but the reality is the constitution doesn’t say and SCOTUS has already ruled may times on other issues that the 14th Amendment applies to citizens. Yes, congress can order a mid decade census.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG0MOUdnByk
Illegal Aliens Rig The Census For Blue States, And Trump Is Right To Correct It.
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The American citizen pays the price in diluted representation when illegal aliens are counted in the census.
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President Donald Trump announced Thursday he instructed the Commerce Department to begin working on a census that does not include illegal aliens. It’s a long-overdue correction to a system that Democrats have exploited for years to tip the balance of power in Washington.
“I have instructed our Department of Commerce to immediately begin work on a new and highly accurate CENSUS based on modern day facts and figures and, importantly, using the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024. People who are in our country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Trump said.
Trump previously signed a memo in 2020 that barred illegal aliens from being counted in the census. The memo was challenged and made its way to the Supreme Court, which ultimately did not rule on the merits as to whether all residents — regardless of their legal status — must be counted and if the president has the authority to exclude nonresidents.
The high court however did rule in the 1976 decision Mathews v. Diaz, a case regarding the Social Security Act, that while illegal immigrants are entitled to due process protections under the Fifth and 14th Amendments, they are not entitled to the benefits of citizenship.
Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the unanimous court:
‘Neither the overnight visitor, the unfriendly agent of a hostile foreign power, the resident diplomat, nor the illegal entrant, can advance even a colorable constitutional claim to a share in the bounty that a conscientious sovereign makes available to its own citizens and some of its guests.’
If voting, which is a benefit exclusively for citizens, is off-limits to illegal immigrants, it would be hard to imagine that illegal immigrants should be empowered to dilute the weight of a vote by artificially expanding the population and increasing the representational advantage of one area while taking it away from another area that is populated by legal residents. And yet, thanks to Democrats, that’s exactly what they’re doing.
President Joe Biden, of course, ordered the census to include illegal aliens and other noncitizens and, coincidentally, opened the floodgates at the border, letting in millions of illegal aliens — all of who which could be counted in the census.
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https://thefederalist.com/2025/08/07/illegal-aliens-rig-the-census-for-blue-states-and-trump-is-right-to-correct-it/
Were there any consequences for the base commander or other “officials” in charge? It seems to me that the pettiness displayed in this fiasco should be addressed.
That’s my question as well. The base’s civilian attorney and the base commander were the bad guys here, and hopefully DoD brass has delivered smackdowns to them both,