Then move the school!

[Warren]

Arrrrgghhhhhhhhhhh!

Blissninny idiots being idiots.



Neighbors take shots at gun range
6/18/2005 7:07 PM
By: Kate Barker, News 14 Carolina



WATCH THE VIDEO


Marvin Gun Club

Neighbors say the shooting range is too close to a new elementary school and they want it shut down.





MARVIN, N.C. – A shooting range on the same street as an elementary school has many parents outraged.

The Charlotte Rifle and Pistol Club built a range in Union County nearly a half century ago, but now there are some new people in town who want the range closed down. With that in mind, the gun club held an open house Saturday.

“The purpose of the open house is to let people who have moved into the area recently who drive by and see the sign out there and say ‘What on Earth is going on back there?’” said James Peterson.


Gun owner Linda Geer is at the Charlotte Rifle and Pistol Club learning how to fire a shot.
What is going on back there? For one, gun owners like Linda Geer are learning how to fire a shot.

“My husband passed away last year, and for security reasons I knew it would be best for me to learn how to shoot,” she said.

A new elementary school is being built just down the road from the shooting range, and down the road a little more are dozens of new subdivisions. Some of the new neighbors are not happy about the location of the range.

“It will make me nervous when they are playing on the playground,” said parent Dorian Nicolosi. “It does not sit well with me.”

Nicolosi and two daughters live just down the road. Both girls will attend the new elementary school when it opens in the fall.


Some neighbors, like Dorian Nicolosi, are not happy about the range's proximity to a new elementary school.
”I don't think it should be anywhere near a school,” she said. “It shouldn’t be within five miles of school.”

Back at the range, there are mothers who say parents have no reason to worry.

“We went through a class even before they let us out on the range,” Geer said. “They are absolutely prepared to monitor everyone with a gun on this premises.”

Members of the gun club say they want neighbors to know everyone here is aiming for the same goal – to keep people safe

The Charlotte Rifle and Pistol Club first formed in 1913. Today it has more than 600 members.

 

[Kamicosmos]

Like the idiots that complain about the noise from passing airplanes, interstates, or trains.

Uh...it was there first. Kinda hard to miss it.


Get. A. Life. And/or a Brain.

 

[wasrjoe]

I hate those type of idiots.

 

[Nathaniel Firethorn]

I gotta say it. The range's leadership was incompetent. They saw the range being engulfed in sprawl and did nothing.

If it's happening to your range, you have three choices:

1. Get used to unrelenting attacks from the suburbatronic units.
2. Buy up all the land around the range as it becomes available.
3. Move the range to a place that won't get sprawled. (My range is located between the switching yard and the concrete recycling plant. )

- pd

 

[mete]

Unfortunately the 'grandfather clause' usually doesn't exist any more . They will have to fight in court but it may be hopeless.

 

[HankB]

This really turns my stomach - not because it's a RANGE, but because johnny-come-latelys think think they have a right to impose THEIR ideas on others.

I've seen this time and again . . .

* People move in next to a range, and complain about gunshot noise.

* People move in next to an airport, and complain about airplane noise.

* People move in next to railroad tracks, and complain about train noise and diesel fumes.

* People move in next to a turkey farm, and complain about the smell.

* People build a home on a flood plain, and complain when they're flooded.

There used to be a doctrine called "flying to a nuisance" which stopped this sort of nonsense, but with .gov's unrelenting attack on property rights, this seems to be a thing of the past.

 

[Lone_Gunman]

If this is in the Charlotte NC area, my guess is that the people doing the complaining are not native North Carolinians, but a but bunch of transplanted yankees.

Southern cities like Charlotte and Atlanta are growing rapidly right now, mainly from a surge of immigrants from northern urban centers. As a result there are some neighborhoods in these cities that are as liberal as any place up north.

I would support building a wall on our southern border to keep out illegal aliens, but at times I think we need to build one along the northern border of North Carolina too.

 

[DRZinn]

They're not even complaining about the noise! Read carefully:

It will make me nervous when they are playing on the playground

It makes them nervous! They don't even mention the noise.

 

[Waitone]

Former member here.

At one time the range was waaay out in the middle of nowhere. Development has been moving that direction for 5 or more years. I knew it would eventually become an issue. The sudden growth of the area is the issue. 3 years and it goes from woods to development after development. High end developments. . . .the kind that lawyers buy into. The club is run by a bunch of good ol' boys and they've done a good job of creating a fine shooting establishment. I don't think the leadership could have adopted since the development occured so fast.

When I saw what was happening I hoped the leadership was in contact with legal types. At a minimum I would have thought it advisable to begin posting advertising signs all over the place so that prospective owners would know up front of the range's existence. It also occurs to me the state (NC or SC since the range sits right on the border) bears some responsibility since it knew up front of the range's placement.

The report's focus is on the pistol range. It also has a three hundred yard rifle range. Pistol and rifle are on the private side. Public side has trap, skeet and clays. The range is noisey and has been for a while. Then there is the issue of competition shoots and so forth. Yea, I can see Buffy and Bocephus being upset at all the gunfire. So what? But then again, lawyers can tear up an anvil.

I move to another state so I had to abandon my membership. I knew trouble was brewing but it has evidently come far too fast for club leadership to react in a meaninful manner.

 

[slowworm]

My hom erange has a similar problem. We've been there something like 45 years and about 3 years ago developers built expensive homes with a couple of hundred yards of the firing line.

Fortunatly since New Hampshire has a law to protect existing ranges against noise and nuisance complaints they are SOL.

That didn't stop one guy calling the police and claiming to have had rifle rounds land in his yard. The police dutifully collected them and handed them to the club board for display at the next meeting. They were all unfired complete cartridges. We must have been using a mightly powerful slingshot to get them that far

Encroachment is a real problem and I think that over the long term it will result in the death of firearms ownership as places to use them get crowded out. Not in my lifetime but I strongly suspect that my children may be the last generation to be allowed to inherit the contents of the gunsafe.

 

[SMMAssociates]

A local club, which I'm a recent member of, is having problems with a neighbor who's dad was once president of our club....

The Charlotte folks have a chance with their issues, although it'll cost 'em. We can't shoot after 2300 in our indoor range anymore. One of the reasons I joined is that if I get the itch to kill some paper at 0430, I have a key....

Noise issue.... In the summer, the guy can hear us from across the street. There's more to it, but I don't have the details.

The good news is that we own most of the land around the place that would be "in the line of fire", including a nice lake and outdoor trap and pistol/rifle ranges, but condos are approaching....

My own view is that if you move in next door to the slaughterhouse, you've got no reason to do anything but invest in nose plugs. If somebody comes along and builds a slaughterhouse next door, that's a different story.

I've had the questionable fortune to attend zoning board meetings around here. The neighbors and I lost.... The guy who was being questioned was within his legal, but not moral, rights, and those of us who opposed him hadn't been informed that what he wanted to do was acceptable. At the end of the day I came up with two conclusions: The builder was not a nice person, and that the board had no idea what they were doing. I don't think they'd been bought, but I'm sure they had no idea....

IANAL, but when new law (which includes zoning board stuff) restricts your access to, or use of property that preceded it, then it's a "taking" - you are due compensation if you can't just get 'em to go away and leave things as they were.

 

[The Freeholder]

I see the day approaching when my range (also in NC) will be in this position. Unfortunately, no one seems too interested in doing anything to protect its long-term viability. The ones who actually own the land won't buy anything that comes open around them, and won't let any other members put up money to become land owners "because it'll dilute our equity".

Funny, it seems on the way to join a shooting range I made a wrong turn and joined a real estate investment group instead.

I guess I'll just stay as long as I can, and hopefully when Bad Things happen I'll be ready to move to somewhere more remote.

 

[Standing Wolf]

“It will make me nervous when they are playing on the playground,” said parent Dorian Nicolosi. “It does not sit well with me.”

Leftist extremists believe their irrational fears trumpt the nation's civil rights.

 

[Malone LaVeigh]

Leftist extremists believe their irrational fears trumpt the nation's civil rights.

Nice circular reasoning.

 

[bosshoff]

Advice for your club.

My old range (now home to a subdivision) had a similar problem. It was in a depressed lowland almost gravel pit-like area, and people miles away said bullets were hitting their houses. If there were actually any bullets hitiing the houses, they were probably drug related or kid related bullets fired from accross the street.) Their response was to install benches with super heavy duty ceilings, sloped down to about the top of the target rail (down field) Does this make sense? Basically if you tried to let one fly over the horizon, you would hit the ceiling, and it would richochet into the dirt. After this, no one could claim it was an actual possibility that buullets were leaving the range, striking homes. It costs them a lot of money in materials, and time, but it kept the range open, until progress closed it. They were sititing on a couple of hunderd acres in one of the fastest growing counties in the country. I am sure they got close to $20,000.00 an acre when they sold to a developer.

 

[Cesiumsponge]

A similar situation happened when a new child daycare center opened up within walking distance to an adult toys store. Once the parents and owners figured out there was an adult store nearby, it started to hit the fan. The owner of the daycare claimed pedophiles hang out at adult toy stores

Given the choice between a daycare for children and an adult store, I don't think a pedophile would chose the later. I never got an update on how that resolved (if at all). It seems like once you open a new store and weren't smart enough to survey the surrounding area for detrimental landmarks, you're somehow entitled to the cock of the walk, king of the hill mentality. The sad part is they end up getting a lot of support because it's "for the children". :banghead:

 

[isa268]

There was a great gun shop that specialized in black powder (Rebel Arms)here in Houston, that shut down cause they built a school behind its range.

 

[nico]

You guys think you got it bad, my "local" (an hour away) rifle range is at the county dump and the neighbors still want to close it down.

 

[Cesiumsponge]

I don't see how its possible people don't survey the surrounding landscape before they build something as important as a school, then have the right to kick the gun range off even though they were there first.

Maybe someone should build a new gun range right behind a school and try kicking out the school!

 

[svtruth]

Education

Although NC, because of RTP, has the highest PhD/population in the country, it also has the lowest high school reading scores.
Perhaps the parents should refocus their concerns, for the children.

 

[m0ntels]

Sounds about like when the yuppies decided to develop all around me...people were suing the farmers they put their cookie cutter houses next to when they'd go and spread manure and such. Man, who woulda thought a farm might not smell like perfume?!

Randy

 

[goalie]

Thank god Minnesota got the Range Protection Act passed this year. I am sick of people moving next to the Minneapolis Airport or an existing range and complaining about the noise.

:banghead:

 

[stangboy555]

It's all about progress.. hopefuly the range can stay, it's been there almost 50 years.. you'd think they'd call it a landmark or something..

On a side note, has anyone ever flown out of Orange County Airport in Santa Ana, CA? They have bunch of whiners out there who live by the airport so as your plane is taking off and as your ascending you can hear the roar of the engines... then you hear the engines power down.. apparently there's a law out there that says pilots must cut engine power to lessen the noise when flying over certain residential areas around the airport.

 

[jefnvk]

Same thing happened here. Some developer decided to put a subdivision down rage. When the people moved in, and found that there was a 600 yard range ending in their backyard, they were not happy. The gun club 'caved in' and tilted the range a little bit. Everything seemed to have settled down, from what I have heard.

People don't realize that when something has bee there for over a half century, you just can't move in and change it. Actually, they realize that they can, and that is why it happens.

I would bet that they knew full well that there was a range there, and decided not to raise a fuss until the project was too far started to move it.

 

[Crosshair]

The developer probably wanted the land and built all that stuff there so he could get it. :banghead: