Advice on being neighborly when it comes to shooting.

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As stated, each state is different on trespassing laws and how to mark your property. I would take the suggestions about talking to your local law enforcement agency about what happened and probably would talk to a lawyer too. Don't be a jerk about it but don't back down either. It is your land and as long as there are no county or state laws prohibiting you from shooting on your property, then enjoy yourself in a safe manner.

Here in Missouri, posts and/or trees painted with purple paint is the same as putting up No Trespassing signs. If it was me, I would mark the boundaries of my property per state laws. I would then add some type of fence around the sides and back of my range area with warning/danger signs that it is a shooting range. The fence around your range can be simple as some short T posts and one strand of wire with signs every so many feet. That is how the Mo Department of Conservation marks the boundaries of all their shooting ranges.

Trespassing in wrong no matter what the circumstances are and the neighbors coming over the backstop/berm was down right dangerous and stupid.
 
Speedo66 said:
They set the stage when they wouldn't allow you on their property to retrieve your deer. But, obviously, they have no problem entering your property when it suits them.

So as far as I'm concerned, screw 'em. I would call the sheriff or whoever your local law enforcement is and have them note that these people entered your property, and you warned them they were trespassing. They've now both been given notice.

After having been warned it is now criminal trespass if they reappear. You might also want to put up a couple of "posted" signs in their direction. Put a name and contact info on them as required by NYS law.

NYS Environmental Conservation Law:

"Trespassing
Trespassing is illegal even on unposted property. Instead of posting, a landowner or other authorized person may issue written notice to another individual informing them that they are prohibited from entering the property. The notice must contain a description of the property, what restrictions apply (hunting, fishing, trapping) and the person or persons prohibited from entry. It should be delivered by certified mail or other processes (ex: legal notice in newspaper) to prove that the person was served. At any time, anyone by the landowner, occupant, or other authorized person to leave the premises (posted or not), must do so immediately.

Trespassing on areas posted against trespass pursuant to the Environmental Conservation Law is punishable by a fine up to $250 and/or up to 15 days in jail."

Now, go and enjoy your rights as a landowner. Seems only their rights, and hobbies, matter as far as they're concerned.
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Well I haven’t talk to my dad since he’s the actual landowner. I’m not sure he’s gonna want to go this route. I know I would want to but since my dad also has a business on the property I think it’s probably going to be his decision to not do anything to piss off the neighbors.
 
Even deer become accustomed to firearms. We sometimes have a herd of them hang out on the hillside above our local shooting range.

Whoever involves law enforcement first often gets the presumption of being the wronged party. Asking for a deputy to come out and handle the situation is a good idea for a couple of reasons.

I probably wouldn't think of this in the moment, but I think I would point out that what you are doing is a normal part of rural living, you're doing no harm, and they don't get to enforce their personal rules on your property.
 
People shoot around our property everyday. One neighbor about 400' north of me, another neighbor about 1000' east of me and several others to the south and west. Most of the properties are 1-5 acres so we're pretty close to each other. I can see how some people get upset. Noise pollution is a thing. It doesn't disturb me but it disturbs my wife and other neighbors. I do all of my shooting at a private range out of respect for the neighbors.

I've been here for 26 years and just recently noticed an increased amount of shooting near our property. Two types of people are moving into the neighborhood from the city. People who want to enjoy the peace and quite of rural living and people who want to shoot on their property. It's a bad mix for sure and I expect the sheriff gets many calls about it. Some of the people moving here have no idea about the county ordinance that allows shooting on ones property. Then they find out that people actually do that. They hunt here also but it's pretty uncommon because of the population density and heavy undercover.

I expect the county to impose a no shooting ordinance soon and the majority of people that live here will be much happier. When people live this close to each other they need to join a range to shoot. That's coming from a guy that shoots almost every week.
 
We live in a populated canyon with homes and public hiking trails where a percussion cap snap will reverberate down the valley. I generally limit my outdoor shooting to airguns and .22's using Colibri/CB/CCI Quiet type loads to be polite- more powerful by exception only. I can shoot bigger stuff in my garage/ furnace room (built into the hillside). Everything outdoors is shot into a barrier system to prevent ricochets.
 
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CoalTrain49 said:
People shoot around our property everyday. One neighbor about 400' north of me, another neighbor about 1000' east of me and several others to the south and west. Most of the properties are 1-5 acres so we're pretty close to each other. I can see how some people get upset. Noise pollution is a thing. It doesn't disturb me but it disturbs my wife and other neighbors. I do all of my shooting at a private range out of respect for the neighbors.

I've been here for 26 years and just recently noticed an increased amount of shooting near our property. Two types of people are moving into the neighborhood from the city. People who want to enjoy the peace and quite of rural living and people who want to shoot on their property. It's a bad mix for sure and I expect the sheriff gets many calls about it. Some of the people moving here have no idea about the county ordinance that allows shooting on ones property. Then they find out that people actually do that. They hunt here also but it's pretty uncommon because of the population density and heavy undercover.

I expect the county to impose a no shooting ordinance soon and the majority of people that live here will be much happier. When people live this close to each other they need to join a range to shoot. That's coming from a guy that shoots almost every week.
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Normally I would’ve gone to the range but the range only allows me to bring one guest instead of two. If I was allowed to bring two people to the range I would’ve just gone there and avoided this whole thing altogether
 
Daniel - as others have stated, GET A FENCE. Depending on how many linear feet you have to cover, why not a single strand of barbed wire about 4-5' above the ground with regular welded wire fencing below that all the way to the ground. Just be sure of the property line and place the fence at least one foot inside your side of the line. If you can and are so inclined, you could staple all this wire to existing trees and use posts only where necessary. Put your "NO TRESPASSING" signs on the inside of the welded wire fencing right at the top. From the barbed wire, use heavy twine to hang foil pie plates (you can cut these into 4 wedges then hang at one of the points) so they move in the breeze, flash and make noise. This should help keep the horses further away from your property line.
Good luck.
 
daniel craig said:
Apparently they just buried it.
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Funeral service or celebration of life?

So without getting your dad on board, your hands are gonna be tied...since technically he's the landowner.
You can be angry, tell them to leave, etc...but depending on laws in your state, you may not even be able to have them trespassed. You can point out that you have permission to do what you're doing, where you're doing it and they don't. That may well be all you can legally do though. So before you raise further issue with the neighbors, you oughta consult pops and see where he stands on it.
 
Howland937 said:
Funeral service or celebration of life?

So without getting your dad on board, your hands are gonna be tied...since technically he's the landowner.
You can be angry, tell them to leave, etc...but depending on laws in your state, you may not even be able to have them trespassed. You can point out that you have permission to do what you're doing, where you're doing it and they don't. That may well be all you can legally do though. So before you raise further issue with the neighbors, you oughta consult pops and see where he stands on it.
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Well my dad came out to talk to them but he’s kind of a pushover. I’m going to have a powwow with him and see if he wants to do anything else.
 
daniel craig said:
Well my dad came out to talk to them but he’s kind of a pushover. I’m going to have a powwow with him and see if he wants to do anything else.
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It's ultimately his call since he's the actual land owner. It's a shame some people can't be reasoned with, but he's the one sharing a boundary with them. He may decide it's not worth the fuss.
 
daniel craig said:
It is really bugs me because I enjoy using my parents property for hunting and shooting but the more I have to interact with the neighbors the less I want to do that. I’m actually considering not even hunting out there this year I’m just going straight to public land.
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This is why I'm a fan of high shoulder or neck shots. They go down and stay down. No talking to the neighbors.
 
daniel craig said:
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.
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Ok wait, the neighbor shot your handgun on a separate occasion?

Coming up the berm, that is straight weird and crazy. You are not off base there.

and the deer thing, did the _neighbors_ keep you away from your deer carcass, or were they just out of town or something like that? Def if they kept your deer for themselves just because it ran on their property, they are straight jerks

BUTTT still, if you are going to “light up” ANY rural, small-lots (not farms) type neighborhood with small arms fire for the first time in who knows how long, a talk with the neighbors BEFOREHAND would be well in order
 
1976B.L.Johns. said:
Just plain STUPID in in both of those actions!

God tells us to love your neighbors.
Maybe you could invite them over to try some shootin' and target practice?

I know from experience this is tough to do, as I have had a tough time with tree huggers where I live...:(
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And I’ve had trouble with the tree-hugger haters! There’s boys out in these Management Areas that act like they’re 18th St, with their “hood” or something
 
Kyle S. said:
We have cattle, a animal rescue farm, a golf course, and a campground next to our property. The only thing we give consideration to are the cattle because the cattle are really close to our shooting ally and we hunt on the farmers property. We've had minimal issues with the golfers and the animal rescue people are somewhat new to the area so they'll have to learn to deal with it.
In your situation,, I'd assume their horses would get accustomed to the gunfire eventually.
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My first thought was “butter up those animal rescue people.” They can be a WEIRD bunch of people, and who wants a hard time from the crazies
 
daniel craig said:
It is really bugs me because I enjoy using my parents property for hunting and shooting but the more I have to interact with the neighbors the less I want to do that. I’m actually considering not even hunting out there this year I’m just going straight to public land.
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Don’t give in. The smallest, meekest, (legal obviously) no, is still stronger than the strongest YES!
All situations are different, yet you describe mine a few years ago nearly to a “T”.

Our solution was different and I can’t recommend it…:oops:

Video is everyone’s friend.
Good luck to you, sir. Do not relent, or They will be grazing horses on you Dad’s land…:(
 
I wouldn't concede anything.
Let them know they are trespassing on Private Property and tell them to leave.
If it continues, can the county sheriff.
 
Be careful because if even one round goes over to their property They can & will shut you down.
So be sure all of your rounds impact your berm by shooting close enough that they can't escape your range.
As far as recovering down game from their property. I'm not sure what your laws says but our laws has a loophole that many don't know about. I was hunting a buddies property with permission & dropped a doe just on the other neighbor's property. I went to their front door & asked if I could recover the deer. They blew up in my face like I was hunting on their property & said they were calling the law. I went back to the buddies house & waited for the law to show up. The conservation officer showed up & checked my licenses & permission papers, then told me to stay put until he gets back. It wasn't long he came back & said he will escort me to recover the deer. After getting the deer back to my buddies property I asked what he did to get them to allow me to recover the deer. He told me that being that they knew there was a deer dead on their property they would have to do something with it before the meat goes bad or he would sight them for Wanton Waste. He said he couldn't make them give me permission to recover it but they made a comment they were going to let it rot & that pissed him off. So apparently not attempting to properly use or dispose of the deer is breaking the law even if you are not the one that shot it.
 
JTHunter said:
Daniel - as others have stated, GET A FENCE. Depending on how many linear feet you have to cover, why not a single strand of barbed wire about 4-5' above the ground with regular welded wire fencing below that all the way to the ground. Just be sure of the property line and place the fence at least one foot inside your side of the line. If you can and are so inclined, you could staple all this wire to existing trees and use posts only where necessary. Put your "NO TRESPASSING" signs on the inside of the welded wire fencing right at the top. From the barbed wire, use heavy twine to hang foil pie plates (you can cut these into 4 wedges then hang at one of the points) so they move in the breeze, flash and make noise. This should help keep the horses further away from your property line.
Good luck.
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Signs are going up. The property owner (my dad) doesn’t want to go so fast as Barnes wire.
 
Howland937 said:
Funeral service or celebration of life?

So without getting your dad on board, your hands are gonna be tied...since technically he's the landowner.
You can be angry, tell them to leave, etc...but depending on laws in your state, you may not even be able to have them trespassed. You can point out that you have permission to do what you're doing, where you're doing it and they don't. That may well be all you can legally do though. So before you raise further issue with the neighbors, you oughta consult pops and see where he stands on it.
Click to expand...
Yep! That’s the plan!
 
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