Ashuelot shooting range is being downplayed

Posted: Thursday, December 1, 2016 

 

The shooting range proposed for Ashuelot is not what it might seem. When the Winchester Zoning Board re-opens its public hearing on Dec. 15 to again consider the proposal, the testimony and discussion will hopefully cut through everyone’s wishful thinking and seize upon the realities.

First, it’s not intended to be a typical shooting range like Cheshire Rod and Gun Club. What’s planned is an enormous military-style training facility that would focus on high-powered rifles and “action shooting,” the object of which is to kill people. The company’s name, Ridgeline, is a recent re-brand calculated to soften our impression of their intent. When first presenting their proposal, the company described itself on the Internet with its original name: OSOK Industries. OSOK stands for One Shot One Kill, and corporate logo shows a skull with a bullet hole in the forehead.

The videos, text and images the company had posted on the Internet promote military-style training with emphasis on terminal solutions, like: “Let’s talk about terminal ballistics and the intentional targeting of the pelvis.” Another screen offered the reflection: “There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it never care for anything else thereafter.” A selection of the material posted online by Ridgeline can be viewed at www.ashuelotnh.com.

Second, the project would not economically benefit the town. On the revenue side, they would build only one taxable structure. On the loss side, watch out: Real estate appraisers around the country have documented that residential property values plummet when shooting ranges open nearby. Developers of attractive commercial endeavors like tourism, education, and sustainable agriculture and manufacturing, will also be repelled. Those planning for the future, like the Southwest Region Planning Commission, the tri-state development initiative Ecovation Hub, and the state of New Hampshire, are all investing efforts and money into what’s called “Smart Growth” — sustainable agriculture and manufacturing. (See, for example, “New grant available to farmers in region” in The Sentinel, Nov. 26.) Winchester has great resources for this approach and could become a leader.

Third, our town noise ordinance, although well-intentioned, is not up to date. It created a weak standard that will not adequately protect us. There’s research proving that constant pulsing sounds, like gunshots, at a moderate loudness (75 decibels is what our ordinance allows), will indeed hurt you. You don’t have to read the medical journals to understand. Just download a free decibel meter on your smart phone. Then find a YouTube recording of gun range, play it back at 75 decibels, and imagine listening to that eight hours a day. So when Ridgeline says, don’t worry, we will abide by the standard of the noise ordinance, we should still worry. In fact, we should do more than worry, we should say, “No. Our health is too important to be squandered for your project.”

Fourth, and most important, what Ridgeline proposes would not be safe. Ranges for high-powered rifles like this customarily have buffer zones between the range and places where people live. In Ashuelot, there would be no buffer zone between this range and where hundreds of people live, grow food, hunt, hike, and ride horses, bicycles and ATVs. The weapons they would employ have the ability to kill people up to, and even exceeding, a range of 3 miles. No amount of berms and fancy scopes can eliminate the human factor: the human capacity to do make an error or to act stupidly.

The more business Ridgeline will get on their many ranges, operating 70-80 hours a week, the more likely it will be that errors will send deadly bullets into Pisgah Park or toward the covered bridge, the school bus stop, the museum, the post office, the river where people kayak, or the fields and woods where we work, play, grow food and graze animals.

PAUL DOBBS

Ashuelot