GEORGETOWN - Members of the Georgetown Fish & Game Associationhave been gathering at the rustic clubhouse at the end of Lake Avenuemore than ever lately, but the meetings come and go without a singleshot being fired at the club's shooting range. Pistols are holsteredand rifles left on gun racks, and instead zoning maps are spreadacross battered wooden tables.
About two years ago, members of the 54-year-old sporting clubjoined with area residents to fight a common enemy: a proposed 64-unit condominium complex on an adjacent hill overlooking PentucketPond. Club officials feared that the newcomers and the club'sshooting ranges wouldn't mix; residents were worried about increasedtraffic, among other issues.
The unusual alliance, called the Pond Street Association, hasalready persuaded the developer to reduce the size of the project.
'This would quadruple the number of people in this area,' saidsporting club president Bob Gray, who has become schooled ineverything from housing policy to wetlands laws as he plunges intothe world of land-use planning. He has become active, he said,because 'most towns in eastern Massachusetts haven't done a very goodjob figuring out where the development should go.'
Gray is not alone.
Across the country, gun owners have become the latest soldiers inthe battle against sprawl, determined to protect target, trap, andskeet ranges from encroaching development, and eager to work withresidents, environmentalists, and planners with whom they havepreviously battled.
The National Rifle Association has successfully lobbied in 44states, including Massachusetts, for range-protection laws thatseverely limit neighbors' ability to close down pre-existing sportingclubs on the basis of noise complaints. Now it wants to be moreproactive, by seeking to prevent development close to shooting rangesin the first place.
'It's the logical next step,' said Jim Wallace, legislative agentfor the Gun Owners Action League, a sporting-club advocacy groupbased in Northborough. Wallace says that the sprawl closing in onsporting clubs across the state is disturbing evidence of a lack oflong-range planning. 'The growth has been phenomenal around here overthe last 20 years. In the next 20 years there won't be any room foranything.'
Planners and environmentalists say they welcome any groupconcerned about planning and preserving open space, even ifideological differences on other issues are stark. Farmers andenvironmentalists who have warred in the past over pesticides andrunoff now work together to keep subdivisions and strip malls fromrising on agricultural land.
Now, gun and hunting clubs are being recognized as leadingprotectors of open space. The state Department of EnvironmentalProtection found that sporting clubs ranked behind only thegovernment in terms of controlling undeveloped land. Gun enthusiastswho have historically opposed government intervention are nowclamoring for better planning.
It seems that in the battle against sprawl, strange bedfellowsabound. And gun groups are wasting no time embracing the themes ofthe 'smart growth' movement.
Community preservation is a big catch phrase in the smart growthmovement - the safeguarding of homegrown businesses and family farmsagainst the onslaught of ubiquitous big-box strip malls.
Edward George Jr., a Malden attorney who has represented sportingclubs in battles with neighbors, said that gun owners inMassachusetts are probably not devout smart-growth advocates in theirhearts. But, he said, encroaching suburban development has been sucha wearying issue for many of the not-for-profit clubs for so manyyears, it's not surprising that some are looking for long-termsolutions.
'They will use any excuse to shut them down,' George said ofhomeowners that border shooting ranges. 'If a buyer sees a home on aSaturday afternoon, buys it, and then discovers on Sunday morningthat a gun club is next door, it's easier to go after the gun clubthan the real estate broker.'
That's what the Maynard Rod and Gun Club discovered several yearsago when a subdivision went up next to club property in Sudbury.Residents sued, saying the adjacent range was loud and dangerouslyclose. They prevailed on appeal, but the club still operates, helpedin part by a legal maneuver that reclassified it as a nonprofit,educational facility.
Carl Toumayan, an attorney at Kashian & Reynolds in Arlington whorepresented the Maynard Rod & Gun Club, said gun clubs are forced tobe creative. The NRA-sponsored bill passed by the Legislature, whichlike those in the other 43 states essentially says that noise from along-established gun club cannot be considered a nuisance, hashelped, Toumayan said. But claims are still being made against clubson zoning or environmental grounds.
Many clubs are trying to acquire more land to create a bufferagainst development, he said.
The relatively sudden appearance of development in even ruralareas prompted the NRA to seek protection of shooting ranges as acomponent of public lands policy. The NRA joined with the US ForestService in 1998 to form the Public Lands Shooting Sports roundtable,which includes the Bureau of Land Management. Target shooters areincreasingly portraying themselves as responsible stewards of naturalareas. Wallace, of the Gun Owners Action League, said the self-preservation motivations of the sporting clubs are obvious. But, hesaid, target shooters represent a broader constituency than mostpeople realize.
'We're just the litmus test,' he said. 'I've always said, `As thesportsman goes, so goes society.' First you have areas closed tohunting because of sprawl. Now we're all dealing with pollution,water problems, less access to natural areas, overcrowding inschools, trapping wildlife just to get rid of them. Is life betterfor the average person? You tell me.'
Anthony Flint can be reached by email at flint@globe.com
