Bushmaster Weapons Testing Irks Windham, Maine Neighbors

On a related suject, I really appreciate the money we spend building noise barriers alongside our highways so the poor neighbors that moved in after the highway was built don't have to suffer from the noise of the traffic (mainly in the more expensive towns closer to Boston). I'm kind hearted that way. [/sarcasm]
 
Indoor range may be answer to Bushmaster noise problems

Friday, June 4, 2010

WINDHAM – As a result of ongoing noise complaints by neighbors of North Windham-based Bushmaster Firearms, local leaders and a representative from the Windham gun manufacturer toured an indoor firing range in Saco recently.

According to the Windham officials who took part in the tour of General Dynamics' indoor testing range at Saco Defense in April, a similar range would go a long way in easing the frustrations of neighbors who are growing weary of the rat-a-tat-tat of Bushmaster's rifle testing. According to neighbors, the guns are tested almost daily within earshot of their homes that surround the range in North Windham. The testing, which company officials report is mandatory for some of Bushmaster's contracts, takes place in R.J. Grondin's 800-acre pit off Route 302.

That frustration, building up for several years now, led nearly 100 nearby residents to sign a petition drawn up and circulated door-to-door by 27 Chimera Hill Road resident Cliff York, who said an indoor range would be a welcomed solution. Earlier this year, Bushmaster completed a major 10,000-gun contract and indicated testing would diminish. York, however, said the noise hasn't disappeared.

"It's still the same, on and off every day, same as ever. The noise isn't getting any better," York said.

York's not impressed with the recent tour by Windham officials, and is looking for something more tangible.

"Anybody can go look at (the indoor range in Saco), but to make a plan and do something, that's altogether different. Nothing is getting done, they can say what they want," York said.

READ MORE
 
if those people are so unhappy i'll gladly trade places with them. do you hear that? it's the world's smallest violin playing for these whiners.

the only thing i'd be demanding if there was a range that close to my house is that i get to use it! [laugh]
 
I grew up on Cape Cod in the 70's with Otis Air base as a neighbor. heavy automatic weapons fire, artillery, multitudes of jets practicing touch and go's was a normal sight/sound.. Our windows would shake and pictures would fall off the wall. No one that we knew complained, we were proud to have a military base nearby and to be able to look up and see a fully armed F-15 or F-16 a couple of hundred feet over your house was truly amazing. if a company sets up after you are established in a house it is one thing. If you move there knowing/unknowing that the company is there and then start complaining then FU.
I also currently have a private firing range about a 1/4 mile from my house and hear some 50 cal from time to time... Sounds like freedom to me... :)
 
But Bushmaster neighbor Mary Jo York, of 33 Chimera Hill Road, says Bushmaster has the money to pay for an indoor range, and should do it in the spirit of neighborliness.
Click to expand...

So... just because Bushmaster can afford it (at least according to York), they should absorb the costs of a new facility simply to please the bed-wetting neighbors... I don't think so.

You'd think it'd be a good community service to help law enforcement with an indoor range. State police, Cumberland County, Windham, they could all use it. Seems pretty simple to me," York said.
Click to expand...

Or you could just STFU or move... seems pretty simple to me.
 
WanMan99 said:
If you move there knowing/unknowing that the company is there and then start complaining then FU.
I also currently have a private firing range about a 1/4 mile from my house and hear some 50 cal from time to time... Sounds like freedom to me... :)
Click to expand...

I also live very close to a firing range. I can usually figure out if it is a PD using it or just a few members, as well as what (AR vs. pistol) they are shooting. It's music to my ears!

HOWEVER, I am very aware that a number of real estate agents have shown/sold houses nearby and told buyers that "the firing range will be closed within x months" to make the sale. Well, the range has been there since the 1930s and the neighborhood around it was largely apple orchards (I am told) before a forest fire in the early 1950s destroyed it and the property was developed for housing. It's ILLEGAL for a real estate agent to intentionally mis-represent properties, but it's done all the time and they get away with it (he said, she said). So, some buyers may be reacting against the range due to lies told to them when they bought their homes. Still TS as far as I'm concerned and they should focus their anger at the real estate agents who lied to them.
 
800 acres?? How loud could it be? The range I belong to is 300 acres and 1/2 mile from my home. There are no high walls as a sand pit would have and I can just hear the high powered stuff only if I pay close attention to listen for it. Sounds like a bunch of anti's getting together to screw the gun folks again.
 
what a pack of A-holes buying a house near a gun manufacturer then assaching about the noise. BUshmaster should tell the town to do something about these douches or they will relocate to a area that will welcome the jobs and revenue
 
What does unemployment and resulting closed stores and reduced public safety and school staff sound like?
 
1.9 miles driving distance to my range. probably about 1 mile if i decided to go for a run off my porch and through my woods. The noise is just some popping in the distance that you wont hear over the the TV or some soft music if you have the windows open in the house.
 
LenS said:
I also live very close to a firing range. I can usually figure out if it is a PD using it or just a few members, as well as what (AR vs. pistol) they are shooting. It's music to my ears!

HOWEVER, I am very aware that a number of real estate agents have shown/sold houses nearby and told buyers that "the firing range will be closed within x months" to make the sale. Well, the range has been there since the 1930s and the neighborhood around it was largely apple orchards (I am told) before a forest fire in the early 1950s destroyed it and the property was developed for housing. It's ILLEGAL for a real estate agent to intentionally mis-represent properties, but it's done all the time and they get away with it (he said, she said). So, some buyers may be reacting against the range due to lies told to them when they bought their homes. Still TS as far as I'm concerned and they should focus their anger at the real estate agents who lied to them.
Click to expand...

My closest range is 1 mile from my door to the firing line. I like it that close. When I hear nothing, I know I can go shoot and not be disturbed.

There is a housing development being built with the closest house 100 yards from the entrance gate. we will see how this goes.


For Bushmaster, I hope they prevail but in this day, I doubt they will. Unreasonable neighbors have become plentiful and those that bow down to them are even more plentiful like the club I used to belong to.
 
War is good for business
August 5, 2010

I have lived on Little Sebago Lake in Windham for about 20 years. It was last year during the summer months when I was often home working on my house that I first heard automatic and semi-automatic gunfire coming from the vicinity of the public boat launch on Little Sebago.

After several weeks of hearing weapons fire, and a neighbor asking me if I knew what it was, I called dispatch for the Windham police to inquire. I wasn't calling to complain; I was under the impression automatic weapons are still illegal among the general public so I was curious. When the dispatcher I talked to determined where I lived, they told me I was hearing the Bushmaster test firing range.

Many folks are aware that Bushmaster is a Windham company and provides weapons to the military, the M16 assault rifle being one of its chief products.

READ MORE
 
After several weeks of hearing weapons fire, and a neighbor asking me if I knew what it was, I called dispatch for the Windham police to inquire. I wasn't calling to complain; I was under the impression automatic weapons are still illegal among the general public so I was curious.
Click to expand...

hello, police? yes, there's a war going on near my back yard, can you send an officer to break it up? thanks.
 
"For me, as I work on my house, I hear the firing - today for several hours throughout the day - and am reminded about conditions in Afghanistan and Iraq where the real fronts are. "

This guy is doing construction on his house, but complaining about the noise from a range?
 
I'd hate hearing gunfire like that near my home all day long... I'd want to go over to the range and ask if I could try out the FA toys.
 
More people need to be reminded about the ...activities...over there. Unless you or a close fa,oly member are in the service, the entire Afghan situation is a 2-minute (if that) squib on the nightly news.

Instead of trying to get the range moved indoors, the writer should be protesting the war, if he feels that strongly about it. Absent that, he should be happy that our troops are getting the better tools to procecute the conflict.

And he also mentions motorboats dragging tubes around - those aren't very quiet, either!
 
dwarven1 said:
I'd hate hearing gunfire like that near my home all day long... I'd want to go over to the range and ask if I could try out the FA toys.
Click to expand...

I'm in sync here. I'd only get angry if they refused to let me volunteer to do some of the testing! [wink]
 
Maxpower said:
"For me, as I work on my house, I hear the firing - today for several hours throughout the day - and am reminded about conditions in Afghanistan and Iraq where the real fronts are. "

This guy is doing construction on his house, but complaining about the noise from a range?
Click to expand...

He was complaining?
 
Bushmaster needs to move out of Maine. Moonbats need to be taught the harsh lessons of unemployment, blighted neighborhoods, poverty level wages in unskilled labor, municipal debt, and generally a shithole to live in.

There are states in the South that will give Bushmaster all the land they want for nearly nothing, wipe out their corporate income tax liabilities to nearly zero, provide a non-union highly educated workforce, and a pro-business climate that no state in New England can even come close to matching.
 
Jose said:
Bushmaster needs to move out of Maine. Moonbats need to be taught the harsh lessons of unemployment, blighted neighborhoods, poverty level wages in unskilled labor, municipal debt, and generally a shithole to live in.

There are states in the South that will give Bushmaster all the land they want for nearly nothing, wipe out their corporate income tax liabilities to nearly zero, provide a non-union highly educated workforce, and a pro-business climate that no state in New England can even come close to matching.
Click to expand...

You just made a good argument for every gunmaker to move out of New England, especially the ones in Massachusetts.
 
Jose said:
And they would be fools for ignoring it.
Click to expand...

S&W should have moved out when former Springfield mayor Albano signed on to the lawsuit against the gun industry. S&W had to lay off workers, and then Albano complains of the spike in unemployment. They should have flipped him the bird, then pack up and move years ago.
 
Zappa said:
S&W should have moved out when former Springfield mayor Albano signed on to the lawsuit against the gun industry. S&W had to lay off workers, and then Albano complains of the spike in unemployment. They should have flipped him the bird, then pack up and move years ago.
Click to expand...

The only reason I can see for S&W staying would be the loss of a highly skilled workforce.

Any monkey can assemble an AR from a bag of parts. It takes a skilled fitter to assemble an S&W wheelgun.
 
Windham plan would quiet rifle-test noise
The Town Council will discuss the plan to quell noise complaints tonight.

R.J. Grondin & Sons, which operates the quarry off Route 302, and Bushmaster Firearms, which tests its weapons there, have collaborated to develop an indoor firing range that is 100 feet long and has concrete walls 8 inches thick.

The proposal follows months of complaints by residents about noise from the weapons testing. The Town Council will review the plan at a workshop scheduled for 7 p.m. at the Community Center. The proposal for the indoor firing range is expected to be discussed around 8:30 p.m.

The design for the firing range calls for walls that can be separated and transported if necessary.

READ MORE
 
mail one free set of earplugs to all the whiners with a note saying "HARDEN THE F UP".

i'll still trade houses with any one of those whiners, i'd love to live next to bushmaster.
 

Similar threads

  • Locked
Weapons Sales Forums.
2
Replies
46
Views
1K
M1911
M1911
Maine Constitutional carry question
Replies
12
Views
553
Asaltweapon
Asaltweapon
N/D at Maine Gun Giveback
Replies
16
Views
626
n1oty
n1oty
Supreme Court staying away from Illinois gun ban cases as Thomas seeks 'more guidance' on protected weapons
Replies
7
Views
382
Uzi2
U
Neo-Nazis Are All-In on AI - Extremists are developing their own hateful AIs to supercharge radicalization and fundraising—Making weapons and bombs
Replies
12
Views
337
rogersmithiii
R
Back
Top Bottom