Kinderhook Sportsmen’s Club members shed light on practices(NH)

registerstar.com ^ | 2 December, 2009 | Bob Green

[marktwain]

Following complaints to the Town Board about increased noise from the Kinderhook Sportsmen’s Club, officials and members of the club are speaking out about its roots and contributions in the community.

Several neighbors told the board in October that the amount of shooting had risen markedly, and they wanted to know if the town could help find a compromise.

The club, located on more than 50 acres off Fowler Lake Road in Ghent, was founded in 1954 and predates the town’s zoning laws.

Club President Terence Toomey says that little about the club’s operation has changed recently. While a Wednesday trap and skeet session was added last year, other ranges on the property have always been available “at all hours of the day”, within the limits of club policy, which is more restrictive than the applicable state law. “We do not shoot after dark,” said Toomey, and a recent club newsletter suggested that members hold their fire until 9 a.m.

* Toomey also didn’t agree with the assertions of a neighbor who told the board that “firearms have gotten a lot louder over the last 30 years.” Toomey thinks the loudest guns in use at the club are .50 caliber flintlock muzzle-loaders, relics of the Revolutionary War but still popular with some. This year’s muzzle-loader season starts Dec. 14 and runs for 10 days, he said.

[marktwain]

Note that all of the complainers moved into the area after the club. If the federal government had not made sound suppressors extremely expensive and difficult to obtain, this "problem" would be greatly diminished.

[piperpilot]

Personally, I love the sound of my Remington .243 rifle. For a varmint gun, it sure does sound impressive, particularly if I am shooting at the indoor NRA range.

[Erik Latranyi]

Note that all of the complainers moved into the area after the club. If the federal government had not made sound suppressors extremely expensive and difficult to obtain, this "problem" would be greatly diminished.

In Europe, it is considered good manners to use a suppressor when shooting.

[WKUHilltopper]

Awww...that’s a bloody shame. Maybe they should be talking to their Realtor if they didn’t know they were moving next to a firing range. Idiots!

[Daveinyork]

It’s the same as people moving into developments built near farms. They go to the very next township meeting to complain about the smell of the farms.

[Blue Collar Christian]

Can you imagine the task of keeping a suppressor clean on a muzzle stuffer?

The suppressors need to be installed on the complainers. Show ‘em the door.

[marktwain]

It would be a real problem on a muzzleloader. Still the effective ban on most suppressors has been one of the worst public health debacles of the last century. Litterally millions of shooters have lost hearing capacity for the lack of cheap, easily available suppressors.

[Zeppo]

Litterally millions of shooters have lost hearing capacity for the lack of cheap, easily available suppressors.

That's a perceptive (and IMHO extremely important) observation, which could possibly be used by a proactive sportsman or shooting organization to challenge the current treatment of suppressors under Federal (and some State) regulations by putting forth an argument that the Feds must address the damaging effect of those regulations under the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Of course, I am not a lawyer, so I could be mistaken. However that law has been used to challenge, with some success, arguably much more tenuous links between government regulations and their effects on persons with disabilities.

Earlier this year I had considered making such an argument in a response to proposed Customs regulations that would have severely limited importation and/or possibly even manufacture of certain types or categories of knives whose assisted or automated operation was essential to permit their use by persons with certain disabilities. I never did make that argument in a formal filing, because the Congress acted to forestall the implementation of those proposed regulations.

[Slyfox]

In Europe, it is considered good manners to use a suppressor when shooting.

Here in America, silencers don't fit our guns.

[verga]

Neighbors complained that firearms had gotten louder over the past 30 years

[Blue Collar Christian]

What?

[marktwain]

Exactly. Huh? You, over there, don’t mumble! /S

[Fido969]

I think that’s NY, not NH.