http://ipraudio.interlochen.org/HoosierRange_WEB.mp3
Michigan has a handful of informal gun ranges located on state land. There’s one on the outskirts of Traverse City that’s been around since the sixties. It’s future is now uncertain as area residents are raising issues of noise and safety.
A Place To Relax
Just south of Traverse city, not too far from the Boardman River and along a dirt road there’s a field with a steep embankment perfect for catching bullets. It’s clear why this section of state land is used as a shooting range.
Cody Hulett gets ready to aim a loaded, semi-automatic shotgun at a paper target. “Okay, range is going hot!” he calls out in warning.
Hulett learned to shoot here at the Hoosier Valley Range. He comes out at least once a week to relax.
“There’s that moment when you’re about to take your first shot,” say Hulett. “You slow down your breathing you think about nothing. You know, it’s just like meditation. And once you slow everything down, you just slowly squeeze the trigger and right when it lets go… you make that first shot it just makes your whole day perfect.”
But people and horses live on this rural road, too. There’s a subdivision overlooking the valley. Lately, neighbors of the shooting range have grown frustrated, so the state Department of Natural Resources is reevaluating the future of this range. And that has Hulett nervous.
“If we lost this we’d be losing a part of what it is to be Traverse City, what it is to be the Grand Traverse County area. We’re an area of sportsmen, we’re an area of fisherman, we all love the outdoors, and doing anything that hinders that would just – it would be like killing our soul,” says Hulett.
Public Hearing
But at a packed public hearing last week with the DNR it was clear many neighbors have a different perspective.
One man stood up and said, “I just wanted to tell everybody what it’s actually like to live in that area. And I am an avid shooter and bow-hunter. It would be almost like somebody beeping their horn in your driveway every 10 to 20 seconds.”
A woman took the microphone to say, “When I moved into my home in 1999, the shooting was more of an annoyance. In the last ten years it has become so constant and loud that I feel the impact on both a mental and physical level.”
Another woman added, “I have nephews that have come visit. We have family reunions. They’ve been in the service, everyone of them. And they’ll sit there and say, ‘This is just like being back in Afghanistan.’ Some of the guns that they use down there are just unreal.”
That’s just a sampling of the comments which went on for over an hour. Sportsmen were also at the meeting to advocate for the range, but Bill Sterrett, District Supervisor of the DNR for the Western Lower Peninsula, says it’s hard to ignore the stress of the residents. He says no decisions have been made yet, but it might be reasonable to limit shooting hours and restrict certain types of guns and targets that make a lot of noise or might be less safe.
“And I think to the pro gun enthusiasts who were here, to their credit, I think they heard that. I really do,” says Sterrett. “And, you know, we heard several of them stand up and say ‘We understand and we’re sorry for that but it’s, where can we all try to get along and try to exist?’”
Part of the Solution
Back at the range, Cody Hulett and a friend rake up some shot-up foam they found when they arrived. Licensed gunsmith Dave Cook looks on. He’s taken it upon himself to be an unofficial ranger here. He watches out for problems and reports them to the DNR.
“There’s a lot of good people come out here. A lot of really good sportsmen come out here. And they’re very respectable,” says Cook. “It’s that one percent that really make it bad for everybody. They come out here and they leave trash, they leave pop cans. They’re over there now picking up expanded foam that somebody shot up and, it just, it don’t make sense. This is your land like it is mine. Let’s keep it clean. I mean we don’t trash your front yard don’t trash mine.”
Cook lives a half mile down the road from here. On some level he thinks neighbors have no right to complain. The range was here first. But he’s willing to look for solutions and to compromise. And he’s not opposed to moving the range either. That was one solution talked about at the meeting last week. Dave was there and told the audience, “Get me a dozer for two days! I’ll make you one hell of a range!”