Being a gun club in New Jersey is like being the last Antelope in Africa. Virtually every predator in Africa seems to live off the Antelope, which is fine because there are so many. But if the population ever got whittled down to the last one, I imagine that lone survivor would be just a little skittish. So it is too with a NJ gun club. The anti-gun politics in New Jersey are so well established, and the number of groups looking to see you shut down are so many, that every complaint from the outside both reasonable and unreasonable is thoroughly over-reacted to.
For instance, it was discovered by Jersey Central Power and Light that on the high tension power line a few miles behind our rifle range, the insulators have received an unusually high number of chips. You know those big ceramic doodads I’m talking about right? They look like something from a Frankenstein movie? They’re actually built pretty sturdily. Anyway, these particular insulators are more damaged than average and JCPL has been trying to track down potential causes.
So about 8 weeks ago, a few of their safety guys drove by the club and mentioned to management that one possible explanation would be ricochet rifle shot going over the high sand berm at the back of the 200 yard range. The odds of this being the actual cause were to be perfectly frank about it, very small. It's VERY far away, over 2 miles, and ricochet's don't travel THAT far. It's much more likely that some kid with a shotgun blasted the tower with some buckshot during hunting season.
But the safety guys mentioned talking to the homeland security department about it, and that’s when management’s ‘last remaining antelope’ instincts kicked into action. They immediately drafted a new set of rules for the rifle range having to do with the size, height, shape, and position of what you can and cannot use as a target.
Most people on the rifle range were shooting at a variety of different objects. I myself used mostly painted over election signs, but some people used even more unconventional things like water bottles and bowling pins. So management knew that these rules would be difficult to comply with at best. And to help smooth the transition, they built a bunch of target holders specifically designed to meet their new specs, and left them at the range for member use.
I’m sure you can imagine how that went. In just a few weeks all of them had been shot to hell and were incapable of standing up on their own, let alone holding a target. They were basically reduced to bullet hole ridden scrap wood, suitable for kindling but little else. And they were not being replaced by management because of the cost. Just one more example of the ‘tragedy of the commons’.
As the availability of the target frames fell off, so too did the number of shooters on the rifle range. There were only two guys there last time I went by, down from the usual ten or twelve. I don’t think it’s the expense of the target holders that’s a problem for the members exactly. In a case like mine a pair of target holders will probably last me a year or two so the 20 bucks in wood and nails isn't prohibitive. But the massive inconvenience certainly is. And I get the impression that it's the same for the rest of the membership.
It may just be a temporary thing, but I don’t think so.
And as that last Antelope's heart rate continues to race, the rules now have been amended even further so that there are three different heights and sizes of target holder that must be used depending upon the position you expect to shoot from. There are plans for one of them on the website, but this membership isn't the most web-centric bunch. I’m betting that about half the membership will now simply find somewhere else to shoot where it isn’t such a monumental hassle, or leave their rifles at home. Since many are retired, I think it will be just one more reason to give in to the pull of political gravity and finally relocate.
Me, I’m a wingshooter for the most part, and my club still has great facilities for shooting skeet and trap. So since I will use them infrequently, it’s probably worth it for me to go to the trouble of building a couple frames for rifle shooting. And as soon as I do, the last antelope will probably detect some shadow in the tall political grass and change the rules yet again. That’s how it is with antelope instincts – they will bolt one direction at the tiniest crack of a twig, and reverse direction just as quickly. But when you’re the last of a vanishing breed, that’s the only way to survive.
2 comments:
It could be worse... you could live in DC where there are no ranges, and no gun stores, and you have to pay $160 in transfer fees every time you buy a gun (now that you're actually allowed buy one.)
OK - Fair enough... it could actually be worse. But I spent a few hours building these stupid things. And when you're putting them downrange and wondering if one of the officers of the club is about to come sprinting out to criticize your carpentry or to tell you that you can't use finishing nails to hold it together and you have to use galvanized nails, (or some other equally pointless issue) its tough to feel like things are great.
I actually went out yesterday with my brother. And as I suspected, the rifle range was more or less deserted. My guess is that it will simply stay that way and 50% of the membership will fail to renew. and that's how they'll finally get rid of this gun club. One stupid, idiotically bureaucratic and pointless rule at a time. The place will eventually just calcify until the rules become so contradictory that it becomes impossible to comply.
It's a world where every law is written by the same people who brought you the assault weapons ban.
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