Franklin County Gun Range - Need our help

[Sadman]

The guys over at Patriot Shooting Sports in Youngsville are trying to convert their private gun range to a public range. These guys are "Appleseed Friendly"!


They will present to the Franklin County Board of Commissioners on Monday, December 3rd at 7:00 PM. The location is 113 Market St Louisburg, NC.



If you are in favor of having a range in Franklin county then I need you to show up at the meeting.
If you are an Appleseeder, please wear a shirt/hat and be ready to voice your support for a shooting range in the area.
If you do come, bring people with you!!!



I plan to go to the County Commissioners meeting to speak in support of the public range and I also plan to talk about Appleseed ... what we do/teach so the commissioners understand the value of having a public range in this part of the country and the types of events that would be of value to their constituents.

[adamsod]

Thanks for the heads up Sadman, see you there.

[Sadman]

First, I'd like to say thanks to Adam.  He was the only other Appleseeder that showed up to show our support for these guys.  They asked us to speak at the County Commissioners meeting to show our support for their request to be classified by the county as a public range.

The request to the commissioners was a complete failure, without a doubt they were squashed by the commissioners.  I thought others might learn from these mistakes and you might be more prepared if you find yourself in a similar situation.  With that hope in mind... I submit the following:



Freedom Gun Club made a request to the Franklin County Commissioners to be classified as a public shooting range which would allow them to advertise and allow public activities at the range.  They asked me to speak on their behalf as a representative of Project Appleseed.  I gladly took up their request and adopted it as my own.  In their presentation to the board they talked about the many educational and community service events that they hoped to bring to the range.  Project Appleseed was named specifically in their presentation so they deserve all the support we can return back to them!!!  At that point I went to be sworn in that the testimony that I was about to provide was truthful.  Well if I was nervous before I was x10 at this point.  I had read my speech many times and practiced but it was just like the first time I ever told a Strike... my voice was cracking and it was clear that I was nervous!  I also provided each of the commissioners a "trifold" for them to take home.  The Gun Club also introduced a NRA instructor with an impressive resume and he focus on the safety aspect of the range and testified that he had reviewed their policy and rules.  Third, they introduced a local manufacturer of optics, they shared with the board that as a local manufacture that the range would provide them a place to test.  The individuals picked out ahead of time did a great job of representing the range in my opinion.  The floor was opened for others to make comment and then some of the local "flavor" came out with some comments that frankly were inappropriate and were a poor representation of the shooting community.  The comments from the public could not be controlled or authored ahead of time and thus the content was "questionable" in my mind.

The floor was then opened to those that opposed the range.  A summary of those concerns (dressed up a little) is as follows
]Noise Pollution
Lead Contamination
Safety - stray bullets
Detrimental to property value of adjacent land
NIMBY - Not in my back yard (most of these people supporting shooting, just not locally)


The commissioners were only allowed to consider what they heard in the presentations when making up their mind.  You should expect that people will show up with a statements like "Gun fire will run all the wildlife away".  The problem with how this meeting went down is that hardly anyone showed up with actual facts.  Most individuals on the opposition threw out the statistically invalid statement of "What if a bullet hits the school buses that drive by the property every day... oh the kids... think of the kids... <gag reflect kicked in... forgive me a moment  >.  Our side was not able to refute the statements.  Opinions were presented as fact even though the presenter was not a subject matter expert.  Pick any subject that I listed above and apply the same type of argument.  Subjective presentation presented as fact and accepted without question by the commissioners.  My jaw frankly never came off the floor while listening to the opinions of the opposition.

Lessons learned

Talking Appleseed is great, I didn't receive a single bad comment about our organization or what we were try to do.  Even the opposition supported our mission.
Anticipate the subjective concerns and provide factual evidence against those statements.  You can count on those opinions showing up.  One piece of evidence submitted was that a .308 fired at the range had a decible reading of 53db at 300 yards.  While that is great, nobody ever share the comparison that a "normal conversation" is about 65 db at 3 feet to "debunk" the noise pollution comment.
Finally, I'm a pretty slow learner.  By getting off my rear and stepping up to swing the bat (so to speak), I learned a lot.  The next time I will be better because of this experience.  I'm about 5 shades of POed at myself for not performing more effectively but next time... I will be better... and there will be a next time!!!


Closing
We lost.  It was not even close.  We lost in a dramatic landslide.  The commissioners rejected the request.  I share this so you can learn from my experience and so you may be more successful.

Regards,

Sadman

[Transform]

Opinions were presented as fact even though the presenter was not a subject matter expert.  Pick any subject that I listed above and apply the same type of argument.  Subjective presentation presented as fact and accepted without question by the commissioners.

Unfortunately, you are describing how democracy usually works. Although I'm against having an Electoral College, I recognize that what you're describing is part of the reason why the Founders created the Electoral College in the first place. The prevalence of human stupidity is why we inherited a representative Republic instead of a democracy.

Talking Appleseed is great, I didn't receive a single bad comment about our organization or what we were try to do.  Even the opposition supported our mission.

Regardless of the decision, that fact alone is reason to celebrate some degree of success. Great 7th Stepping!

By getting off my rear and stepping up to swing the bat (so to speak), I learned a lot.  The next time I will be better because of this experience.  I'm about 5 shades of POed at myself for not performing more effectively but next time... I will be better... and there will be a next time!!!

In that case, I would argue that we actually won. Pick your battles carefully, since sometimes we must lose a battle to win the war. In my view, the commissioners' decision pales in comparison to the victory of having another American step up and ensure that "there will be a next time" and that they will perform better for the experience.

If the Patriot Shooting Sports folks learn from this experience, and begin their public education campaign now, they will be ready to bring back their proposal after the next election for new commissioners. That schedule also leaves time for grant writing to build berms higher, put up sound walls, and become friendly with the neighbors.