Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire We lost our rifle range....caution this could happen to you.

Our local rifle and pistol club has been leasing this land for 63 years. At one time the land ws at the end of a dirt road several miles from civilization...no longer. This land is owned by a local timber company which has leased it to the club all these years. but now civilzation is surrounding the old range. the hand writing was on the wall and has been there for several year ever sence the road was paved and improved to make a loop for several miles to other areas that have lakes and swamps that have been made into lakes. The land has value, much more than it's timberland classifacition.
what caused the demise of the range was the encroachment of people. The property on two sides was purchased by a developer and he had the state Department of Ecology close the range down due to the lead in the soil. This tactic will contiue to be used to close nearly any range around. The indoor ranges will not be exempt either. The anti's have another method to attack us and we have no defence due to the very nature of our sport.

Bullwnkl.

Leased property is always at risk.

Owned property is a whole different matter.

Still, it's a very good warning, and I am sorry for you fellas.

It happened to the Tucson Rod and Gun Club too, it was formed in the 30"s I think but was on leased land from the Forrest Service or BLM. The anti's and touristas got it closed down.

Yes sir the caution evolves around the "lead" not that the land is owned or leased. Which has no bearing on the fact that lead is now concidered a hazardous material and will be used against us to get out facilities closed. All ranges are at risk.

Bullwnkl.

Oh, that is a bummer.....urban sprawl is a scary reality...and it will only continue to get worse <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />!

HoundGirl

Hound girl, the alternative to urban sprawl has been realized by the government of our fair state. they call it the Growth Management Act.

These draconian laws were put in place by our friends the Democraps in 1990 here in what I now refer to as Occupied Washington State.

In the county that you reside the local county commision was one of the first to sign on to the GMA way back when. T County has always been Democrap.

In the past few years they have been ruled out of compliance with the GMA and had to curtail all land subdivision until their once approved plan was modified some ten plus years after it was approved by the state.

The environmental community decided that they would challenge the law as not being strict enough or well rnforced even though it was approved by the state in the beginning.

T-County took it upon them selves to do it their way. The commisioners fu##ed up. But they can do no wrong they are Democraps.

Today as the law stands there is only one way that you can leave any land to your heirs if you do not meet minimum zoning size for your property....you must die and have left your land split up by the courts in a will. Testamentary subdivision.

A lot of peoples nest eggs have simply been legislated away. All do in part to the Democraps that have been in charge of this state far to long.

Bullwnkl.

How about putting the land in a small, closely held corporation, and thus owned by a perpetual being whose directors (all family) can be replaced by votes and by the bylaws of the corporation as need be?

Naw... that'd never work... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Va the problem is the zoning, if you do not meet minimum land area to split your property you are hosed. If zoning says minimum lot size five acres you will need ten acres to split it into two lots and so on. A lot of people have lost their inheratence (sp) due to these laws. a lot of prime building sites go fallow because there is already one house on the property. the owners could sell but rarley do they realize enough money to replace their home with a like property. this leaves the poor old folks moving into the citys in boxes (appartments) which they mostly are housed until they die. mean while the state takes away all the money they had from the sale of their property. the kids get little or nothing that is the plan by the state to make the land generate more tax revenue and ware house the former owners until they die.

Bullwnkl.

Time for them (the owners and kids) to think outside the box.

Sorry, I don't do the "oh, woe is me..." thing; esp. when land, estates, etc., are in the balance. Think, don't b!tch...

Still, draconian and dumbazz local regulation sucks.

This is a bit scary. The Olympia Police Dept lost their shooting range to the lead thing. Now you have to go about 30 min out of town to find a range. And the range that we joined gets Police priority for Olympia Police, Tumwater Police, Lacey Police and Thurston Co Sheriff. While I recognize the need for law enforcement to shoot it is really annoying to drive 30 minutes to find that the range is closed without notice or a message on the range answering machine.

VA, a lot of people just don't think, thinking out side the box gets you noplace when dealing with government and beuracrats. plain and simple.

A lot of property owners do not know what has transpired in the past that affects their property, usually by the time they find out it's ten years too late.

Where I worked one of the things I really hated doing was telling ma and pa that they could give a building site to their kids or grand kids because the county had zoned the property so and so.

That just seems wrong to me. some properties had been in the same family for two or three or more generations and now the remenants of the "Farm" are no more. Just building sites to strangers. what is left is now just an old farm house and five acres or less of land.

Ma and Pa sold off portions to keep the place from the tax man for their family and now the dream is gone...to me it's not fair. Often the family did not cousult legal advice for a lot of reasons....money...lack of faith in lawyers ...ignorance etc.

The State is just sitting back drooling over these old farm steads being broke up into subdivisions....lots of fee's for the countys and tax dollars to be had. I am so glad I got out when I did...should have been ten years earlier.

Bullwnkl.

I live in the most densely populated state in the country.I could tell you about personal experience of all the ways ranges have been forced out of existence in all manner of patently unfair ways here,many after having been in existence for decades.
Often ,it has been as simple as people continuosly building in what were formerly remote areas,closer and closer to existing ranges,complaining about "noise".....until they finally have enough votes in the given area to get it done.They all knew the range existed before purchasing their properties.....once it gets to election time,and they can provide enough votes for an interested politician.....that range is cooked.

'Tis scary when the developers come knocking.............

Our range, was even threatened for a couple of years! And NOBODY would want the land it is on!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Well they shut some of our ranges down due to lead reading they took from puddles on the ranges.

I hear ya. Ours is under attack from a group of whiney anti-range neighbors who've filed a civil lawsuit accusing us of everything under the sun. The club's been there since the late 1940's but a mud duck transplant who moved into the area in 1998 has been a PITA since day one. He's the funding source; the George Soros of the area so to speak, and his goal is for the range to go away... The range protection laws here only guard against noise. Failing that avenue, they're pursuing the 'projectiles leaving the range' bs...

Good luck to you.

My sympathies. This topic is far more important than the endless discussions of crf or belts.

The range that I use is very convienent and now is surrounded by houses. We had ours landscaped to control the flow of a brook so as not to carry lead off of our land. We did buy the house next door for $125,000 and got two acres with it.

I am making up an order for about $500 worth of components. Without that range I would have no use for them. Instead of shooting 3000 rounds of CF each year I might shoot 300 much further away.

In Avon, CT there is a range under great legal stress.

Cavalier Rifle and Pistol just went the a zoning run at our range. The club property is a most desirable, 430 acres, lake.
The chairperson is a Realtor! The chairperson of the planning commission had her staff throw everything at the club. They wanted us to put in lighted parking areas for safety! They used the Chesapeake Bay antipollution laws to attack us.
They tried the lead bit but found none, even going 5 miles down stream, except in the backstop, tried the bullets getting out of the property, their example was a bullet but it seems to have been shot sometime in the 1860s, the noise issue was run up so some of the Board of Supervisors parked in front of the complaintant's houses and at the range we fired 30-06s the Supervisors never heard the shots.
Eventually we won, but at the cost of 40,000 bucks in legal fees. We will be moving the berm for the 500 yard range and making it a 600 yard range. We had to alter our hours of operation on Sunday 9:00 to 3:00, rather then all day.
The up side is we were ordered to build three more ranges for IDPA, Cowboy, forgot what the other range was for. Prior to this we had six or seven ranges 100 yard rifle, 22 100 yard metallic, bullseye 50 yard, 50 yard IDPA, three practice ranges and a 500 yard range.
Don't count on the NRA they don't give a damn.
Jim

I sure hate to see stuff like this happening. Sorry you guys were affected Bullwnkl.
If they did not use the 'lead' issue, they would go after you over the noise.
Even ownership does not really help. I remember when the new home owners in West Jacksonville Fl tried to get Cecil Field Master Jet Base closed down due to noise.

My range: http://www.associatedgunclubs.org/rangefacilities.htm was facing encroachment when the only piece of property between us and the state owned reservoir and forest came up for sale. Dues had to go from $45 a year to $145 but we have no neighbors to complain now. I'm sure the lead issue will come up here in the PRM at some point.

The lead issue is how the developer attacked our club.
We fought it and won,but it was at great expense and almost
bankrupted the club.They will use this tactic as lots of clubs
will not have the resources or will to fight it.