Shooting laws need changes

After reading about the shooting range on Farm To Market Road, my jaw dropped thinking about what a friend had just told me about some friends of his down in Mission Valley.

It seems as though this is not an isolated nor uncommon occurrence, and one that people, shooters and landowners alike must take a good long look at.

Under Montana Code Annotated 2007, section 76-9, “shooting ranges” and their owners are given greater protection than landowners, and some are using this to intimidate and harass neighbors and adjacent land owners.

I am a gun owner as well as a hunter, and by all means I do believe in the right to exercise, in a safe and respectful manner, my ability to fire my weapons.

In Lake County, there is a couple that have owned property and built a guest house for friends and family so all can enjoy the peace and quiet of the Mission Mountains. Two brothers, who do not live on the property adjacent to the couple, have set up a “shooting range” no further than five feet from their property boundary, and less than 100 yards from the couple’s guest house and shoot, and I quote from a deposition, “anything at anytime I like.”

They shoot over their house, they harass the horses, scare the grandchildren and even go as far to tell everyone that there is nothing the Lake County Sheriffs will do, which is not an exaggeration.

A sheriff responded and stated (public record) that it was the safest range that he had seen, even though he is not a certified range officer, and there is a house less than 100 yards away from the target, as well as a house not far behind the shooting target.

There are no lights, and yet the brothers shoot, in their own words, “all hours, day and night.”

This has gone so far that both my friend and the landowners have contacted Helena, and both were told that there is nothing that can be done until “someone is shot.”

Now, after these accounts, I am really looking into how to protect my property and my neighbors’. Is it now we have to have neighbor organizations, covenants or rules which to live by? Why are we put in a position that I have to strain one freedom to protect another? Why do we not have safe shooting standards which protect everyone?

I know what the argument is, so I ask, what if I set up my shooting bench along your property?

The answer — there is nothing you could do about it.

Blanton Meyercord is a resident of Polson.