Kitsap Rifle & Revolver Club Shut Down - New Regulations Not Grandfathered

[pianoman9701]

So, just for the sake of argument, when you move next to an existing freeway, do you then petition the federal government to make it quieter? Just asking because it's exactly the same thing. I would even go further to say that if you move next to a range knowingly and it's too loud for you, maybe you should get with your other neighbors and pay for the sound abatement. 

So pman, I did not say next to, I said near.  That said you can actually hear it about a mile away.  Did I say too loud for me NO, I believe that the club will be will be in danger in the future if it doesn't take action...    Now lets try, a small county road and gets changed to a freeway, do you ask the fed?

All due respects to you, I don't really care if you can hear it 2 miles away. The firing range hasn't added anything or changed to make itself louder. The people who CHOSE to move in around it did so knowing it was there and now don't like it. I understand you're saying they should be proactive to avoid trouble. But they won't avoid trouble. They'll spend tens of thousands of dollars to be good neighbors and the whiner anti-gunners will still do everything in their power to shut it down. They're like zombies who think if they continue their relentless anti-gun campaigns that the world will eventually be gun-free and a Utopia. The range's tens of thousands of dollars will be much better spent hiring good attorneys and shutting down the whiners.

[floatinghat]

Pman,  I know the finances of the range and could shut it down myself with a number of issues.   One could agree that the range has made changes to be louder as they have added hours.  The hours they have added are adding to the quantity of noise = more noise.  The SPL may have been raised difficult to say, but easy to measure if so inclined.  But then again, usually when a line in the sand gets draw this happen.  Like yourself, I treat it like white noise.

[pianoman9701]

Well, because I don't know the range and you do, I yield to your observations. I suggest, however, that had there been no increase in hours or noise level, the result would be the same; the non-shooting neighbors would be looking for anything they could grasp to shut the range down. It's happening around many, many established ranges. Here, Clark Rifles has acquiesced to a series of demands, including the limit to the number of members, caliber size, and reduced hours for public use. This not only has done nothing to abate their resolve, it seems to have strengthened it. Clark Rifles is not unique in that regard, I'm quite sure.

[Netminder01]

Personally, I don't support government impeding on the ability for businesses to grow. Most business owners don't get into business just to get by but to increase customers, revenue, products sold and of course, profit. It's entirely different if the gun range just moved in a year ago, but 2006 - around 10 years ago? I don't support any issues that close down a business because of a few squeaky wheels.

This is the same for me as the NAS Whidbey link I posted above. Is this to say that if I buy a house on the puget sound, should I sue to restrict the increased number of ferries that travel in front of my house because the waves are annoying and erode my retaining wall?

As long as the range was operating within the law, the business should be left alone. They should be allowed to operate within normal hours during the weekdays & weekends and should be free to expand its business as they see fit. Noise - no noise. It's really not about noise - it's about control over a type of businesses not favored by the White House or this state.

For me, this is one more of the multi-pronged strategic initiatives that Democrats have to reduce guns, the gun population and the businesses that support it. The fact it takes the form of what seems to be an attorney on a mission doesn't change that fact.

[JimmyHoffa]

I think the range has been there since the 1920's.  Way before the development.  Relatives basically described Kitsap right before the mall went in as being really rural.  Said it was all farm and ranch, big rodeo, fishing, etc (except Bremerton).  Only took 30 years to make most the county suburbia.
For Whidbey, one of the big complaints is that they use a different aircraft now--going from Prowlers to Growlers.  But people still moving into the area know it has a huge airfield, yet still move their--then complain. 

[actionshooter]

The range was started in 1928, just a little before any of the development. The basic deal is the county prosecutor and council has been trying to shut the range down for 15+ years. It has been a vendetta against the club for years and they finally got a judge to rule against them.

[ndcasla]

The Kitsap Rifle & Revolver Club signed it's Charter on November 11, 1926 and started operating it's range which included the 72 acres it currently occupies leased from DNR as a private range for members and their guests. It ran this way for several decades. In the mid 2000's it opened it's doors more regularly to the general public at the request of Kitsap County and the State because they were wanting to direct the shooting activities in the County to controlled environments.

 

The County had been interested in acquiring the land the range sat on for several years, going as far back as 1992 the County wanted the land as well as several hundred acres surrounding the range for a large county park (that of course the range would not be part of).

 

 

In 2009 Kitsap County was able to gather finances and land enough to engage in a land swap with DNR for the acreage and were told that the range would have to be included in the deal. The County did not want to be a gun range landlord and tried to work around this but couldn't. So a deal was struck to sell the land the range sat on to the club. A deal was struck, and when DNR  transferred the land to the County the Club purchased it's property from the County. It really wasn't that easy, but this is just a thumb nail sketch of what happened.

 

Per the  sale agreement, the club was supposed to be able to operate the range as it had in the past with no interference from the County - as long as the wind blows and the grass grows - .Just over a year after this, the Club was sued by the County for a grab bag full of violations and bad deeds. Ranging from lead leaving the range, bullets leaving the range and hitting homes, wetland violations, un permitted earth moving, etc. etc. etc. The County hand-picked a court in Pierce County, a female judge sympathetic to the County and that had a social relationship with the prosecutor’s wife found in their favor and we were ordered to stop shooting. We went to the Appellate Court and had the most important part of the lower courts decisions overturned.  The Appellate Court held that our "Grandfathered” rights, aka: “nonconforming use” rights were still intact, and the County could not void or violate them and specifically that the range should not have been ordered shut down for a moment!

 

At the same time the County was suing us, to hedge their bet they wrote a new Gun Range Ordinance that would put total control of running firing ranges in the  county in the hands of Department of Community Development. A part of the County that writes code, issues permits, inspects sites. i.e. building inspectors. We, the Members of KRRC believed and still believe that because we are a "grandfathered' community service organization and there has been no showing of a safety issue that the ordinance has nothing to do with us. So that boys and girls are some of the reasons why we did not sign the contract with the County bowing a knee and begging the “privilege” to exist for a permit the county has been trying to shove down our throat. There is more to it than this, but this post is long enough and you get the idea I hope.

 

Keep in mind that KRRC is simply the 4th range in the area to be shut down due to governmental meddling and social engineering.  Sheridan Park, Kingston Jr. Marksman and Shelton Rifle Club are gone forever.  Will KRRC be the next to permanently close its doors, or will you get busy and do something?


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