daniel craig
Member
- Joined
- Dec 23, 2009
- Messages
- 2,815
I had an experience today that I did not handle well so I would like some advice from the people here most of whom are older and wiser than I am.
So today I was out teaching a family member and their friend how to shoot. We live on 30 acres in a rural town and we have a large hill that was created from digging our pond that we use as a backstop for our firearms usage.
This is the first time this year that we’ve shot out at the property. I usually try to go to a range but because they were two other people and I couldn’t bring that many guests to the range I decided to go out to this piece of property. This property is owned by my family.
As we are shooting the neighbors decide they are going to walk over the top of this hill that we are using for our backstop to come complain to us about our shooting. Now these neighbors live about 500 or 600 yards away across a large horse pasture. They know where our driveway is and they know how to get on the property without having to come over the top of our backstop.
So they come over to the top of our backstop and start ripping into the new people I had there because they happen to be checking the targets while I was off in the tree line. They started yelling at us for bothering them and for bothering their horses. Apparently their horses got pretty spooked. They are definitely hippie tree hugging types and the lady was borderline crying and she was yelling at us. None of what we were doing was illegal… Actually scratch that… I let them shoot my handgun which technically in my state they would need a permit to do considering they’re over 21, so that part was unlawful. However shooting on the property at the time we were doing it is not illegal. We are not within the town limits and we are not at anytime of the day that could be considered disturbing the peace (5pm eastern time).
Me… Being an idiot… Told them that what they are currently doing is known as trespassing and harassment because we are not doing anything illegal. But if they didn’t leave the property I would call law-enforcement to have them removed for trespassing. Admittedly it was probably not a very nice thing to say and I could have heard them out and wrapped up our shooting for the day even though we only been out there for about 20 minutes to half an hour.
Needless to say my approach just made the situation worse it made them angrier because I wasn’t listening to their complaints. I generally don’t get angry and I’ve put a lot of time and effort into controlling my anger but I have had enough of these neighbors. I was especially annoyed that they came over the top of our backstop to come yell at us. Thankfully none of us were shooting at the time they had come over what have they been two minutes earlier we would have been.
How would you have handled the situation? What would you suggest I do next time?
Post Script:
I should mention that we have some history with these neighbors during hunting season because a year or two ago I shot a deer that ran into their property wasn’t allowed to go recover it and then was harassed over the phone the next day after they found it dead. Frankly I had forgotten about that situation until they brought it up while they were yelling at us.
So today I was out teaching a family member and their friend how to shoot. We live on 30 acres in a rural town and we have a large hill that was created from digging our pond that we use as a backstop for our firearms usage.
This is the first time this year that we’ve shot out at the property. I usually try to go to a range but because they were two other people and I couldn’t bring that many guests to the range I decided to go out to this piece of property. This property is owned by my family.
As we are shooting the neighbors decide they are going to walk over the top of this hill that we are using for our backstop to come complain to us about our shooting. Now these neighbors live about 500 or 600 yards away across a large horse pasture. They know where our driveway is and they know how to get on the property without having to come over the top of our backstop.
So they come over to the top of our backstop and start ripping into the new people I had there because they happen to be checking the targets while I was off in the tree line. They started yelling at us for bothering them and for bothering their horses. Apparently their horses got pretty spooked. They are definitely hippie tree hugging types and the lady was borderline crying and she was yelling at us. None of what we were doing was illegal… Actually scratch that… I let them shoot my handgun which technically in my state they would need a permit to do considering they’re over 21, so that part was unlawful. However shooting on the property at the time we were doing it is not illegal. We are not within the town limits and we are not at anytime of the day that could be considered disturbing the peace (5pm eastern time).
Me… Being an idiot… Told them that what they are currently doing is known as trespassing and harassment because we are not doing anything illegal. But if they didn’t leave the property I would call law-enforcement to have them removed for trespassing. Admittedly it was probably not a very nice thing to say and I could have heard them out and wrapped up our shooting for the day even though we only been out there for about 20 minutes to half an hour.
Needless to say my approach just made the situation worse it made them angrier because I wasn’t listening to their complaints. I generally don’t get angry and I’ve put a lot of time and effort into controlling my anger but I have had enough of these neighbors. I was especially annoyed that they came over the top of our backstop to come yell at us. Thankfully none of us were shooting at the time they had come over what have they been two minutes earlier we would have been.
How would you have handled the situation? What would you suggest I do next time?
Post Script:
I should mention that we have some history with these neighbors during hunting season because a year or two ago I shot a deer that ran into their property wasn’t allowed to go recover it and then was harassed over the phone the next day after they found it dead. Frankly I had forgotten about that situation until they brought it up while they were yelling at us.
Last edited: