The real question is why do you non-critically accept comments to an article written by obvious anti-gun progressives?
That's not the impression I got. Most of the comments seemed pretty middle-of-the-road.
How come there couldn't have been a shooting range there (along with paintball) and the person writing the comment didn't know that?
Because (1) someone said that up until a few years ago the land area had been used as a dump (he even admitted dumping stuff there), and (2) the noise of the gunfire is one of the complaints; if it had been used as a shooting range along with a paintball facility, people would have heard the gun noise a long time ago. The evidence seems to backup the comment that the shooting range has only been there since 2011.
I know of a place where people have shot for more than 50 years. It's never been an official shooting range but if someone were to open a range there some progressive anti 2nd amendment nut could then write "but they've only been there a year Wah Wah Wah".
I doubt "a place where people have shot" out in the country would have nearly as much traffic/usage as an organized shooting range.
As far "only been there a year," that's the reason there are zoning laws. To ensure people that have been living in an area for a long time don't suddenly wake up one morning to find someone has built a factory, pig farm, or shooting range next to their home.
If someone tried to turn your "place where people shoot" (which is probably an open field someplace that gets light usage) into an organized outdoor shooting range (which would need to be heavily used to stay in business), then it would be reasonable for someone to point out that they would impact the surrounding community differently.
The real question is why do you non-critically accept comments to an article written by obvious anti-gun progressives?
The real real question is why do you assume that people that might have questions about a shooting range are "obvious anti-gun progressives?" We're talking West Virginia here, not San Francisco. There probably aren't 4 anti-gun progressives in the entire state.