Bullet went between me and neighbor!

Once I was shooting in an old dirt pit. This was a place that a lot of people went to shoot. My rounds were going into the dirt a good ten feet below the horizon. A truck pulls up and the driver tells us that they are hunting and are getting rounds near their location. In my opinion there was no way in heck they were getting rounds, but we stopped and left the area.

I'm not sure what the best solution to the problem is.

I really suggest actuslky talking to them, i bet you can grt abfeel for them in the proccess, as to wether there down to esrth good ol boys that made a mistake, or a bunch of idiots. The latter most likely will not care what you have to say. This "evaluation" can help you decide to call the cops or not. If ther the lster, i would tell LE of the event. Even though you may get reprocussions, and inform them you tried to talk to them and didnt feelvyou got through to them.

This is just my opinion, and you know what they say about opinions and... Erm... An area of your backside...

paramedic70002 said:

Once I was shooting in an old dirt pit. This was a place that a lot of people went to shoot. My rounds were going into the dirt a good ten feet below the horizon. A truck pulls up and the driver tells us that they are hunting and are getting rounds near their location. In my opinion there was no way in heck they were getting rounds, but we stopped and left the area.

I'm not sure what the best solution to the problem is.

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I bet the hunters said that because they were concerned about your noise scaring off game.

"...but we stopped and left the area..." Well done. Even though the guy was daft and most likely thinking your gun shots would scare whatever he was hunting.
The solution is hunters and shooters knowing and respecting each other via club membership. You did good.

I would have done the same Owen. No need getting the cops involved over someones ignorance. Now after talking with them and it happens again I would then call up the Sheriff.

If that was the case, i would have shot back, just kidding. I like the idea of setting up a good backstop and having all the neighbors shoot on that, mostly because it would be convienent and free.

Things aren't like they were years ago. I don't blame you about getting the law involved. If you know the people I would try and tell them. If not or they get their back up and continue then I would talk to a local warden or officer and get him to give them a casual warning. If that don't work, guess you need a formal complaint.

Tough call. Without more info, I guess I would have done what Owen did, except I would have talked to them in person. Face to face and non-confrontational. Yelling at them from a distance may have shut down the shooting for now, but odds are, it will start up again. It may be adults that realize that more caution is needed or it may be kids thinking grumpy old neighbors are just making noise again. IMHO, Telling the shooter in person just how close they came to injuring someone would make more impact than bellowing across the fence. Seeing where they are shooting, and whether or not they are taking any precautions at all, may decide whether other actions are needed. Instead of yelling “HEY, A BULLET JUST WHIZZED PAST MY HEAD!” , I may have hollered something like, "Can you stop shooting for a moment, I need to talk to you!". It also would have been a good way to meet your new neighbors and introduce yourself as a fellow shooter.

Shooting off 100 rounds with nothing but woods as a backstop near a residential area is irresponsible behavior. Even if it was their private property, kids from the neighborhood could be playing nearby and a horrible tragedy could easily happen.

If it was public land that makes it far worse, since hikers or birdwatchers could easily wander unknowingly into the line of fire. This is a clear violation of one of the most basic rules of gun safety and unless you know the shooters well enough to be able to be able to talk to them yourself, I would definitely have reported it.

I agree with the OP getting the government involved is a last resort. you never know what the mental state of the officer they would have sent over would be.
an overzealous officer with an itchy trigger finger could make a situation that involves a gun into a situation that involves a body bag.

It very well could have involved a body bag without calling the law. It's extremely lucky no one was injured or killed. It needs to be addressed ASAP. If it can be kept on the down low, fine. If it requires getting a LEO involved, oh well. I'm actually quite surprised at the tolerance for this sort of behavior that I'm seeing here. If someone had been hit, I wonder, would the tolerance would still be there? Dead due to incompetance or dead due to malicious intent, still dead either way. The motivation really only matters to the survivors and the court sytem.

This is obviously a critically dangerous situation. It needs to be addressed and completely ceased immediately!

However, the chances that the shooter was doing this deliberately are insanely small. And the chances that the shooter would keep doing it if they knew what was happening are also very, very small. Most shooters would be horrified -- nearly to the point of losing bowel control -- if they thought they'd just accidentally shot into someone's yard, near their house ... very near to killing someone!

A very brief, very polite word spoken personally to that shooter is all that should be required.

If you drove to their house, knocked on their door (or otherwise safely got their attention) and said, "I noticed you shooting a moment ago. That's great -- I'm a big shooter myself. But I need to let you know that bullets are escaping your range and hitting things in our yards over there...," they'll probably be apologizing profusely in a heartbeat and spending the evening thanking g*d they didn't hurt someone by mistake!

If they don't respond well, or EVER do it again, THEN I'd call the authorities, as your lives may be at serious risk from such negligence.

It seems to me that more and more people believe that their forst course of action on anything is to call the police.

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I'm not about to call the police about just anything, but when somebody endangers my life, that ups the ante a bit.

This is the kind of thing that gives all shooters a bad name. It's not just an honest mistake that anybody could make. Whoever fired those shots needs a serious reality check.

Kleanbore said:

Perhaps you could help us by pointing out just where anyone is expressing "tolerance."

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Maybe tolerance isn't the right word. How about "Reticence" with regard to involving the authorities? 1. that's what we pay them for. 2. Do we only call when a stray bullet actually hits someone? Incompetance can and does elevate to a criminal level all the time.
Seems to me, if my yard is your backstop, I'm no longer obligated to handle things in a polite and neighborly manner.

I recently found a spent 223 round in a spare upstairs bathroom. The round had gone through the wall, through the tile on the inside wall and lay spent in the bath tub. We live in the country with one mile by one mile blocks. The shooter was more than 3/4 of a mile from my house. While shooting is common in the "neighbor" high powered rifles are not (if you consider 223 high powered) and I had recently heard rifle fire from the area behind the house. I waited until they were shooting again and drove over to see them. When I got there there were three men using shotguns shooting into a berm made of stacked rail road ties backed by broken up concrete. When I approached the three stopped shooting and came over to me. We shook hands. I told him where I lived, and handed him the spent round. He protested that they only shoot shotguns here but I recounted to him that I had head rifle fire coming from his direction in the last few weeks. I asked him to either stop using rifles or fix his berm to make it safe. He of course admitted to nothing but no further rifle fire was heard from his direction. No one got angry and no police were involved but he is on notice.

The reason that I chose not to involve the government is that I shoot at home (with a proper back stop) and don't want legislation passed to restrict me. The government's answer to problems like this are always based in collectivism. If some people are too stupid to shoot a firearm safely, then EVERYBODY is held to the standard of the lowest common denominator and forbidden to shoot, even on their own property because of what some idiot might do.

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All of the above is true.

I wouldn't presume to second guess the OP, because I wasn't there. I'd also ask that we consider the impact of a wound or fatality. It it were appropriate to call the law, the cops would probably handle the situation without it becoming front page news. A wound or fatality would definitely end up on P.1, with a lot the attendant fallout that we'd all like to avoid.

normal people do not call the cops on each other at the drop of a hat.

A big reason why I am reticent to call the police is if I am doing something that is legal, but not PC or liked by them, they will try to stop it. Way too many police exceed their authority on a daily basis, unless it is absolutely critical to get them involved, one shouldn't.

On the other hand, I DID call the cops a month or so back for illegal entry into a neighboring vacant building. I did stash my concealed piece before talking to them though.

normal people do not call the cops on each other at the drop of a hat.

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With all due respect, bullets crossing your property isn't exactly "the drop of a hat."

I have never. Not once called the police about an issue with a neighbor.

Now, of course I am not saying you should ignore this incident and just let it slide, but when people are pointing out that calling the cops for what very likely was simply an accident will sour the relations between neighbors they are right.

Is it a dangerous situation? Yes. But here's my question: When you're armed, and someone almost runs you over, because they didn't see you, do you draw on them? Or do you talk to them? Or do you throw some choice gestures?

There are ways to solve conflicts with rational and more importantly respectful conversation in this case. Going to the gravest extreme really isn't always what's needed.

It's the same line of thinking as the people calling for someone to be booted from "their" range if they violate *any* rules. Or condone yelling at each other with guns drawn for a muzzle sweep.
Maybe among all the quickdraws, controlled pairs, bill drills, el presidentes and the like we should polish up our people skills sometimes? I swear, the world isn't out to get us. It's just filled with people who are less than perfect.
The first recourse among rational people should be to talk to each other. And just because someone does something potentially dangerous, disagrees with us, or even worse, doesn't like what we do ... doesn't bar them fro being rational people.

So my advice in this situation is probably to just ... talk to them, tell them how you really thought that was kinda unsafe, and to tell them you'd appreciate them shooting into a berm next time.
Alternatively, call the police, get them a bad rep, sour relations among you and the people you're living with and more importantly, put out more information about how irresponsible these shooters in the woods are. We should just ban them all, and call the cops each time we hear a gun shot, because they might be doing that again, right?

Carelessness is a by-product of the Me Generation.