Fragmented Industry
The shooting-range industry is fragmented, consisting of thousands of mostly mom-and-pop operators. The number of Americans who practice target shooting has jumped 40% in the last five years, to 15.4 million in 2000, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a parent trade group of the range association that is also based in Newtown, Conn.
Shooting ranges belong to that category of enterprises -- along with landfills and live-music clubs -- that are despised as neighbors, even by their own customers. Tom Dean, a 71-year-old retiree, avid hunter and NRA member since the 1950s, loved shooting ranges until one opened next to his spread near Sunny Side, Ga., 30 miles south of Atlanta.
Soon, he says, lead pellets rained down on his property. His concern wasn't only safety. Shotguns -- often the weapon of choice at shooting ranges -- aren't dangerous much beyond 300 yards. But the noise "is atrocious," he says.
Unaware of the NRA's role, Mr. Dean -- who so admired the organization that he gave memberships to family members for Christmas -- wrote the NRA a letter. The NRA sided with the range. The NRA's Mr. Kozuch even mailed out fliers urging Georgia NRA members to help protect the facility from "a small group of vocal activists," including Mr. Dean. The whole ordeal, says Mr. Dean, has left him disillusioned, souring his love not only for shooting but also for the NRA. "It's almost like having a fight with your mama," says Mr. Dean, who ultimately decided not to sue.
Two hundred miles away, in the town of Millen, Ga., near the South Carolina border, Mr. Clayton took a more aggressive tack. In 1976, he and his wife had bought 32 acres off of Honey Ridge Road, a sandy lane that winds through pastureland and pine. "It was just a peaceful setting," says Mr. Clayton. Now, says Mrs. Clayton, it's "Hatfields and the McCoys."
One afternoon, Mr. Clayton sits with his doors and windows shut tight against the winter cold. His home features a gun rack and the head of a 10-point buck. He shakes his head at the sound of gunfire next door. "I'm a Baptist, and I'm not supposed to hate people," he says. "But I've just had it with those people."
"Those people" are the Jenkins family: Mabel, Robert and their son, Robert Jr. They run Hanging Rocks Plantation, a 5,000-acre preserve for hunters and sporting-clays shooters. In sporting clays, participants move from station to station, taking shots at clay targets that are launched in ways designed to mimic the movements of birds and small game. In the last 10 years it has been one of the fastest-growing shooting sports in America.
Like many such businesses, Hanging Rocks caters to wealthy shooters. There's an airstrip nearby suitable for jets. "If you want to come in on a Lear, we'll pick you up," says the younger Mr. Jenkins, 39 years old.
With the shooting-range portion of Hanging Rocks located near his property, Mr. Clayton says he suddenly felt as if he were living in a war zone. The noise was so loud, he says, it even woke his nine-month old grandson. He decided to sue.