How many people have got mad at you for shooting???

[9 m&m]

I have a small field beside my house that I always go out in and shoot....alot. My neighbors beside me get mad daily at the noise. I dont want to make them mad but its unpreventable. I walked outside one day with my M44 Mosin and my neighbor exclaims " Why do you need a ELEPHANT gun!!!???" I wanted to tell her a few things but I just walked on. As I went on shooting my Mosin " Elephant Gun" Nagant I see my neighbors that live across the street outside. The next day they move out. 4 more people did the same thing. It has even come down to them screaming "Quit all that shooting!!!" across the street while I was shooting skeet. I am getting pretty annoyed. There are no gun ranges around anywhere, and houses are everywhere so I just cant find another place. Tell about some of your experiences.

 

[Mannlicher]

the last two I shot were pretty mad,

 

[cerberus]

Just How???

Do you get away with shooting near where people are living? Your laws must be pretty easy for shooters. We can't shoot anywhere near a street .Road or a house that has people living in it.

 

[P95Carry]

This can be a tricky one ...... on the one hand ..... ''live and let live'' ..... OTOH ..... ''do unto others''.

I cannot ''see'' in my mind's eye your set up - tho it'd seem you have plenty of space to shoot safely. However, it is also obviously within easy earshot of others.

We have our right to shoot on our own property but .... I think we have to try and effect a compromize to a degree, otherwise we can become ''selfish gun nuts'' and hardly help our side of the fence.

I try and restrict home shooting to .22 - but warn nearest neighbors if bigger cal likely - and that'd be just a few for ammo test etc. I try and look at it rather like - ''how much noise do I want to put up with if having to listen'' ... assuming I do not live by a range per se.

I reckon timing can be a factor - if you shoot a lot and it is random, then maybe because no one knows when - they get rattled that much more. If it was ''certain times only'' .... then maybe they'd accept it better.

It's a hard call and some folks will b*tch regardless. I was up at one local small range last year when a buddy brought his FA Mac10 and we had a blast ... of course! It happened to be a Sunday and dang it - one of the members came up from 1/4 mile awayand moaned ... he tho is one of the members who sorta shoots rifle once a year! He thought it sounded like WWIII

You'll never please some that's for sure but I reiterate the fact that I think we need to be mindful of others with noise pollution ... which is what it is in effect ... and for non gunnies it grates unfortunately.

No answer will be quite provide the easy solution. Just my 2c... and note ... I am getting old so maybe see things different!!

 

[mcmoyer]

I shoot pistols from the back deck...I tell the neighbors ahead of time that I'm going to do some target practice & so far they have been very cool about it. I've let them know that if they have someting going on & need it to be quiet I won't shoot (hasn't happened yet).

If I want to shoot a rifle I'll try and find an outdoor range to go to. We can shoot on our property so long as we're not shooting across a road or in the direction of another house, but I don't want to go blazing away with a .30-06.

During dove and deer season there is a LOT of shooting that goes on around here...I guess most folks are used to it & expect a certain amount.

 

[Declaration Day]

Last fall, during rifle deer season here in Michigan, I went up north to my hunting land with two friends. We didn't really go to hunt, rather we did a lot of target and skeet shooting. After several hours of fun, we heard a voice from the neighbor's property say "Is that rifle sighted in yet?" I answered by emptying my M-1911 into a target. Seconds later, the guy shouted "A**hole!" and he fired his hunting rifle twice (into the ground I hope!) Because of his attitude, we kept shooting well into the evening. Had he attempted to act like a mature adult, we most likely would have quit for the day. Generally, we are considerate of hunters. In fact, that was the only day we went up there to shoot out of the entire hunting season.
FYI, I have never met this neighbor face to face. It's interesting to note though that my other neighbor tried to meet him once, but the guy jumped into his truck and sped off. Strange.

 

[Das Pferd]

Have you thought about compromising and talking with them? Ask them to meet for lunch or coffee etc. Ask them what they are mad about, can you work out a schedule where you are allowed to shoot. Ask them to come shooting a couple times with you. Talk with them, keep communication open. Make them see that you are responsible.

Talk with them.

 

[Edward429451]

Nothing like what you describe but one 4th of july we got invited to a pig roast and camping on a guys land and broke out the mini-14 down by the river and started shooting at targets. They came down from the house and asked us to put away the high powered rifle, that 22's would be ok though. We were shooting into a hillside but it was his land and reasonable in that there were a lot of people there wandering about. We didn't even know the guy being friends of the friend. He wasn't mad and was real cool about it.

Another time we were looking for a place to shoot back by 11 mile resovoir in the mtns. Kept taking turns trying to escape granny & the kids tourists to find a place to just shoot 22's and inadvertantly found some private land...Two cowboy types sped up in a pickup and said what're you doing on private property? We told em just tryin to get away from tourists to shoot some 22's with the kids and they were cool with that. No mad there either.

People are basically nice here in colorado. It's how you carry yourself too. If you show respect you'll likely get respect too. Show arrogance, arrogance returned. I'd talk to them like Das Pferd said.

 

[Standing Wolf]

Inflicting noise on other people is rude.

What makes me say so? Trash across the street with 8,000-Watt car stereos.

 

[GigaBuist]

Yep -- it's happened to me. A buddy got back from Iraq so I went over to his place and we dumped a whole slew of ammo in his parent's back yard. After about 3.5 hours a neighbor came over to tell us to knock it off. His wife was trying to take an afternoon nap. When he got there we were actually done shooting though. Somebody off in the distance rattled off some rounds about 15 minutes after we stopped. Not sure if they were tellilng us to knock it off or not. While we were still shooting another neighbor did the same thing and came over. Basically they thought it'd be fun to do a little shooting of their own and wondered what we had over there.

The day after it happed my brother goes to work (I like 45 minutes from my home town) and a guy that lives about 3 miles away as the crow flies asked him if I was in town yesterday. Brother says, "yep." -- he says, "Thought so -- I heard a bunch of gunfire and figured he had something to do with it!" I thought it was pretty funny that in a town of 10,000 people (pretty much everybody has firearms) my name was the first one he thought of -- and I don't even live in that town!

Personally, it's never bothered me. Guns going off were a regular occurance where I grew up. Since I've been shooting the past 3 years myself (99% of the time at a range) I'm immune to it.

A few months ago I was walking down the street in an urban area of Grand Rapids (Heritage Hill if you know where that is) and heard a gunshot go off. Walked about 30 yards before I realized that in this environment that's not normal.

So long as you're 450 feet from anybody else's residence it's legal here.

 

[mparris71]

Even if you tried, you will not be able to please everybody, but I would try to get into a routine of shooting only on certain days and at times that would be less likely to disrupt the neighbor’s life too much. Here in my county in NC, one guy shooting in his back yard into a poorly constructed backstop caused the county counsel to seriously consider passing a law that would basically ban shooting anywhere in the county unless you owned a huge tract of land. The law in that form was thankfully shot down, but they did make provisions that if you do shoot, your projectiles can not leave your property. So be careful not to get the law critters passing restrictive laws that can affect all the shooters in your area, even if it’s in a form of noise ordnances.

 

[joe sixpack]

Inflicting noise on other people is rude.What makes me say so? Trash across the street with 8,000-Watt car stereos

I'll second that. Where I live, I hear that crap all day long with the
subsonic woofers and "BOOM...BOOM...BOOM..."
It's all I can do to prevent myself from acting harshly, irrationally and illegally in response to the source of noise. Another reason why I'm out of here come Dec.

And I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to be hearing small arms fire next door
either.

In any case, please do speak with your neighbors and try to work it out.

cheers, ab

 

[PBIR]

A person has the right to do what they want on their property within the legal boundries, but pissing off your neighbors is rarely a smart move. Especially when it comes to firearms. A talk with them as suggested above sounds like a real good idea.

I answered by emptying my M-1911 into a target. Seconds later, the guy shouted "A**hole!" and he fired his hunting rifle twice (into the ground I hope!) Because of his attitude, we kept shooting well into the evening. [/i]Had he attempted to act like a mature adult[/i], we most likely would have quit for the day.

No offense, but sounds to me like there wasn't much maturity to be found on either side that day. When you are out shooting in the public eye, you are representing all gun owners to a degree. Take the high road.

 

[Declaration Day]

You are right, PBIR, perhaps my response was not so mature either. However, I think distance was a factor here. Even if the guy was as close as the border of my property, he would have been 550 feet away and over two hills. I wasn't about to scream back at him, as I do not like to raise my voice, so the target shooting was the response I chose. The point is, the ONLY way to get what you want from me is to be calm and polite.

 

[41mag]

I can't help but think that some sort of noise suppression would help immensely.I know that stacks of tires have been suggested before as a medium to fire through.Maybe there are other things that could be done to suppress the noise.Maybe some kind of shed w/the inside covered w/the kind of materials/surfaces found in a recording studio?Probably have to check the local ordinances before construction.Like was mentioned above,in some areas you have to be xxxx distance from any buildings.It wouldn't make sense to build a building to shoot from only to have to stay xxx away from it,eh?

 

[Shanghai McCoy]

I live in the country on 10 acres and have a neighbor on 10 acres next door.Usually,if they are home,we let them know before we start to shoot.Just a courtesy, plus they have a yappy dog that tends to freak when we shoot...

 

[Tamara]

Personally, I try to avoid being rude to my neighbors.

 

[phxtravis]

I was in Texas a couple of months ago and I brought my DE .50, 1911 and Ruger MK1 and everytime I shot the .50 the guys next to me gave me dirty looks. Then the "range master"(in quotes because it was a self serve type outdoor range)comes up to me and ask me not to "rapid fire". Now everyone should know that I didnt do so with the .50, the 1911 was a mil-spec and my baby at that, plus the MK1 is a .22 and could almost qualify as an antique, so even if I did do some rapid fire it would have been with the .22 and that shouldnt be considered unsafe. But the people next to me had smaller caliber pistols (9mm or .40???)and seemed to be doing double taps and such. My brother, whom was with me at the time, said he saw one of the guys go over to the range master and talk to him. I thought Texans liked everything BIG!
Not long after we left, that range was real ????ty anyway, it was basically someones backyard with a mobile home as the shop.

 

[PinnedAndRecessed]

I was shooting trap with buddies in my dad's back yard (two acres) on the Ohio River. Some people came up and jumped all over us. Said the pellets were landing on their boats. That was a loooong way away.

So we changed direction. The same people started barking again and said the pellets were hitting the road. We made sure there was nobody on the road (it was actually a drive to a marina; not a public road) when we shot.

Then the sheriff came out and said people were complaining. He took one look at the set up and said they were nuts. He didn't see any problem.

I didn't shoot there anymore.

 

[myopicmouse]

Well if your having a marathon shoot on one day, i'd tell them to wise up...however I would be considerate with not shooting everyday/or every weekend-holiday. They have to give a bit to me, I wouldn't be told when i can/can't shoot..I'd try to talk it over and do any of the bigger stuff on a range.

How about getting a few silencers?

 

[shep854]

As a (not so) hypothetical question: What if you (the shooter) have been living and shooting at that location longest, and the complainers move in later? If you have been shooting with any regualrity, they should be aware of the situation, so how much should each party give?

It's the same problem around ranges and airports. The land nearby is developed and the new residents complain about something that was there longer than they were.

 

[sendec]

I live out, but next to a church. I wont shoot or use power equipment when they have services, choir practice and other activities. In exchange they don't try to recruit me.

Plenty of my neighbors shoot, and on one occasion one of them nailed my house. We straightened that out in short order, but other than that common sense pretty much prevails.

 

[myopicmouse]

Well if they move into an area where you are then tuff luck for them...just the same as you said abourt airports.

 

[jeff-10]

A lot of loud noise at random times by neighbors will piss just about anyone off, including me. Regardless of whether it is coming from firearms, fireworks, stereos, parties or motorcycles. You should probably find somewhere else to shoot most of the time just to keep the peace. Even if you continue to shoot within earshot of your neighbors you may want to cut out the MN altogether.

 

[kwelz]

No offense 9 M&M but it sounds like You are the problem and not them. You live in an area with others nearby like that and you continue to shoot. That is at the least very inconsiderate and potentially dangerous. You say you are getting annoyed? How do you think they feel? I am a pretty die hard shooter and I would be pissed if I lived next door to you.

Your lack of consideration and lack of caring that you have chased these people from their homes is disturbing to me.

Frankly it is this sort of action that gives us ALL a bad name.