Neo-Luddite
Member
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/n...Rgunranges.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=gun&oref=slogin
Typical 'you're not annointed in the cast so therefore you know and understand nothing' arrogance is highlighted in bold. It is illustrative of how people in 'authority' will attempt to belittle and dismiss any possible counter argument by stating that the opposition does not hold the proper credentials to have an opinion.
DOWN a winding, tree-lined road near the banks of the Passaic River, trap shooters blast away outdoors at the New Jersey Clay Target Club, making it hard for David Acosta, who lives in a nearby house, to sleep in on weekends.
“It can be bothersome,” he said. “They start pretty early.”
Mr. Acosta, 28, has lived in the house since 1994 with his mother, Gladys Masterson, 49, who said she did not know about the shooting range when she moved in but now fears it will hurt the resale value of the home if she ever decides to move out.
Decades ago, most outdoor shooting ranges and gun clubs in the New York City suburbs were on the outskirts of towns. But as development pushes ever outward, more people than ever live near shooting ranges, and sometimes in homes built on land that used to be occupied by shooting ranges, raising quality of life, safety and environmental issues.
Ranges and gun clubs cater to riflemen, skeet shooters, pistol practitioners, marksmen and law enforcement officials. In northern New Jersey, the shuttering of some shooting ranges has left many police officers in the lurch.
Donald V. Keane, the police chief of Cliffside Park in Bergen County, said that since the township sold its outdoor range more than 20 years ago because the real estate became so valuable, his officers have had to travel to Paramus or Paterson, about 15 miles away, to practice for their biannual firearms exams.
“There’s not very many open shooting ranges in this area,” he said. “The boom in the residential industry just became overwhelming.”
In nearby Demarest, James Powderley III, the police chief, said his officers practiced at a shooting range inside a garage in neighboring Alpine, an affluent borough, until noise complaints from the neighbors stopped them.
His solution would be for several towns to pool together and buy a mobile shooting range, a bulletproof and nearly soundproof 53-foot trailer similar to a kind used by police in Los Angeles. Chief Powderley is talking with police departments in nearby towns about buying one of the mobile ranges, which retail for $225,000 to $325,000 but which the New Jersey departments may be able to get at a reduced rate.
“Instead of having an indoor facility at each police precinct, they can literally bring it to you,” he said.
Though spokesmen for police and sheriff’s departments in Suffolk and Nassau Counties on Long Island said officers had ample places to shoot, Alan Chwick, the managing coach of the Freeport P.B.A. Firearms Center in Freeport, N.Y., said that he rented the center to many area police departments “because they do not have one of their own” and need a place to practice.
In Brookhaven, near the eastern end of Long Island, the Suffolk County Trap and Skeet shooting range in Yaphank, near the Long Island Pine Barrens, has become a source of conflict between environmental activists and shooting sports enthusiasts.
After decades of being used for public shooting, the range closed in 2001. It reopened in July 2006 despite complaints of environmental and quality of life problems from some neighbors and County Legislator Kate Browning. In the interim, houses had been built nearby — some sharing a property line with the 50-acre trap and skeet range — and many residents are unhappy about the shooting. Ms. Browning has created a committee to seek a better location for the range.
Keith Miranda, 57, who has shot at the range since it was a private club in the 1960s, says people who live next to a shooting range and complain about the noise are like people who live next to an airport and bemoan jets. “It’s no louder than people who clean their driveways with those blowers,” he said.
Johan McConnell, president of the South Yaphank Civic Association, which wants the range shut down, said noise levels at the range climb to 90 decibels (about as loud as a lawn mower), higher than municipal rules allow.
Richard Amper, executive director of the Long Island Pine Barrens Society, said shooting ranges create a health risk as well. He said that because of the Island’s acidic soil, lead from the pellets used in shotgun shells could leach into the aquifer underneath the Pine Barrens, which is an important source of drinking water. About 250 tons of shot has been fired at the range over the years, according to county documents. “People who use that facility often feel discriminated against because we’re antigun; it’s not true,” Mr. Amper said. “They’re not hydrogeologists. We are.”
Long Island, Westchester, Connecticut and New Jersey
Go to Complete Coverage » Rick Patterson, executive director of the National Association of Shooting Ranges, based in Newtown, Conn., said that 46 states had made gun ranges exempt from most noise and zoning laws.
People opposed to shooting ranges will use “anything they can to shut the range down,” he said, so they will complain about environmental safety and noise even in the winter, when the weather keeps many shooters away.
In 2005, the 70-year-old Lenape Park skeet shooting range in Cranford, N.J., was shut down for environmental reasons. Richard Cahill, a spokesman for the regional Environmental Protection Agency office based in Manhattan, said that lead from the range was a threat to fish and wildlife and that concern for wetlands near the banks of the Rahway River led to the closing.
“When it was built it was out in the boonies, but not anymore,” he said. “And when you have a shooting range, you’re going to have lead.”
Charles Sigmund, director of Parks and Recreation for Union County, N.J., where Cranford is, said that most shooters understood the county’s decision to close the range.
“I think initially they felt like they were losing a recreational opportunity,” he said. “But I think they realized that since an activity began 70 years ago, laws have changed and times have changed.”
Thomas H. King, president of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, said that the upstate shooting range he uses, at the Hendrick Hudson Fish and Gun Club, in Poestenkill, has been threatened by the same forces that shut down dozens of ranges in the region. Developers have long sought to buy the 120-acre property the club owns.
“It’s not going to change in my generation or the next because there are people committed to it,” he said. “But as the urban sprawl moves out, that’s going to become a threat.”
Typical 'you're not annointed in the cast so therefore you know and understand nothing' arrogance is highlighted in bold. It is illustrative of how people in 'authority' will attempt to belittle and dismiss any possible counter argument by stating that the opposition does not hold the proper credentials to have an opinion.
DOWN a winding, tree-lined road near the banks of the Passaic River, trap shooters blast away outdoors at the New Jersey Clay Target Club, making it hard for David Acosta, who lives in a nearby house, to sleep in on weekends.
“It can be bothersome,” he said. “They start pretty early.”
Mr. Acosta, 28, has lived in the house since 1994 with his mother, Gladys Masterson, 49, who said she did not know about the shooting range when she moved in but now fears it will hurt the resale value of the home if she ever decides to move out.
Decades ago, most outdoor shooting ranges and gun clubs in the New York City suburbs were on the outskirts of towns. But as development pushes ever outward, more people than ever live near shooting ranges, and sometimes in homes built on land that used to be occupied by shooting ranges, raising quality of life, safety and environmental issues.
Ranges and gun clubs cater to riflemen, skeet shooters, pistol practitioners, marksmen and law enforcement officials. In northern New Jersey, the shuttering of some shooting ranges has left many police officers in the lurch.
Donald V. Keane, the police chief of Cliffside Park in Bergen County, said that since the township sold its outdoor range more than 20 years ago because the real estate became so valuable, his officers have had to travel to Paramus or Paterson, about 15 miles away, to practice for their biannual firearms exams.
“There’s not very many open shooting ranges in this area,” he said. “The boom in the residential industry just became overwhelming.”
In nearby Demarest, James Powderley III, the police chief, said his officers practiced at a shooting range inside a garage in neighboring Alpine, an affluent borough, until noise complaints from the neighbors stopped them.
His solution would be for several towns to pool together and buy a mobile shooting range, a bulletproof and nearly soundproof 53-foot trailer similar to a kind used by police in Los Angeles. Chief Powderley is talking with police departments in nearby towns about buying one of the mobile ranges, which retail for $225,000 to $325,000 but which the New Jersey departments may be able to get at a reduced rate.
“Instead of having an indoor facility at each police precinct, they can literally bring it to you,” he said.
Though spokesmen for police and sheriff’s departments in Suffolk and Nassau Counties on Long Island said officers had ample places to shoot, Alan Chwick, the managing coach of the Freeport P.B.A. Firearms Center in Freeport, N.Y., said that he rented the center to many area police departments “because they do not have one of their own” and need a place to practice.
In Brookhaven, near the eastern end of Long Island, the Suffolk County Trap and Skeet shooting range in Yaphank, near the Long Island Pine Barrens, has become a source of conflict between environmental activists and shooting sports enthusiasts.
After decades of being used for public shooting, the range closed in 2001. It reopened in July 2006 despite complaints of environmental and quality of life problems from some neighbors and County Legislator Kate Browning. In the interim, houses had been built nearby — some sharing a property line with the 50-acre trap and skeet range — and many residents are unhappy about the shooting. Ms. Browning has created a committee to seek a better location for the range.
Keith Miranda, 57, who has shot at the range since it was a private club in the 1960s, says people who live next to a shooting range and complain about the noise are like people who live next to an airport and bemoan jets. “It’s no louder than people who clean their driveways with those blowers,” he said.
Johan McConnell, president of the South Yaphank Civic Association, which wants the range shut down, said noise levels at the range climb to 90 decibels (about as loud as a lawn mower), higher than municipal rules allow.
Richard Amper, executive director of the Long Island Pine Barrens Society, said shooting ranges create a health risk as well. He said that because of the Island’s acidic soil, lead from the pellets used in shotgun shells could leach into the aquifer underneath the Pine Barrens, which is an important source of drinking water. About 250 tons of shot has been fired at the range over the years, according to county documents. “People who use that facility often feel discriminated against because we’re antigun; it’s not true,” Mr. Amper said. “They’re not hydrogeologists. We are.”
Long Island, Westchester, Connecticut and New Jersey
Go to Complete Coverage » Rick Patterson, executive director of the National Association of Shooting Ranges, based in Newtown, Conn., said that 46 states had made gun ranges exempt from most noise and zoning laws.
People opposed to shooting ranges will use “anything they can to shut the range down,” he said, so they will complain about environmental safety and noise even in the winter, when the weather keeps many shooters away.
In 2005, the 70-year-old Lenape Park skeet shooting range in Cranford, N.J., was shut down for environmental reasons. Richard Cahill, a spokesman for the regional Environmental Protection Agency office based in Manhattan, said that lead from the range was a threat to fish and wildlife and that concern for wetlands near the banks of the Rahway River led to the closing.
“When it was built it was out in the boonies, but not anymore,” he said. “And when you have a shooting range, you’re going to have lead.”
Charles Sigmund, director of Parks and Recreation for Union County, N.J., where Cranford is, said that most shooters understood the county’s decision to close the range.
“I think initially they felt like they were losing a recreational opportunity,” he said. “But I think they realized that since an activity began 70 years ago, laws have changed and times have changed.”
Thomas H. King, president of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, said that the upstate shooting range he uses, at the Hendrick Hudson Fish and Gun Club, in Poestenkill, has been threatened by the same forces that shut down dozens of ranges in the region. Developers have long sought to buy the 120-acre property the club owns.
“It’s not going to change in my generation or the next because there are people committed to it,” he said. “But as the urban sprawl moves out, that’s going to become a threat.”
