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Old April 16, 2014, 01:04 PM   #15
FrankenMauser
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Join Date: August 25, 2008
Location: In the valley above the plain
Posts: 13,424
Quote:
If the range pre-dates the house or current owner, then they made a poor decision on buying the house, and THEY need to move or live with it. Most states have laws to make noise complaints mute for ranges that pre-date surrounding houses. No matter how much the neighbors complain. Read: don't move next to a train track, and then bitch about the train noise.
Even in states that do have such statutes, there are other ways to screw over the gun ranges.

Two of the ranges my father used to take us to as kids were shut down by the cities that encroached on them, even though they had 'preemptive authority' or whatever the term is.

In one case, the range was in an old gravel pit and had been there for so long that they really didn't have much of a safety buffer around the property, because they didn't need it in the past (admittedly, a problem). As houses slowly started to wrap around the pit and climb the mountainside around it, the range decided to make some changes to make sure no danger was posed to anyone, if an idiot member shot over the walls of the gravel pit.

About 2 weeks into the work, the city served the owners... They were using eminent domain to seize the land, because the excavation work and range itself 'posed safety hazards' to the surrounding homes. After about 6 years of legal BS, the range lost, and the city took the land. Then, surprisingly, they leased the land back to the range with, of course, a conditional use permit.
The city let them operate for about 12 more years, before telling them that they broke the terms of the lease by moving an access road, and revoking the conditional use permit. (It wasn't true - they simply re-opened an existing road. But, the city, of course, already had plans in motion for development of the land.)

The other range was shut down through a bunch of horse trading between the city, state, and BLM. The city made an arrangement with the state to trade some desirable land between a park and Forest Service land, if the state could make arrangements to get the city the piece of BLM land behind the range (in the usual tri-yearly(?) land swaps that go on). After some negotiations, their wish was granted in the next State/BLM land trade. The city immediately sued the range, claiming the danger posed by the range was preventing development of the land they had just acquired. It only took about 6 months worth of legal bills, before the range couldn't fight any more, gave up, and was shut down.
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