Posted on 01/15/2003 9:54:20 AM PST by TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig
If Gig Harbor enacts legislation to regulate the operation of a 52-year-old gun club in the city, the issue surely will wind up in court, said Dan Koch, past president of the Gig Harbor Sportsman's Club.
"I get kind of nervous when I see an ordinance that's going to put a shooting club out of business," gun club member David Gordon told City Council members Monday night, pointing out that there already are laws "against dropping rounds on your neighbors."
But residents of the neighboring Avalon Woods housing tract think it's time the city policed the facility at 9721 Burnham Drive to cut down on noise and the possibility of a grievous accident.
About 600 members use the range for rifle and pistol shooting, as well as shotgun trap shooting, Koch said.
The issue flared in the summer of 2001 after a 12-gauge shotgun slug whizzed past the head of Avalon Woods resident Jim Good and slammed into his house while he was out watering his plants.
Good wasn't injured, but the incident was a sort of call to arms for Avalon Woods residents, long simmering over the noise coming from the abutting gun club.
A lengthy investigation by Gig Harbor police and State Patrol investigators failed to determine the slug's origin.
After months of meetings with gun club and citizen representatives, the Gig Harbor City Council is on the verge of enacting an ordinance to regulate operations at the range.
The gun club, which lay for years in unincorporated Pierce County until it was annexed to the city in 1997, never has been regulated by any authority other than state law, members say.
Following some changes approved by the council Monday night, the ordinance now under consideration would restrict gun club hours to 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. It also would have the gun club closed on Saturdays and open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sundays, with the exception of a few special shooting weekends each year.
"They haven't taken it upon themselves to do anything about the noise. The hours of operation does," Avalon Woods resident Mark Schaefer told the council.
Council members will continue to study the proposal between now and Jan. 27, when the issue will come back to them for more discussion. It likely won't receive a final vote for several weeks.
Kris Sherman: 253-597-8659 kris.sherman@mail.tribnet.com
They are trying the same crap up here in McKinney Texas with the Collin County Gun Range. The city annexed the land (without consent) and now wants to shut them down
The city passed ordinances trying to shut them down because people around them with million dollar homes started to complain.
The city did two things that are idiotic in my mind.
1) They cited that homeowners were complaining. FACT: No houses within 3 miles of the range.
2) Then they stated that the noise was bothering people. FACT: The highway (380) puts out more noise pollution than the gun range (measured with micorphones).
City governments are wielding too much power with no respect for anyone's property rights.
The slug missed Good, but hit his house. Hmmm. There is a long standing dispute with the new homowners wanting to close the range down. Double hmmm. Gun control advocates always lie. Triple hmmm. Most skeet shooters I know never buy slugs because they never shoot them at anything. Some are seriously into reloading because their sport burns up a lot of rounds, but just with shot. Quadruple hmmm.
That club has some of the best skeet shooters in the world. They shoot with slugs.
Like another poster, I smell "set up". It happened in my city. Some dolt shot up his own house and went complaing to the County government about the local range.
"If we can just eliminate every possibility of a grievous accident, then one day we'll be safe enough to live forever."
Most likely. Gig Harbor, for those who don't know where it is, is a suburb of Tacoma, most recently of John Muhammad fame. All kinds of people move in there, and try to Californicate it. Just glad I'm about an hour and a half away from the place!
Well, Gig Harbor "is" over-infested with left-wingers and eco-freaks (though there are Freepers there too)--which is why I chose to settle on Fox Island--too much "nanny-ism" in the G.H. city government (including the mayor -- "Granny Jack-boots"). The best thing that could happen to the "across the Sound" section of Pierce County is for it to secede from Pierce and attach itself to Kitsap County.
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