Acckkk!!! My one other gun club might be in trouble!! Arggh!!

[Tyler Durden]

Yeah, click this link:

http://s698.photobucket.com/albums/vv345/thunder69storm/?action=view&current=Title_01_01.flv

This is where I shoot 2 steel matches, 1 USPSA match and 1 IDPA match a month.  It would be a real bummer to see that club get closed down.

Do you guys have any advice?


Thanks!

[ericire12]

Do you guys have any advice?

Yeah..... Dont shoot at the neighbors

[fightingquaker13]

Was the rifle range there when you bought your house?
Yes.
Did you know it was there?
Yes.
STFU!
Honestly, its like people who bitched about construction noise at a college I worked at. Hello, been here since 1895, did you think we weren't going to be expanding? Unless we rept up on you in the dead of night, you don't, or rather shouldnt have a leg to stand on. In real life, I'd suggest you build a large berm. Cheaper than lawyers.
FQ13.

[Pathfinder]

Sounds like the club is working on the problem about the only way they can. Good rule of thumb for all clubs - buy all of the land within 1/4 to 1/2 mile around the shooting range to prevent the damn developers from creating these situations. Having houses built within 300 yards of the shooting range is not a good idea.

Sadly, if tools like the one interviewed get their way, the club may have to move. Whether the range was there first or not, a well-to-do sub-division with a lot of voters will beat out a club every time, especially where children (already thrown into the mix) and guns are concerned.

[Solus]

A range I shoot at has had a similar problem.  Two men who were walking on the site of a subdivision development across the river from the club claimed they had to hit the deck when they heard a bullet pass close by.  The club grounds keeper happened to witness them hitting the ground, so there was some credence to the account.

The rifle range was closed for several years, the club lost maybe half it's membership after that, but is now recovering with the rifle range reopened and membership climbing.   

New procedures, rules and physical safety devices where implemented.

I don't know if you care to contact them to see what they needed to do, or if they can help you, but the web site for the club is:

http://www.fairfieldsportsmen.com/

It is located in the Cincinnati area.

[Sponsor]

[Tyler Durden]

FW wrote:

I'd suggest you build a large berm

Let me see if I can get this link to work.  It should be a topo map with contour lines by maps.google.com

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=arnold+rifle+and+pistol+club,+arnold,+MO&sll=36.738884,-96.591797&sspn=31.14946,56.337891&ie=UTF8&hq=arnold+rifle+and+pistol+club,&hnear=Arnold,+MO&ll=38.307719,-90.411386&spn=0.015827,0.027509&t=p&z=15

So IIRC, the contour lines on a topo map represent a 20 foot rise in elevation.  So in some spots on that map there is a 60 or 80 foot hill between the subdivision and the range.

So you can't get much of a bigger berm than that.

Here is the same location but an aerial satellite view instead:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=arnold+rifle+and+pistol+club,+arnold,+MO&sll=36.738884,-96.591797&sspn=31.14946,56.337891&ie=UTF8&hq=arnold+rifle+and+pistol+club,&hnear=Arnold,+MO&ll=38.306305,-90.412095&spn=0.007914,0.013754&t=h&z=16

[WatchManUSA]

Muzzle Control!  Muzzle Safe Points!  The range needs to enforce and educate users.  Bullets shot into the air (accidentally or on purpose) may not kill anyone but it causes damage like that shown in the video.  People react negatively to bullets raining down on them.

It is unfortunate that people build homes near gun ranges but it is a fact.  Unless a range controls all of the land as a buffer this WILL happen.  There is a range near me that homes abut the range and the county built a walking path that gets showered with shotgun shot.  Unwise land use and zoning.  The range is paying the price.

Even Bill Luth's DPMS (DelTone-Luth) range is experiencing urban encroachment and is near the flight path of a regional airport. 

[Timothy]

Heck, my range is across the street from an Elementary School but we shoot only in the opposite direction and have several thousand yards of dense woods behind all or our berms.  It's only a 17 acre facility but it's down in a gully as well.

The Pincus is doing one of his CFS courses there in April.  I hope he's prepared for how small of an area we have.

[Tyler Durden]

Watchman wrote:

Muzzle Control!  Muzzle Safe Points!  The range needs to enforce and educate users.  Bullets shot into the air (accidentally or on purpose) may not kill anyone but it causes damage like that shown in the video.  People react negatively to bullets raining down on them.

Hmmmn....uggh...color me skeptical, but I am not so sure that the holes in these people's houses came from guns fired by legitimate gun club members shooting from the range's shooting lines.

The Arnold police department checked out the hole that is in the water tower.  They supposedly determined that the round was fired from across the interstate and NOT from the gun club.

[twyacht]

You should see some of the houses that line the fairways at the Rolling Hills Country Club,....

Errant shots, even if 1 in 150,000 rds. fired (at the range, not the golf course), can be lethal. Having a development that close to a range is just stupid.

Markham Park has a rifle and skeet/trap range, rifle range berm is about 50 feet tall, and heavily regulated by range officers.

The trap/skeet range has no real berm but downrange is a thicket of swamp about 250-300 yds thick. They R.O's mandate loads, and the park is surrounded by Southwest Ranches, Weston, and a host of retirement trailer parks.

All newer subdivisions.

Tough call on how to "regulate" a regulated range already.  Seems they could not allow hunting in the immediate area, and most of those stray shots would stop.

Is there an instance of houses "hit" every year? Seems the range is open a lot more than hits on a few houses. But the anti's will always blame the range first. Not some hunter who takes a bad shot.