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“Sometimes it sounds like I live in Fallujah.” So says Ted Levin of Thetford, Vermont. He and about 20 neighbors have signed a petition complaining about the noise coming from the nearby Upper Valley Fish & Game Club these days. “’I’m being a real NIMBY on this,’ Levin said, referring to the ‘not in my backyard’ acronym, ‘because it is my backyard. But the bottom line is, it will affect resale values when the time comes to sell or to pass it on to my kids, and that’s an issue.’” Here’s a thought: maybe he shouldn’t have bought a home within earshot of a gun range . . .

The Upper Valley Club has been in its current location for forty years. Levin’s been there for twenty. To be fair, use of the range has increased in that time, including police training and more fun bigger recreational firearms in use there.

“When we moved there in 1996, it was a place for people to get ready” for the state’s hunting seasons, he said at the Selectboard meeting. “It’s not the ‘fish and game and assault weapons’ club. It’s the fish and game club, and I would like to see it return to that.”

Levin says he doesn’t want the range to close down. The club’s current 20-year lease (cost: $1) with the town expires next year and the town’s Selectboard is weighing its options.

Proposed amendments to the Thetford lease include stricter hours, including banning firing before 10 a.m. on Sundays, and some limits on weapon types, including banning fully automatic weapons, exploding targets, drones and .50-caliber Browning machine guns, or BMGs, which are particularly loud.

The club’s secretary says they’re willing to make some changes to address some of the concerns of neighbors. And to try to keep the range operating and affordable (current dues are $15/year) for area shooters. Whether anything short of closing down will make people like Levin happy remains to to be seen.

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131 COMMENTS

    • or he could spend all the energy he spends bitching about his neighbor instead lobbying for the liberalization of the ownership of suppressors so polite plinkers can put cans on the end of their weapons. Write your congressperson, Mr. Levin.

      • My thought exactly. I was just thinking how we should start making these petitions public that way we can send a ton of names to representatives to release the reins on surpressors. Problems solved everyone happy, or at least everyone I care about is happy.

    • “Here’s a thought: maybe he shouldn’t have bought a home within earshot of a gun range . . .”

      this and what JtV said.

      Here’s my tiny violin for the homeowner

      .

    • Well, except the range is leasing their land, therefore there was always a risk their lease wouldn’t be renewed for any number of reasons. So, the fix isn’t that easy- the town council/government that owns the land should listen to all their constituents- if more people want it to remain open and operate is is– then the folks who chose to buy land next to it should suck it up. Or buy better insulation, double paned windows etc.

      I have nothing but contempt for the folks who buy homes next to airports and then work vigorously to try to have them shutdown or their operations modified. Unfortunately, way too many military base commanders caved in to these folks. Shortening operating hours making it more difficult to train, modifying entry/exit paths burning a lot more fuel (it does add up).

  1. OMG…evil assault weapons! Or could it be the police usage (including full auto) that really upsets him?
    The guy knows he is being a putz, but it isn’t stopping him.

    • In fairness to him I doubt he expected full auto fire coming from the local fish and game club. Unless game didn’t mean wild animals in this case. It does. The cops practicing there really would have increased the noise. They could change the rules to say “F the po-lice”

  2. Mufflers: You get a ticket for not having one on your car, or a nice stay at Club Fed if you put one on your firearm without BATF approval. And in many states, they’re banned altogether.

      • We should ban all black cars because they’re extra scary.

        And nobody NEEDS 15 gallons.

        And automatic cars should have a tax stamp and waiting list.

      • The dissonance it requires for people who believe that to not follow through is mind boggling. Yes guns are typically designed to kill, and yet rarely do. Cars are (for several decades now) designed to not kill under extreme circumstances. Yet they kill and injure many times more people. Fuzzy emotions aside it is obvious that guns are inherently safer than cars even with all the idiots out there operating both.

        • Fuzzy emotions aside, Guns are not inherently safer than cars. Over 200 million Americans drive over 3 trillion miles every year (DOT stats). While there are huge numbers of gun owners, estimates are around 50 million, guns are used far less frequently than cars are and for far shorter duration.

        • Farib, your stats are off. Try an estimated 90 to 120 million gun owners and 320 million guns. It’s an acceptable thing to make the comparison he did.

        • KarlB, the argument that firearms are used for shorter duration than cars is false for millions of gun owners. Range use is not the most common use. With a concealed carry permit and diligent home carry, its not unusual for someone to carry their gun from the time they get dressed until the time they go to bed. I don’t know many people who drive for 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, for decades, and never have an accident. Guns are pretty safe when used by an informed and serious individual.

        • @karlb My wife and I choose to live close enough to our work that we can usually walk the few miles instead of suffer through traffic. Carrying daily I would say we put FAR more miles on our shoes than we do on our cars. So far neither of us has even had to let anybody know we were carrying, let alone had something dangerous happen. Far more miles/use out of our guns than our cars.

          For a more accurate comparison to most people, where we previously lived and were required to commute at a similar volume to most Americans we still carried when we were outside the car . . . so in reality we put MANY more miles on our guns than we did on our cars. The number of accidents avoided do to our driving mistakes or the mistakes of others during our driving far exceeds the number of firearms mistakes/uses during the same time . . . which add up to zero.

          So no. I declare shenanigans on your intentionally flawed comparison. I would say that most EDC firearm get massively more use for their designed purpose than cars owned by the same people and produce a staggeringly low number of deaths (accidental or intentional) by comparison.

        • I appreciate having shenanigans called on me. You raise an interesting issue about what constitutes the use of a firearm. I can understand why you would count every moment you carry your weapon on you as use. That said, I am not sure I would define that as gun use, but your point is well taken.

  3. Huh. It’s really a shame there isn’t some kind of, I don’t know, device that can be used to reduce the noise made by firearms — if there were something like that I’m sure it would be cheap and easy to purchase, to help address complaints like this. We could call it a … “quieter”, maybe. “Noise-reducer.” Give me some time to think about it, a better name’ll come to me.

  4. The range was there first. Be like buying a house by the dump then complaining about the smell. Grow up and realize that actions have consequences.

  5. You know, that airport near my house really is annoying…they should close it down too and then it won’t sound like the air force is running drills over my house….

    yes, people complaining about ranges sound that dumb.

    • People complain about the air force base that is the economic center of this town and second largest employer in the state, they complain about trains big trucks ambulances and slaughter houses. As hank said to bobby “that’s the smell of jobs boy!”

      • “Bobby, how much do you think your shorts cost?”
        “A hundred dollars”
        “Okay, how much do you think our house costs?”
        “A thousand dollars”

        People and their misplaced priorities…

  6. Wait, they’re using what on the range? Full-auto M2 equipped remote exploding drones before 10am on sunday Sunday SUNDAY!!!! Man… My range now sounds boring 🙁

  7. After 20 years of living with New England’s swamp Yankees, I can tell you that they are the most insipid people on the planet.

    • One’ll get you ten that the problem in Thetford isn’t the swamp Yankees. More likely, it’s the Dartmouth employees and hangers-on who’ve been steadily fanning out across the Upper Valley for the last 20-30 years.

      • Yup.

        Read the linked article. It’s not swamp Yankees that are complaining. It’s the likes of the “retired foreign correspondent for the New York Times” and the guy who bought a house there 20 years AFTER the range had been built.

        Jackholes from NYC who left the city because they didn’t like the mess their liberal politics had created, and now they want to impose their arrogant rules on the locals in Vermont.

  8. I always love people like this. They buy Houses near airports, rivers, and industrial parks and then complain about the noise. Of course the river might flood. I have one question. Did you look at the house at night?

    • There’s a simple flowchart for people with this kind of problem: was the “nuisance” there before you moved in? If no, then you may complain. If yes, then shut the f— up.

      • See, that’s his claim, that it is nowhere near the same as it was 20 years ago. Whether he’s right or not is beyond my knowledge and everybodye else here, unless you happen to go to that range or live in the area.

        • Doesn’t really matter, IMHO.

          The range was there first. Areas and neighborhoods evolve over time, simple as that. If the local culture had moved away from firearms ownership and recreation, the range might not have lasted.

          Whether or not it’s noisier now, the potential was already there, just like when you buy near a mid-sized airport, or a farm, or if you prefer natural disasters, in a flood plain during drought years.

          Or, for that matter, if you buy in a neighborhood you hope is gentrifying.

        • Whether someone is using their property in way that creates a nuisance is not always determined by who was there first.

        • Pretty sure there were “assault weapons” like old Ted was whining about, back in 1995. In fact, didn’t liberal jackholes like him demand a law banning those “assault weapons” starting sometime back about 1989?

  9. Low cost, subsidized housing for the deaf.
    Or POTG housing. I enjoy a less than 2 mile drive to my club.
    When the wind is right, you can hear the sound of…..
    Freedom.

      • That is one of the sweet things. When I’m reloading and working up a new bullet/powder combo, I can load 10 rounds of 5 different weights or loads, run to the range and check them out.
        Or just go up and run some drills. Next thing I know, half an ammo can is gone and I have to pick up brass.
        It’s meditative.

    • Golf enthusiasts often pay to live off the green, boaters/yachters often indulge and there are similar places for track car enthusiasts and private pilots.

  10. “wahhh I moved next to a gun range I knew was there,I drank the koolaid and wahhhhhh I dont wanna hear those evil guns wahhhhhhhhh property values” This is how I imagined Mr Levin sounded while being quoted.

    I highly doubt that Ma Deuce is signing her sweet sweet song of FREEDOM on a constant basis at said gun range (if she is then Im impressed at that dude’s ammo budget) but you could probably assume this is a serious case of derp after this dbag openly used the term “assault weapons”. Hmm, who else has used this term in recent events? Might it be those with an agenda to push?

    Gem from the article:
    “But, he said, it’s the automatic weapons, which wouldn’t be used for hunting, and the semi-automatic weapons using magazines that exceed the size allowed by the state during hunting season, that create the most noise and are the most unpleasant.” Just like everything else, this has nothing to do with hunting (even if they lie their asses off to pretend it does) and everything with the fact that (another gem from said piece of cage liner):

    “People hear it and wonder what it’s all about, and when they hear it’s live weapons fire, they wonder if there’s any safety issues involved for them,” said Zien, who lives on Thetford Hill.

    • Uh… someone want to explain to the idiot next to the gun range that the ‘full auto weapons’ and weapons using magazines with more than the number allowed by law are…… drum roll please….

      Probably LEO officers using either their duty weapons or their personal weapons since they were (I’m assuming here) exempted from the law. Perhaps Mr. Nimby should contact the local LEOS and complain to them about their weapons.

  11. I could understand the panty-twisting if the homes were there first, and someone built a range near the homes. (I wouldn’t LIKE it but I could understand it). But this? This is just stupid.

  12. NIMBY huh? Sounds more like a NAMBY, of the pamby variety. Seriously though I can’t stand these kind of folks. I may as well request the woods across from my house to be bulldozed, because raccoons make my dogs bark and knock over my trash at night. Sometimes it sounds like I live in Michael Vick’s basement!

  13. It’s not just shooting ranges.

    They’re building houses on the site of the old Rocky Flats Plant in Golden, Colorado. The northern half of the property is now called the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge. The southern half is now a development called Candelas.

    The site was previously occupied by the Rocky Flats Plant, a nuclear weapons production facility. Contaminated by plutonium during plutonium fires and both uranium and plutonium ground leakage, there is no public access to the refuge at this time.
    . . .
    Plutonium “triggers,” also called nuclear pits, were manufactured at the site for 40 years. The triggers were themselves nuclear-fission bombs designed to implosively ignite fusion reactions in thermonuclear warheads. There were serious leaks from outside-stored drums of radioactive waste in the 1950s and 1960s that originated from spent lubricant used in plutonium milling .

    Plutonium can spontaneously combust at room temperatures in air, and major plutonium-based fires at Rocky Flats in 1957 and 1969 were the most costly industrial incidents of their time. These two fires took years for immediate-area clean-up, and many other fires occurred as well. These fires spread plutonium throughout the northwest corridor of the Greater Denver area, reaching into downtown by way of prevailing winds. As plutonium has a 24,000-year half-life, nearly all of this contamination still exists in some form, and has been spread by the substantial (up to 80 mile-per-hour) winds that can frequent the Front Range area at the base of the Rocky Mountains. Water and soil contamination was finally publicly reported in the 1970s, even though the leakage and fire-spread contamination had occurred many years earlier.

    As reported in the press, “The 1980s were no better for the U.S. Department of Energy facility, culminating in a Federal Bureau of Investigation raid in 1989 that shut it down for multiple violations of U.S. anti-pollution laws.”

    Anyone who lived in the area during that era knew about these issues, and would have thought it crazy to ever build houses there.

  14. The club’s current 20-year lease (cost: $1) with the town expires next year

    So it’s not as thought the club is the land owner, and has any right to be there, other than what’s stated in the terms of the lease/contract.

    • Unless I’m not understanding your post, I don’t see how this matters. When Mr. Levin bought his home the club was already there.
      Even if he had known there was a lease with an ending date, he had no guarantee that the lease would not be renewed. Therefore we’re back to were we started. Mr. Levin knowingly bought a home down the street from an existing gun range with the knowledge that the gun range may likely be there indefinitely.

      • Yeah, but it probably explains his strategy. It’s his opportunity to try and drum up support for pushing the town to close it. And all the shooters including LEOs who use it also have the opportunity to support renewing the lease.

      • I don’t see how this matters.

        The club does not have any right to be there, other than what’s in their contract with the land owner. And that contract expires next year.

        When Mr. Levin bought his home the club was already there.

        So what?

  15. If there was a range that close to my house, I’d probably never be home, except to sleep and possibly eat. And since I don’t have any firearms at the moment, I’d be that dweeb that hangs around all day and asks everyone else for a turn with theirs, lol.

  16. Maybe … Ted Levin accepted a bribe by a Bloomberg operative to complain as a local homeowner about the attrocities of the “assault weapons” being used at the nearby gun range. For decades, this was never an issue because nobody was offering him a kickback to stir up trouble … but times have changed.

  17. To play devil’s advocate:

    There are always two sides to any story. He claims it wasn’t used nearly as much when he moved next door 20 years ago, and that sounds plausible.

    His theory seems to be equivalent to moving next to a small grass strip used mostly by piper cubs on weekends, only to have it expand into bizjets every day.

    He has said he doesn’t want to close them down, just moderate it somewhat.

    I think I will wait a while before passing judgement.

    • I’m with you, Felix.
      He is just asking his neighbor (the gun range) to be the kind of good neighbor they used to be. Tone it down a little, please.

      Imagine that you have lived next door to a family with kids for several years. The kids grow up (they do that, ya know), and start a rock band, and they practice LOUDLY in the garage every Sunday afternoon. They are so loud that your whole house shakes with every note. Yes, I would complain, because the situation has gotten much worse than it was when I moved in.

      My concern with Mr. Levin in this case is: How much worse has it gotten lately? You can’t blame a business for trying to make a profit, but you can expect them to also be considerate of their neighbors to some degree.

      • 30 yrs ago, before he moved in, all summer long kids were out from dusk to dawn plinking cans all summer, and dads shooting skeet all weekend. I guess that makes high usage the precedent?

    • I’ll bet that traffic wasn’t as bad in his neighborhood 20 years ago as it is now, so what is his solution to that? I’ll bet that the school has more kids enrolled now than it did 20 years ago, so what is his solution to that? I’ll bet that the trees on his neighbors’ properties have grown taller than they were 20 years ago and now block out the sun for part of the day, what is his solution to that? I really HATE people that believe everything has to be frozen in time to remain EXACTLY like it was the day THEY first became involved. The thousand years before don’t count, only their perception of how it was on their first day.

  18. OK, Mr Levin is a bit of a NIMBY tool. That said, the gun range is (from what I gather) not privately owned. It’s existence, given its $1 per 20 year lease (and subsequent very low fees), is based on a town’s political OK. Therefore, instead of a compromise give and take between property owners regarding (increasing) noise, the whole issue becomes political, where outcomes are much more likely to be one-sided.

    If the Upper Valley Fish & Game Club were private and had associated property rights, it could negotiate reasonable noise limits with nearby property owners. And / or compensate owners during particular noisy times (evenings, weekends). And / or install sound barriers for large caliber weapons. And / or Mr Levin and his 20 neighbors (if market savvy) could pool some cash and offer to buy the range. And / or a thousand other options involving market transactions and negotiation.

    Yes, the range was there first and Mr Levin looks idiotic. But it seems there are complex issues here regarding a political subsidy to the range, nearby property rights, and what is a reasonable noise level from a gun range.

    • Sounds like the range is providing a “subsidy” to the town. Town gets a free range for their cops to train and qualify on, without having to spend a penny on building the expensive infrastructure a town-owned range would require, and without having to allocate the time and fuel to send officers elsewhere for range time.

      Ted Levin is a tool. He wants something for his own exclusive benefit — higher property values — even if it means his fellow residents have to dig deeper into their pockets every year to pay higher taxes to maintain an acceptable level of training for town cops.

  19. These damn Fudds need to get out more; the only reason they can be annoyed by the racket daily is because they never leave their land or do anything (which generally involves noise, be it woodworking, distilling, or banjo playing). I highly doubt the range is “ablaze” all day, every day.

    “State scientists from the Agency of Natural Resources took soil samples at the Thetford range last month to test for lead, but those results aren’t expected for at least a few more weeks, Rogers said”
    Yeah, I’ll bet. What. the. hell. does this have to do with noise? It’s obvious these tools are simply anti’s trying to shut down the range because they hate it. Shortsighted fools they are, I’m certain they moved in before thinking about the range down the street, and only recently has it become successful enough to gain their squirrel-like attention.

    “But, he said, it’s the automatic weapons, which wouldn’t be used for hunting, and the semi-automatic weapons using magazines that exceed the size allowed by the state during hunting season, that create the most noise and are the most unpleasant.”
    What, did Bloomberg write this crap? Were I an investigative reporter, I’d be interviewing local city council heads and people involved in this lease nonsense, and find out who it is that wants the club’s land. Noise gets people irritated, but not enough to do anything. Guaranteed there’s a councilman working to boot the club and pocket a kickback for facilitating a land-grab.

  20. Honestly, some of the restrictions really don’t seem that unreasonable. I like shooting, but I’d be pretty pissed about getting woken up at 9 am by someone touching off a .50 cal. Same deal with exploding targets. That being said, are either of those terribly common? Doubt it. Personally I’d say early morning time restrictions aren’t totally unreasonable.

      • My riding buddies from my California days and I had a saying: loud pipes lose rights.

        A bit of a different situation, though … As they come from the manufacturer, every motorcycle has an epa-compliant exhaust system and that includes noise levels. It’s the people who immediately swap it out for an “off road use only” set of “race” pipes – and this includes both the Ricky Racer types as well as thunderslugs – that give all of us a bad name for noise pollution.

        On the other hand, just about no firearm that I can buy in a straightforward fashion (eg no tax stamp + wait) is “quiet” out of the box.
        I wonder if the town has any noise ordnances. Getting some if not, or tightening / enforcing them if they’re already on the books, might be a more equitable approach.

        • I had a BN CDR at APG whose wife complained every day about being awakened by the sounds Eagles made while flying over the Chesapeake Bay behind their house. Whiners are gonna whine.

  21. It is public property, and if the City decides not to renew the lease, or to impose use restrictions, for whatever reason, that is a contract issue, not a property rights issue, that is the end of the story

    • That pretty much sums it up at this point. And it sounds like they’re taking the appropriate approach to lease renewal. FTA:

      Thetford Selectboard Chairman Stuart Rogers said last week no decisions have been made about renewing the lease, although a working group of neighbors, club members and other townspeople has presented a draft renewal lease for the board’s consideration. The board expects to release its own draft at its Nov. 17 meeting, with time set aside for public discussion the following Monday.

      “Everything is still on the table,” Rogers said. “Those (working group) meetings typically went to 11 o’clock at night. There were concessions made on both sides, there really was.”

  22. This guy doesn’t sound any different than someone who moves out to the sticks and starts complaining about the sound/smell of the farm half a mile down the road. Or about how they have to get out of the way for tractors on the blacktop. Sorry, I didn’t realize it’s easier for me to pull this 15 foot wide, 14 foot tall, 70 foot long, 55,000+ lb piece of equipment that probably costs more than your yearly salary, over, than it would be for you to pull your BMW over for a few moments. -End Rant-

    If I lived next to the range I frequent (or used to anyway)…I’d go broke buying ammo and clays…They don’t allow Tannerite though, shame.

  23. I’ll buy your house mr. Levin…$15/hour to shoot pistol caliber only near me. What a goof. Sounds like the dweebs who whine when O’hare airport in Chicago adds a flight. Yep it’s loud. You knew that when you moved there. Duh…

  24. Yea it’s ridiculous. It’s like a person moving out in the middle of nowhere in the backwoods countryside and then go around to all the neighbors asking about a petition to sign for a complaint on the crowing of roosters.

    You moved in, they didn’t – deal.

  25. Explained in the article was that twenty years ago, locals used the range for plinking and sighting in. Now you have mall ninjas shoulder to shoulder shooting longer, louder, and a lot more frequently. The homeowner has a legitimate compliant here.

    • “Mall Ninjas”? Nice. Half of those “mall ninjas” are probably the local SWAT, considering it’s a police range also.

      So they close the range and the police don’t train as much because they (theoretically) have to travel 50 extra miles to the next closest range. 5 years later they fire 136 bullets at a suspect and you’ll see this guy on the local news bitching about the lack of firearms training the officers have and demanding patrol officers be disarmed because they aren’t competent enough.

    • Regardless of the “perceived” loudness, the homeowner moved in next to a shooting range. A shooting range that has been there for 40 years. Deal.

      The solution to this “problem” is for the owner of the shooting range to teach the neighbor to shoot and give him a free or discounted membership at the range. We get one more happy gun owner, he gets a happy neighbor. Two birds one stone.

      I’d love to live next to a shooting range. Sounds good to me.

      • I work next to an army weapons testing area. Sometimes I here them test firing Howitzer and tank barrels all day long. Other days Its 25mm Bushmasters being fired and some days various small arms machineguns and rifles. I hardly noticed it after the first few days. When I do notice the sounds of the firing all I think about is “PLEASE LET ME HAVE SOME TRIGGER TIME!”

        This guy is just an anti gun nut.

      • Most of you people are ALL hypocrites. I’d like to see you trying to have a family outing or relax on a Sunday afternoon in the pool, and you hear nothing by shots fired for 11 hours that day, that’s right, 11 hours.
        PS Had not a clue that there was a range a mile away, tucked in the woods, from the house that I purchased in the winter time.
        Until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes, “YOU” SHUT THE #@$% UP!!!

  26. Some of you folks really need to wake up and smell the property rights here. The club’s lease is about to expire. And the landowner (THE PUBLIC) gets to decide whether or not to offer another lease to that tenant. Or not. Or maybe offer a lease with conditions on how the property is used. Those are the rights that go along with owning real estate, and any of you would want the same rights if you owned it.

    • Sure, and if the guy left off on “it’s noisier than it used to be,” I’d likely not have an issue.

      When we start getting into the whole assault weapons FUD, and saying people are getting scared by the noise, however, I have to ask if it’s noise, or unhappiness over having people with Big Scary Guns in the area.

      Personally, I get pissed when the local security force practices with their full auto weapons and flash-bangs, because we can hear the echoes from their training facility at the end of the canyon … they won’t let the rest of us join in the fun!

  27. There is a fairly extensive training facility in West Virginia used by a fairly obscure Federal Agency to train its personnel. During business hours, you’ll hear explosions, gunfire, tires squealing. It is the life blood of the small town that surrounds it which employs many of its long term residents. Recently, some DC and NOVA retirees have moved to the area and bought up the cheap land. Now the complaints are rolling in. Not from the ones who work there, who’ve lived there for years and who’s kids now work there, but from the DC elites who went out there on the weekend when the place is largely quieter (except for an occasional race) and bought up the cheap land thinking what a great deal it was. They then retired there built McMansions and then Monday morning, woke up to ¼ stick of dynamite charges, immediate action gunfire and tires squealing and said WTF!! They had clout and influence and complained – a lot. These career government workers and contractors are now their upset that their million dollar investments are smack in the middle of what sounds like a war zone, and they want their liberal buddies in DC to shut it down. I say liberal because it took a lot of lobbying by conservative politicians to get the facility to the size it is now. I’ve watched it grow from a few shacks at the fringe of the race track to the comprehensive facility it is today.

    Well, they got their way. The fight wasn’t worth it and a site for a new training facility was chosen. It is moving to Southern Virginia and opening a new facility to the welcoming arms of a new small town that saw their local based reduced to almost nothing by the BRAC . I wonder what will happen to the residents of that town in W.VA? Any guesses?

  28. Cavalier Rifle & Pistol Club, about 25miles outside of Richmond, VA, had similar issues several years ago. Jackwagons from DC moving down and complaining about the noise; the club was started in the late 50s, early 60s so has been here a LONG time. The club owns their land, roughly 500acres, so didn’t have to contend w/ a lease but did have to fight back zoning changes.

    I’ll never forgot some anti standing up before the county board of commissioners and saying “It sounds like downtown Baghdad” and how her son was terrified to come out of his room. The next speaker was a Major from the VA National Guard who had just returned from a deployment to Iraq, literally only home a few weeks, we’re open carry and he had a Browning hi power on his hip and he turns and looks her square in the eye and says “Ma’am, I just returned from Baghdad and I can assure you that it does NOT sound like downtown Baghdad.”

    It was a thing of beauty! She couldn’t have shrank any smaller in her chair.

    End result, Cav RPC had to add additional noise dampening mods to some of the ranges and ended up rebuilding the long distance range into a much better range…and membership went UP. Some restrictions on hours but were not onerous. In the end, there are probably waaayyyy more rounds fired per week there now than before.

    Thankfully our county isnt run by a bunch of commies.

  29. This guy reminds me of people who buy/build houses beside airports or in front of the runways and then complain about the noise. The stupid gene runs deep in this one it does.

  30. This is no different than people who buy a home near an airport. In both cases the home prices are based on the proximity to a location that generates noise – if you bought the same home in an area where there is no pre-existing noise, you would pay a lot more for the same home.

    Bottom line – 20 years earlier you were able to buy a home in your price range because of the proximity to a gun range. Now you want the range to disappear so that value of your property can increase? Too bad – you took advantage of the home price when you bought it, so live with your decision.

    • Yep. There’s a reason there are real estate disclosures when you buy. If the seller didn’t disclose there was a range, airport, smelly-chicken farm, or whatever– sue the seller.

  31. Interesting name, “Ted Levin,” he must be a New York Mennonite. seems like it would be easier to poke a screwdriover in both ears. no noise problem, then, eh?
    Does raise a suspicion that a co-religionist like Mayor Toolberg may be in the picture.

        • he forgot to add in the Mormons, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and a few more….they are all pretty anti-gun rights too.

        • JAXD,
          Sounds bad I know but the story reminds me of one about 20 years ago. They moved into a neighborhood in Florida with one of the oldest churches in the country. It had been ringing its bells every day for about 300 years. Guess what they wanted stopped?

        • “Jews”? Really? Tell that to the members of the ORTHODOX Jewish gun club in NJ, the Jews for the Preservation Of FIrearms Ownership and the Cam and Comany crew with at least one Jewish member or Alan Gottlieb.

          Ray from Bloombergia
          NRA Life

        • Mormons are VERY pro-2A as were the Koreans in L.A. during the Rodney King riots. Half the guys who shoot at the public range in the Bronx are either black or Hispanic. Yes, we DO have a gun club and you can shoot on an hourly basis.

          Ray from Bloombergia

        • Must be tough keeping a gun range open in NYC. Bloomberg was bad enough but de Blasio has to be even worse on gun rights. Cops can’t and won’t protect the citizens of this country so the citizen has to have the ability to do the job himself.

          I remember watching an old western on TV and a lynch mob was going to storm the jail to break a prisoner out to hang him. The sheriff steps out with a short barreled 12 gauge double barrel shotgun. The leader of the mob said he could only shoot 2 of them and the rest would get the prisoner. The Sheriff looked at him and said “You’re right. Which two people will it be?” No one stepped forward.” No one did. Just as the rioting mobs during Rodney king left the stores alone that were guarded by people with guns.

  32. I see a gun ranges in close proximity to houses like golf coarses.. Most golfers would love to live on a golf coarse… So would people who enjoy shooting sports.

  33. Suppressors are illegal in VT, but I really wish they were legal, as I know many shooters who would like to install them on their rifles and pistols for target shooting and hunting. I think it would be appreciated by shooters and non-shooters alike. They were originally outlawed to try to discourage “poaching”, but seems like one who poaches will do so regardless, so would be beneficial if we had the choice to use a suppressor. I like to shoot, but try to be respectful of location and times I shoot. I would not like to live next to a range where I had no control of the hours of operation. In VT, the Act250 environmental laws dictate no more than 90 decibels at the property line for commercial business (unless overruled by “public good”)

  34. To be fair, the complaint seems to be the surge in use at the club with the increase in noise. Yes the club was there but it has apparently grown considerably.
    As for the airport analogy, there are exceptions, like the Orange County CA airport.
    I saw it go from a small field with recreational weekend Piper Cub flights and small commuter craft to a hub with large jet traffic. The occasional drone of a small four seat plane was replaced by the regular takeoff and landing of hundred seat jets.
    It seems to be the same case here.

  35. 1) Man makes dumb financial decision.
    2) Man expects the world around him to change such that it counteracts the effects of his dumb financial decision.

    Sounds about right.

    • If we could pay a non-inflated cost for suppression, requiring that we remove the artificial scarcity and barriers to buying them, then these relatively simple parts would be common on most recreational firearms. I’d have one for every rifle I shoot.

      • i very much agree.
        I do not see valid arguments that a suppressor makes a weapon a bigger risk to the public.\, any more than a vehicle capable of exceeding the speed limit is more likely to be driven over the speed limit – just don’t break the law, or suffer the consequences (“you can, thus you will, thus guilty”).
        suppressors would make shooting sports more enjoyable for all involved, and prevent hearing damage in a home self-defense situation.

  36. “…it will affect resale values when the time comes to sell…”

    Well, how do you think having a gun range you can’t shoot at will affect its resell value? Idiot.

  37. Noise cannot be that bad, since the vegetation and barrier around the shooting ranges take way most of the noise and makes it negligible. They are not blowing up high explosives, so unless they are shooting directly from behind your kitchen or inside of you property within a hundred yards, you do not have a problem. In Aberdeen Proving Grounds, MD some of the shooting ranges have Bald and Brown Eagles habitats that have been doing very well in spite of the noise below from 25mm chain guns; the only really bad noise in that place are not small arms but the 120mm tank main guns they use in testing ammunition and that is real damaging noise if you are within a half of a mile. The noise of rifles and pistols disperses very fast in the air and this guy cannot be living so close that it bothers him, so it is just mostly whimsical complaining. So sell the house to a sports enthusiast with the proximity of the range as an asset or screw him and his kids with unreasonable demands and good luck with the speculation of the future value that he wants for his house. Should have bought a house else where and far from the beaten path. Some offices and certainly all rock concerts display more decibels by far than shooting ranges.

  38. The crybaby neighbors assumed the risk of noise, and increasing noise, when they moved in.

    An outdoor gun range is a valuable component of a community, regardless whether it is employed primarily for sighting in hunting rifles in season, or other firearms recreation year round. The town would be unwise to shut it down or substantially degrade its usefulness with new restrictions.

    That said, it’s town property. If the range operates as a for profit enterprise, then they should go buy their own land and not guzzle from the public trough with a dollar per year lease. If the city does choose to shut it down, then that’s their right to do so with their property.

    The crybaby range operators assumed the risk of political vicissitudes when they signed their lease with the city.

    • Dude the range operator is doing the city a BIG favor as the range saves the city a ton of money. Having to build and maintain a firing range and hire the additional personnel it would take to run it. And if the guy was so stupid as to buy a house near a firing range then he should just STFU. No one forced him to move there.

  39. Mr Levin has admitted his primary concern is financial. Therefore, he is interfering with a private business (which is probably some sort of a crime, or a tort?) and he is putting himself first before his communities safety, by denying the local LEOs the ability to train.

    In my little town the cops had a simple range 5 minutes from the main office. Then the suburbs closed in, and they had to shut it down. Then they had to drive 1.5 hours in traffic to a range far out in the sticks. Cost the city a lot in wasted hours and reduced effectiveness.

    Someone needs to go to city council, and point out that selfish NIMBYs cost the entire community in precious tax dollars, and lower safety. A letter to the editor in the local paper helps.

  40. why doesn’t he just buy a gun and go shooting at the range, to take out his aggression on people shooting at the range? get it?

  41. The world is full of assholes that think because they made a mistake the world should change in order to make up for their mistake……..we are democrats are loosing seats and the world is catching up.

  42. I’m late to the party again.
    Sounds like the same thing we have going on at my local club. Club has been there since the 50’s now it’s surrounded by houses. The most vocal complainant is a Marine Veteran of all things. We have put up sound barriers, planted trees, reduced shooting hours, limited types of firearms, all that. Spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to be good neighbors but I’m sure our clubs days are numbered. Once again one or two loud mouth, selfish pricks will ruin it for the many. Bottom line is we need more shooting facilities in most locations around the country.

  43. Let’s be honest… You all are clearly dilusional on this topic.

    If a gun range which was previously fairly quiet 20 years ago starts pumping daily semi auto rapid fire you would be upset too. I don’t blame this guy, I love shooting but in no way want that noise near or next to my house. Kills resale and is a burdon for safety… No parent is going to want their kids running around with eventhe smallest risk of overshot or ricochet.

    When its in your back yard then we will talk… Blah blah blah

    • “No parent is going to want their kids running around with even the smallest risk of overshot or ricochet.”
      Well, gee, that risk is extant whether it is two fudds sighting in their 06’s for deer season or twenty mall ninja’s with AR’s.
      So I guess the alluded change in range activity really makes no difference in that regard, huh? Even the two fudds are a small risk.

      • The gun range has been there for over 30 years and no one has been shot yet. Bet that’s a better record than the road in front of this guys house.

  44. I’ll double down here.. Because why the hell not. I’ve been reading this site for years and this comment thread has out me over the edge. Are you guys so shat dilusional to defend the gun range in this case. Its people’s lives and livelyhood.. Their property. You all talk a good game but if I brought a high volume shooter course to your back yard you would be livid.. Just not on the internet where everyone can be an asshole ostrich ..

  45. Tip to gun ranges….. stop leasing property. I understand it is cheap, but then you end up with this crap. How many times do we read about ranges having issues when leases are due for renewal? Prior to this lease being signed, the range should have started looking for land to buy. I’d suggest start looking right now, just in case.

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