Stray Bullets From Range Hit Home

Our 35 year old range was shut down a couple of months ago on the basis of noise complaints from a nearby residential development about 10 years old, and a protest from a real estate saleswoman (on the city council) who complained that she could not sell a house so near a firing range.
There was no claim of overhead fire, just noise that "frightened an old woman so badly that she fell out of her rocking chair," and that "the children in the neighborhood ran and hid when the shooting started." Right.

It was on city property which they had let the club use and develop without charge but without lease or deed. So we had no recourse to the Range Protection Act that has kept another range in operation over the schemes of a greedy developer.

So the club sold lifetime memberships and increased regular dues to raise money and has bought rural land which is being graded for a new range. So the members now gripe about having to drive 15 miles farther to shoot.
 
That's the risk you run by having a shooting range on public lands. Politicians will shut it down when some loud-mouth starts to complain about noise, etc. Still, there is no excuse for bullets fly outside of the 4-corners of the property designated as a shooting range.
 
Suburban commando this aint and shouldnt be.While "what came first" should not and is not a good argument if rounds start hitting your home, I am sorry but you should have no rights to kvetch about noise if you buy or build a home near a firing range.

If you didn't know, oh freaking well.

That is like people who complain about noise from O'hare when the buy a home under the landing pattern. I live near a small airport and I got my condo 20-30K cheaper than comperable units not near the small airport.


I hate it when a new development gets put in then suddenly they expect the world around them to change and everything to turn into suburbia. That is what's slowly happening around my Wisconsin property, quality of life is being sold out for tax base and the greed of politicians.
 
I'll make a statement some won't like.

You absolutely can not stop every last ricochet from leaving an open air outdoor range.

THe berm should be plenty high enough that anyone shooting over it is making a BIG mistake and unable to control their firearm and can be removed from the range. It should be high and wide/circular enough that anything leaving the range has lost a lot of its momentum from an impact to minimize the danger.

Look at the wall and ceiling in almost any indoor range and tell me a 30 foot berm will stop EVERYTHING.

In Ohio the pre-existing range only effects sound complaints as far as I know(not that this is Ohio we are talking about).
 
You absolutely can not stop every last ricochet from leaving an open air outdoor range
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While that may be true, there are better ways to deal with stray bullets than placing a berm right up against a public road. Assuming the road was there first, that is just bad design and planning. For instance, many outdoor ranges use natural barriers, hills, land fills, etc. to create a safe buffer between the range and other occupied properties.

And, a ricocheting bullet is a far cry different from a direct hit. Most shooters have experienced being hit by a ricocheting bullet fragment - not pleasant, but not life-threatening either.
 
Suburban commando this aint and shouldnt be.While "what came first" should not and is not a good argument if rounds start hitting your home
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Don't be so certain, Patriot.
Both parties are at fault, here. The idiots that built the range did so on a tiny piece of ground with no natural backstops (other than trees :rolleyes:), and houses down range.
Then, an idiotic developer came in and built more houses as close 280 yards from the firing line (and not just sort of down range, but DIRECTLY in line with the range).


Bullets leave gun ranges. It's a law of the universe.
Building a range where they did.... stupid.
Building a house inline with an improperly placed gun range... even more stupid.
Buying said house... absolutely idiotic.
 
Buying said house... absolutely idiotic.
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With this I agree, you really need to do the research when buying a house. Google maps (as you pointed out) is a great tool to see whats going on around a prospective house so long as the trees are not too thick.

I am surprised that the Developer almost didn't put in his own Berm just to have all of his liabilities covered, then again I am not surprised.

The developer don't care , once he sells all those new homes he walks away with his money into the sunset. A developer is all about making the maximum profit.


Again, I live near a small airport and there has been about one plane crash during landing per year, including one that exploded all over a home about a mile away. But I am not going to go and try to get the village to shut it down over that, its part of living near an airport just as part of living in the country is hearing shots.


What ends up happening is enough of the "new" residents go to the town council, kvetch about noise and perceived or real danger and the ranges are zoned or legislated out of existence.
 
This is a non-stop issue with ranges. There will always be ricochets. The single best thing a range can do is build smart. I find regular people seem to think you can push up a mound of dirt 10 feet high or shoot into woods and hve that be a bullet trap.

What you need is a good range design. Good methodology is something like:
-30 foot mound of dirt at the maximum range
-~10 foot mounds at each sub range distance with fixed target boards
-elevated firing position
-range bed of sand, pea gravel, mulch or other relatively bullet absorbing material
-strict enforcement of muzzle on the back stop or below rules
-trees on the back stop or leaving tall natural trees behind it for catching stray ricochets

These are ideas for flat landers. Building against a mountain is also a good idea.
 
The outdoor ranges here and generally in the west back up against a mountain.
That I think is an essential.
I don't think it matters who came first. The shots must remain within the range, and not stray onto neighbors property.
And, next time you are at an indoor range, look at the ceiling. They are usually peppered with bullet holes. That tells me that there are a whole lot of people that are shooting where, if outdoors, the range is up to a mile in all directions.
One answer is that any range needs to 'police' the range. To be sure shooters are not shooting out of the range.
And yet, look at the threads. We constantly see threads on all the forums about a shooter who thinks the ro should not be able to tell them anything.
dc
 
Punisher_1 said:
...Why does shooting seem to be a constant battle with one thing or another?
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This really isn't about shooting. It's about a basic legal principle of very broad application. It is usually thought to derive from the 1868 ruling by the British House of Lords (which is the British equivalent of our SCOTUS) in the case of Rylands v. Fletcher (BAILII Citation Number: [1868] UKHL 1):
... The same result is arrived at on the principles referred to by Mr. Justice Blackburn in his judgment, in the Court of Exchequer Chamber, where he states the opinion of that Court as to the law in these words: "We think that the true rule of law is, that the person who, for his own purposes, brings on his land and collects and keeps there anything likely to do mischief if it escapes, must keep it in at his peril; and if he does not do so, is primâ facie answerable for all the damage which is the natural consequence of its escape. ..."...
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In other words, in general if you engage in potentially dangerous activities on your property which could harm your neighbors, you are responsible if those activities do harm your neighbors.

deepcreek said:
....some people ...call in about their house getting shot from "stray bullet" ....

I have never heard of one that turned out to be true, but they keep calling and keep trying to get the range shut down.
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Sometimes claims are bogus.

Here there was apparently a trial and the claims were determined to be genuine.
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Indeed, well said.
 
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The range where I grew up as a kid, San Gabriel Valley Gun Club, is now closed. As I understand it, developers built a subdivision of homes downrange and off to the side of the range. Also as I understand it, no rounds ever hit anything at the subdivision, but the home owners got the range shut down because they were fearful that rounds "might" hit their homes.

I'm not saying that's what happend in the circumstances of the OP story. But I'd imagine that sort of thing happens a lot. People move into the flight paths of airports and then try and get the airport shut down.

Can anyone in SoCal verify that I'm correct in the reason that the range in Azusa had to close?


Sgt Lumpy
 
As the lawyer/instructor in a CCW class lectured us, in line with Frank's comment,
"There's a lawyer attached to every bullet you fire" ... and "you hope it's your lawyer and not a plaintiff's".
 
At one time a couple of anti-gun organizations actually gave out instructions to their members on how to file false reports about bullets from ranges doing damage. They were told, for example to say that "a bullet hit my house", not "a bullet from the range hit my house." The first is true, even though (like the above post) the woman "fired" it herself with a slingshot. The second might be proved a lie and result in perjury charges or filing a false report.

In this area, a newspaper columnist once claimed that the "super powerful" bullets from "assault rifles" would penetrate the two mile hill that was a range backstop! Some people probably believed the lie.

But, as others have said, it is better if the range is constructed so bullets cannot leave the property; that way there is no problem. But we also have to be alert to the issue at local council meetings and the like, where sometimes the big liars of the antis can get their version in first and get a range closed before anyone else even finds out there is an issue.

Jim
 
Can anyone in SoCal verify that I'm correct in the reason that the range in Azusa had to close?
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The city council voted to rezone and close the range. There is now a Burro Canyon shooting range near Azusa.

City officials, citing concerns about potential fire, safety and environmental threats, gave the gun club 18 months before closing. But gun club spokesman Xavier Hermosillo says no accidents or infractions have occurred at the range since it opened. He says the club plans to sue to overturn the decision.

The closure would leave 37 shooting ranges in Southern California, down from more than 200 two decades ago.
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http://articles.latimes.com/2005/feb/15/news/os-briefs15.1
 
Something about this story is fishy to me. One would think that after one shot had hit any home, it would have been reported, and the range be made to do something about it, but 27 times, and they only now are saying something about it? I'm sorry, but to be honest, this sounds to me like somebody opened fire on the home, and the range is convenient to blame it on.
 
If you have never fired on a range that is not closely monitored you would be in for a rude awakening. Some shooters are arrogant to the extreme and refuse to accept advice or criticism of their unsafe actions. i've seen fights over range safety violations.

Nothing here seems fishy to me. Looked at the google earth link: It's a very dangerous range.

The long range berm is not long enough. Lay a straight edge between the right end of the firing line and the trailer. Bullets could hit the trailer in a direct line. This would be especially true if a shooter were engaging a target to the right of his lane. Yep, shooters who are not closely watched sometimes fire at targets outside their lane.

The owners of the range recently stacked piles of tires on the berms.

Military firing ranges always have left and right range limit markers. Good public ranges would have limit markers too.

Some discussion of that range:


http://www.theoutdoorstrader.com/threads/446998-Advanced-bullets-sued



Law enforcement officers familiar with the situation testified at the trial:

Stollar said he was called to the Caldwells’ residence in October 2012 in response to the home being accidentally shot.

The investigator said that after retrieving and identifying the bullet, he went to the firing range and talked with a man who had been shooting .308 caliber bullets.

“I took the actual projectile we found and looked at a bullet he took out of his gun, and they appeared to be identical,” Stollar said. “He hand-loads his weapon, and he told me they look like his bullets.”
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http://www.times-georgian.com/news/article_c3034e5c-dacf-11e2-8176-0019bb30f31a.html
 
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Dixie Gunsmithing said:
Something about this story is fishy to me...
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Too late. That horse has left the barn. The matter has been litigated and liability found. So it's been decided that the story is not fishy.
 
I have been to firing ranges with no supervision before and I refuse to again. Even with armored shielding between me and the shooter next door. I stopped going to one local indoor range that has no RSO's because two sessions in a row I had loaded firearms pointed directly at my.

The range I go to now is a bit too gung ho with their safety but I would rather it be that way than the other way. That overbearing RSO system saved someone from serious injury this last weekend, I witnessed a squib one lane over, I think the shooter was newer, using reloads in a 1911 and was trying to get another round to chamber so he could fire after the squib. The watchful RSO saves his butt.

Most outdoor ranges in this area will not let you shoot without an RSO, many trying to avoid this type of situation only let you load 1-5 rounds in a semi automatic rifle at a time.
 
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