Tried a new tact with noise complaints

[CNYCacher]

Pulled into the hardware store today and as I got out of my truck, a lady getting into her car struck up a conversation with me. She had seen the parking sticker on my window for a club I belong to.

"Do you go to that shooting club?"
"Excuse me?"
-points to the sticker- "Do you go to that club?"
"Oh. Yeah I do? Are you a member there too?"
"No, I can hear the shooting from my house though. It bothers me."
She was very non-combative. She merely stated matter of factly that the sound bothered her. In an equally calm tone, I replied.
"Well, ma'am, that club is older than you are, which means you moved into the vicinity. Did you know the club was there when you moved into the area?"
"Yeah I did. . . I just didn't think it would be such a problem, they are shooting all the time. Couldn't there be posted hours?"
Now, this particular club is not heavily used. Unless the trap league is there for a practice or a meet, you are likely to find it deserted. Even on a Saturday afternoon on a nice sunny day, it is likely to be empty when I go.
"Yes, the hours are 8 am to sunset."
And then an idea struck me.
"Ma'am, if the sound bothers you, keep in mind that almost all shooters would love to put sound suppressors on their guns, except it is illegal under NY law. Perhaps your government reps would like to hear your opposition to that law."
"Well, that sounds like a much more fair plan than trying to get the club shut down. Some of my neighbors would like to do that, but I don't think it would be fair to you guys. I just don't like the sound is all.
Then she left.

Overall a nice conversation with a nice lady.

Has anyone else tried a similar "If you don't like the noise, try to get silencers [legalized,untaxed]." approach? How did it work?

This particular club fought off a big lawsuit to get them shut down a few years ago. Some guy bought the adjascent property and built a huge house, and then sued to get the club closed. He lost obviously. Club legend has it that most of the berms disappeared during the time that he was building his driveway

There is significant new construction going on around the club, we shall see how long they hold out.

 

[Kali Endgame]

This is third hand. They had a range here in WMCA and it was shut down because a local "Land Barron" built his house a mile or so down range. Story goes, he tried to shut the range down for safety and when that didn't work he shot his house and blamed the range. Influential family won against the locals. Now, there is no active, supervised range in the area, people just pull off the road and let 'er rip.

 

[hso]

Well done!

 

[Joe Demko]

I left the Collier Gun Club in Collier PA because of a similar situation. An upscale housing section/golf course (Nevillewood) was built next to the pre-existing club. The residents of Nevillewood had a lot of lawyers and money at their disposal. The club, as a result, had more range rules than you could shake a stick at. They weren't even safety rules as much as they were trying to limit noise by limiting how fast you could fire, how many you could have in a magazine, and so on. It was obvious that the Rich Folks weren't ever going to be satisfied with anything but the club closing its doors and that the club didn't have the resources to fight them indefinitely. They've managed to hold on, but I wonder if their range rules have become more restrictive.

 

[kevin davis]

Come on down to Texas. The legislature passed a law that protects gun ranges from encroaching development. The first one there gets to stay there.

 

[Henry Bowman]

Excellent!

 

[shooter503]

This is a recurring problem.

A tactic used by two local clubs is to get as many police, military and government users as possible. The theory is that, since convenient ranges are difficult for everyone to find, they will get the support of "officialdom" in keeping the range open.

Another tactic I would like to see tried is the "head-on approach" with a friendly (member) attorney. The Club simply finds a friendly attorney who says "Tough, my clents were here before the complainers - end of story". It actually takes very little work for an attorney to spin out a difference of opinion such as this over a long period - think years. The complainers may be rich but I can assure you - from personal experience - that a clever attorney who is willing to spend five minutes every week (gratis) on a project like this will eventually drain any organisation dry. There are complaints about noise - he asks the complainers to provide a detailed survey of times and volume. When he gets this he asks for verifiable decibel data provided by an independant company. When he gets this he seeks comparisons with other permitted ranges - if the complainers refuse to get a survey he tells them their complaint cannot be too serious if they are not willing to document it. MAN - this can go on for eons. I saw this trick pulled by a non-active but qualified attorney. He had another business but destroyed his opposition by using this "drip, drip" technique.

 

[ArfinGreebly]

Fight Noise Pollution!

Good call on suppressors.

It's funny, really. We have so many "pro-socialism" people in this country who look to Europe as their model for so much -- until you tell them that Europe is, in many places, completely okay with sound suppressors on guns.

* Sigh *

 

[JohnKSa]

Come on down to Texas. The legislature passed a law that protects gun ranges from encroaching development. The first one there gets to stay there.

Anyone know what happend to Collin County Gun Range? I was told that the town shut him down.

 

[Car Knocker]

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=218374

 

[SWModel19]

One of the reasons that I really like where I live:

Some time back, a developer bought all the down range property of our local city owned range and tried to develop it. All the land was sandwiched between "down range" and the city airport and was, at the time, too far out of town for there to be any takers. So the dude puts the land back up for sale, and the city bought it and condemned it! Even though development has now reached the edge of the the range and is coming close to the airport, the land between is off limits to anything but flying bullets.

 

[Eleven Mike]

I thought it was "try a new tack," as in the nautical term.


Good on you, CNY

 

[MD_Willington]

Good call on suppressors.

It's funny, really. We have so many "pro-socialism" people in this country who look to Europe as their model for so much -- until you tell them that Europe is, in many places, completely okay with sound suppressors on guns.

+1 to that... Norway is like this for suppressors...

 

[ptmmatssc]

my state laws

1. Acquisition of property near existing range. Except as provided in this subsection, a person may not maintain a nuisance action for noise against a shooting range located in the vicinity of that person's property if the shooting range was established as of the date the person acquired the property. If there is a substantial change in use of the range after the person acquires the property, the person may maintain a nuisance action if the action is brought within 3 years from the beginning of the substantial change.[1995, c. 231, §1 (new).]

2. Establishment of shooting range near existing property. A person who owns property in the vicinity of a shooting range that was established after the person acquired the property may maintain a nuisance action for noise against that shooting range only if the action is brought within 5 years after establishment of the range or 3 years after a substantial change in use of the range.[1995, c. 231, §1 (new).]

we have had a few people gripe about the noise at our range , but it was started and built in the 40s . Was expanded 15 years ago , then people started building around in . So far when they have complained to local law enforcement etc , they basically were told to pound sand since they KNEW the range was there when they built .
I do like the idea of proposing they support suppressors though (legal here , but the tax sucks) .

 

[xsquidgator]

Eery, our outdoor club/range is also having troubles as the problems described here. In fact 2 months ago the usual safety rules got clamped down bigtime after a house down the road had a .40 bullet go through a window. Almost certainly not us, unless someone on a Saturday went out into the middle of the range area and shot obliquely up and sideways, but we're still getting the blame for it from the homeowner. Our range is a couple of acres out in what used to be nowhere, but now there are 4-6 houses down the quiet country road, and a devlopment has gone up a mile awayopposite the direction we shoot in.

Our club handled it by adding all kinds of wooden baffles and walls all over what used to be a simple covered outdoor firing line. Now if someone were to go out there and shoot in the same oddball direction as this one house, the wood wouldn't stop the bullet really, but the absence of holes proves that any bullets they're getting didn't come from us. And it has cut down some on the noise coming from our range. We also used to be unsupervised but now we pay to have a range officer out there every minute the range is open. Same damn thing as what other people here have said, our range has been here 40 some years and just about every one of the complainers moved in knowing we were there. The homeowner is really PO'd but I have to hope that us 600-some members can come up with more lawyering than the homeowner can.

 

[mek42]

Forget sweet dreams of plum fairies. I'm going to have sweet dreams of AARP-NY lobbying for suppressors to be legalized here!

A good way to defuse the situation.

Rereading your original post I see that you made no reference to the lady's apparent age. Still, AARP is one of the most effective lobbyist groups in the US ... many shooters are chronically complaining about shooting not being taken up by young people ... this must mean that shooters tend not to be young people ... maybe the AARP might get interested in lobbying against the more draconic gun control laws as a way to protect their members' choice of leisure activities and safety. There might be an idea here.

 

[JohnKSa]

Unfortunately AARP is antigun.

http://www.aarp.org/research/press-center/presscurrentnews/a2004-12-10-oreilly.html

AARP believes in the Constitutional right to bear arms. But to make the nation safer, we must do what we can to keep guns out of hands of children and criminals. AARP supported the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which went into law in 1994 with bi-partisan support, but was allowed to expire this year.​

 

[greg531mi]

At our small sportmans club, the neighboring property was subdivided. When the houses were built, we went around and knock on doors, and invited them to join our club....Got a couple to join, and had no problems with the new neighbors.....
Plus, got some good members!

 

[Run&Shoot]

The club I go to has taken several steps that don't impact the members much.

- Work pro-actively with the local government. Stay in touch, get building permits and such. Just keep a friendly dialog going.

- We have a LEO range, the only one on the west side of Portland

- We dig deeper all the time. The club sells mining rights to our rock quarry neighbor. They dig the ranges deeper and haul away the rock, then pay the club! I think the new LEO and action shooting ranges are going to be something like 200 ft deep.

The surrounding town has grown a lot but the city is keeping a buffer around the range. Fortunately the club added lots of acreage over past decades and never sold any off, so there is lots of land to work with.

 

[rugerman]

AARP has always been anti gun! When I first started getting their junk mail I stuffed it back in the envelope with a note to take me off their mailing list until they honored the Second Amendment. And when I got a call from one of their telemarkiters I asked if they had changed their policy and if not that I would take them to court if I ever got a call from them since I'm on the no call list. And when any of my customers ask me about thier Part D plans I tell them that their policy is that we shouldn't be allowed to own guns it really makes a lot of the older guys who've hunted all their life really mad. rugerman

 

[straightShot]

I was in Sam's Club last week, and the guy behind me with his wife in the checkout line noticed the jacket that I was wearing and asked where my sportsman's club was located. I told him, and he said that he lived less than a mile from it.

His next question was how long we'd been there, and I told him that we'd been there since at least the 40's. I followed by asking him if he'd seen our place, and he said no, but "he can hear us before he sees us".

I wondered right then if he'd purchased one of the countless houses that are gobbling up farmland and woods in the area, moved in, and then realized that it gets a bit noisy 6 out of 7 days every week living near one of the only ranges in the area.

We have trap/skeet/sporting clays and a rifle/pistol range. Archery is available as well. We're not going anywhere.

 

[PinnedAndRecessed]

That stinks. I saw this happen in kalifornistan, too. Ranges shutting down because of new neighbors.

I attended one such meeting. Some idiot was there and said he found a bullet in proximity to the range and that his life was in danger. He held up a 38 special case. It was a kangaroo court and nobody pointed out what a moronic statement that was.

A couple other people testified against the range. They closed it down. But mostly on the grounds of lead contamination. The people who were responsible for closing it down vowed they would immediately clean the area of lead.

Seven years later and they haven't done a thing. They're nothing but self-serving liars.

You should have told that lady that complained about the noise, that Walmart sells foam plugs for mere pennies.

 

[straightShot]

They closed it down. But mostly on the grounds of lead contamination.

Try setting up a rainy day fund to cover lead clean up costs in the future. Charge a dollar per shooter per range per day in addition to the usual range fees, and set this aside. Eventually, you'll have enough money squirreled away to cover lead clean up should the need ever arise.

 

[macmuffy]

Noise complaints

Not a club range, but my private range.


Finally got to move back to the homeplace in the county. (5 acres)
Was sighting in new Hi Point 9mm carbine in back yard.
Range is slightly downhill shooting into a steep bank appx. 60' high.

All property is in the county, so shooting is legal. I do share an 80'
property line with the city.
Some city slicker called the cops about gunshots. I had three cars of city cops in my driveway. The first thing out of their mouth was "Don't you know shooting is against the law?" My reply was "did you not see the 'Welcome to ### County" sign as you roared up the hill?

They were not too happy with my reply, but there was nothing they could do about it. Also told them that this was going to be a common thing unless my neighbors (county only) ask me to tone things down.

Out of respect to neighbors, I will refrain from Sunday shooting.

 

[bob k]

Great reply to the woman! I'd have gone a bit farther and invited her to come to the club and shoot, as your guest. Seems like we have a potential shooter here.