City Council/Residents Ecstatic about Banning Shooting Range

Posted on September 27, 2012 by | 2 Comments

Seems like I have been running a lot of these stories lately here on the blog. This time in South Carolina.

From the news account it looks like the residents got pretty worked up about having an indoor, private (members only) shooting range in their area. Thats fine. I am certainly for locals deciding their own fate about what goes on in their neck of the woods, but it seems that there was a great deal of misinformation that caused a sensationalistic environment for decisions to be made in.

The board also felt that a gun range in that area could be detrimental to the surrounding businesses and residents, as well as possibly affecting potential development in that area.

Several residents cited an increase of crime as a concern.

Board members questioned if gun ranges have caused an influx in crime in other areas.

That seemed to be the major underlying misconception that the developer simply couldn’t get past with the board. One of the local businessmen said that “guns and ammunition appeal to the criminal element”. A local resident went on to say that she didn’t want to see an indoor gun range in her neighborhood because it was near a mortuary. She felt that having that type of facility near a funeral home was insensitive and  questioned “how a family who was mourning the loss of someone who died due to gun violence would feel” and also added “would you want this in your neighborhood?”.

I find all of this to be very troubling. Especially in light of the fact that this has been a running theme here for the last few days. Its is also disappointing that city council members would be so worked up about blocking this shooting range as well. One woman was down right giddy about it:

“We did it,” said City Councilwoman Gail Diggs after the meeting. “We came together as a community, and we did it.”

This whole thing is incredibly disappointing. We really need to take it on ourselves to get involved when we see these types of situations developing in our local communities and see to it that it doesnt become a sensationalistic mess like this one did.

Exit Question: Does anyone know if the NRA has a a system in place that can help shooting range developers combat this type of thing when they go before city councils to get approval?
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