Every so often you have a sour grapes person.
There was for sale a rather large piece of land out in the middle of nowhere. The person that the land bordered on gambled when it came up for sale. He figured that he'd get the land for a song because nobody wanted it, partially because he controlled the right of way for electricity.
He gambled and lost. Someone wanted it for a hunting camp. He got pouty and walked up to the new owner and the first words out of his mouth were that he was going to charge him $20,000 for an electricity right of way.
Of course the new kid on the block wasn't going to cough up $20K for that. He just put a rather loud generator on the lot line.
Needless to say this caused screeching and heartburn.
That's when the new kid on the block said, "Hold my beer."
Now this was a fairly large piece of raw land we're talking about and there was sort of a 1000 yard alleyway, half of a ravine so to speak along the lot line.
There was the lot line, a 100x1000 yard flat space with hills at the side and far end. It was a naturally made rifle range.
Of course, it would echo into the man's yard.
Enter Plan A.
The new landowner cleared the area and promptly went to the federal, state, county and local police agencies and told them they could use the new shooting range whenever they wanted. He also made the offer to any letter agency within about 100 miles, and the National Guard.
He stated clearly that they could train with any legal firearm.
Now on top of this he started hosting a number of shoots open to anyone with any legal firearm.
Civil war reenactors now had a place to fire cannons, a museum now had a place to test fire machine guns and a number of Class 3 guys had a place to shoot machine guns.
Needless to say, there were complaints to the various agencies but because the land was not inside of any city limits the complaints were ignored.
So were complaints to the state police who really didn't want to lose a possible place to train.
In short the man's property was blighted and there was nothing he could do about it.
On top of that when he hosted a shoot one of the people that was an ordained Universal Life minister would hold a service on Sunday mornings. Some of the guys brought up a massive PA system and all sorts of loud music from revival camp and Black Baptist churches boomed out along with a pretty good loud, emotional, passionate service by the chaplain.
When he complained about the revival service the State Police showed up, took one look at the service and laughed outright. They went back to the complainer and told him it was a religious service and protected by the First Amendment.
Nobody in local or state government really cared for the man because he had been a pain in the neck with his complaints.
Finally the man stormed into a match one day and said he's give the new landowner electricity right of way for free but by then it was too late. The generator was serving them well and the costs of fuel were minimal.
Now the new owner had pulled a steel shipping container onto the land for use as a cabin of sorts. The stove in it was cast iron and the furniture was pretty much all steel.
Burning the cabin when the new owner was absent was not possible. There was nothing to burn. He also took the generator home when he left so vandalizing that wasn't going to happen.
There was simply nothing old Sour Notes could do.
He tried a lawsuit but no laws were being violated. It was instantly thrown out when he filed it. He still had to pay his attorney.
The new guy's legal fees were nothing. One of the regular shooter was an attorney and took the defense pro bono.
In short, Old Sour Notes was stuck.
What's funny about it is that Old Sour Notes had brought every bit of grief onto himself by being a poor neighbor. Had he gracefully accepted the fact that his little plan to get the land cheap had failed and been a good neighbor and given the new kid free or even an inexpensive power right of way the whole thing would never have happened. No, Sour Notes had to take his anger out on the new neighbor and get greedy. He lost.
Of course I'm kind of happy it worked out that way because I have shot there a few times and had a pretty good time. The guys there are great. It's a pretty good time even if it is rather LOUD.
Now that I write this I am going to have to find out when the next shoot is.
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