Still, keeping Oakdale Gun Club going is an expensive proposition. In the last few years we've sunk over $100K into landscaping, tree plantings, and other noise abatement projects, and we're just about finished with a way overbudget and overschedule project to completely enclose the 25-yard range. We had to rebuild the entire target area with these molded rubber bullet trapping bales that have to be treated as toxic waste if we ever take 'em out again (but give us important points with the EPA for reducing soil lead contamination), and once the 25 is finished, we get started on the 100- and 200-yard ranges.
Plus, we're trying to build up a war chest so that we can buy the farm next door -- not to do anything with the land, just to ensure that it doesn't get turned into houses full of complaining neighbors -- but the non-members squeal like stuck pigs if we raise the rates for public shooters.
Where else are they going to shoot if we get put out of business? That's what I want to know.