I live in the county not out in the country. The property right behind my neighbor is within the city limits.?
Posted on February 23rd, 2011 by admin
I have now contacted the City Manager & law enforcement as well as Wildlife Officers. This neighbor had young hunters hunting in the woods behind his property trying to kill a deer with rifles not bows (it is bow season) & he did not care that the property was in the city limits nor did he care that people live all around the wooded area. Four hundred feet thru the woods is a golf course & community. If he shows no respect for people or the guns he is using, maybe he needs to go to Iraq or Afganistan and have a filed day firing his guns. Do you really think he is being a responsible gun owner & parent when he is spray shooting his rifle in front of his kids. This is a residential area the road has 12 homes on the 2500 foot road. People are all around him. My wife & myself have been to many safety classes & we both have concealed weapon permits & both of us know that we are responsible where our bullets go. If his son sees him spraying the 50 foot burm he has, then what is to stop the son from spraying the ground & trees shooting at squirrels with his 22 rifle that he dad keeps a minimum 20 round clip in? This is the same son who’s mom called my wife on the first day of his school year & complained that his teacher called her to school because her son appears to have an anger management problem. Gee it almost sounds like the teacher must have taught his dad. Yes it does stress both of us out to know there is someone with a gun that is disrespectful with his neighbors. We have been neighbors since 1994 & never had a problem before now. I think guns are for protection & for hunting in the proper places. Would you feel the same way about my neighbor if he lived next to you? Before we called the law, I went down & told him his shooting in our neighborhood was scaring my wife. He said tuff Sh_t I can shoot where ever I want and you can’t stop me. He said his wife works (in records) for the sheriff dept & knows the County ordinances so live with it. Would you feel safe around him? Guns are not the problem, people that have guns & have no respect for anyone but themselves are.
Good Lord! I’d be horrified if that guy was even in my State! I have children and we also have a large property that some people mistake for just a public wooded area. We have tried putting up fences and signs that state when they are actually on our property but they just don’t seem to get it.
If the guy ‘knows the Sheriff" he should be that much more aware of what he is doing is endangering lives. I would go have a talk with that same Sheriff and not stop until he has to go tell the guy to be more responsible.
As far as the son goes…I was taught to shoot high powered weapons at the age of 8. However, it was for the purpose of being responsible, feeling the power in your hands and learning safety. Not to spray and pray as they call it in the Army. Really in Iraq or Afganistan our military is really taught the spray and pray method is unacceptable as it endangers too many civilians. Over there, and any war region, obviously there will be civilian casualties but it is certainly not something The United States of America condones. I was in the Army. Despite the stories you hear about soldiers who just love to go off with their weapons, it’s not true. Ok, you have a few idiots who make it through somehow like your nieghbor there but unless you are in a very close and direct combat situation, troops get ammo checked and counted.
Maybe you could try a different tactic with the guy. What would happen if you went over, as a friend, and said something like ya know, why don’t you show me how you shoot your weapons, how you are teaching your children etc. and just have a discussion about safety? Rather than an arguement first.
I remember growing up in my town, where having and using a weapon such as a Shotgun was very normal. However, I can also remember as a young child, being in our back yard and having bulletts fly past our heads. We had to put a stop to that and once it was explained to the people who were doing it, although they were seriously stupid to begin with, it wouldn’t happen again and everybody just learned which way they could shoot and which way they couldn’t.
Also, somebody whose "wife works in records’ doesn’t necassarily mean they "know" the Sherriff. He’s using his wifes employment place as an excuse to scare the Hell out of his neighbors.
I’m sorry. I kind of talked around and around on this one. It’s a dificult situation and the guy you are talking about sounds like a real creep. However, I do believe that you should first try to patch it up with the moron on your own first. If that really doesn’t work then find who can stop him and don’t shut up until you get it stopped. Call this Sherriff friend every single day if that is what it takes.
Good Luck,
SarahJane