Concerns grow about gun park

A shooting range where hobbyists could fire .50-caliber rifles might become part of the planned 2,900-acre gun park in five to 10 years.

That possibility has stirred loud cries from many neighbors in this northernmost tip of Las Vegas urging Clark County officials to do a noise study at the park site.

Nellis Air Force Base officials also have expressed concerns about aircraft flying over an area where such powerful rifles would be discharged.

Gun advocates, meanwhile, insist that .50-caliber rifles are safer than smaller firearms because they make up a pricey pastime for well-to-do sports shooters who want to compete at high-end gun ranges.

The latest skirmish is another sign that the park, which will cost $64 million in the first phase alone, will be a divisive project well into the future.

A neighborhood activist argues that the original plan was probably OK when the stretch of land at the north end of Jones and Decatur boulevards was empty.

"We need to step back and re-evaluate the area that now has houses, versus 15 years ago when there was nothing," said Lisa Mayo-De Riso, a business consultant and local activist.

Mayo-De Riso said Nellis Air Force Base leaders expressed concerns to the county about how a .50-caliber range might be hazardous to aircraft because the rifles can shoot down a plane.

Nellis officials issued written statements this week touching on safety concerns about the range. Growth in the valley has limited flight paths to the Nevada Test Site, making it necessary at times for planes to fly over the park site, officials said.

"Nellis remains committed to working with the county to adopt the necessary safety modifications to develop the park compatibly with our mission," the statement read.

The .50-caliber range wouldn't be developed for at least five years, said Don Turner, the county shooting park manager.

Barriers, known as baffling, can be installed to catch stray rounds, Turner said, noting that they would stand about 30 feet tall.

Nellis is studying how extensive the baffling must be to safeguard planes, or whether such shields will be needed at all, Turner said.

He argued that errant bullets can shoot skyward from anywhere in the valley, given that 45 percent of the county's residents own guns.

Two gun ranges in the county already accommodate .50-caliber gunfire, Turner said. The shooting park's range would be considerably larger than either.

Shooting .50-caliber firearms is an expensive sport, he said. The rifles run from $3,000 to $8,000, and each round costs $5. Roughly 40,000 people own .50-caliber rifles in the country, and most of the owners are serious hobbyists who travel to competitions, said John Burtt, chairman of the Fifty Caliber Institute, based in Oklahoma.

Shooting these rifles became an organized sport in the mid-1980s, he said. As many as 60 people will participate at the more popular venues, each firing off hundreds of rounds at paper targets during the contests.

Plans for the .50-caliber range make a sound test at the site imperative, Mayo-De Riso said, adding that the study would cost about $35,000.

The county is basing its decibel estimates on research done in Arizona, she said.

Meters could be set up near the high school and the homes near the site to get a clear idea of the repetitive noise that students and residents would have to endure, she said.

If the sound falls within the county's 56-decibel threshold, the residents would have nothing more to say, she said.

But county spokeswoman Jennifer Knight said it would make no sense to measure noise at the site now on terrain that will change after the gun range is finished.

Berms will be added and backstops will be built, all of which will diminish the noise, she said.

If the gunfire exceeds the 56-decibel limit after the park's first phase is built, the county can take steps to muffle the noise then, she said.

"It's really very premature to do a sound study because it would be a waste of the taxpayers' money," Knight said.

However, one resident argued that a more exorbitant waste of tax dollars would be to overhaul the shooting range after the fact or shut it down.

"We think $35,000 to spend on a proper sound study to prevent the waste of $64 million is not a bad idea," said Tyson Wrensch, who since October 2004 has lived in Carmel Canyon, a subdivision that will be a mile from the range.

Knight said the Arizona study was done in conditions similar to those at the Las Vegas site -- open desert terrain and arid heat -- and the shots were measured at 40 decibels.

"So it's a fair comparison," she said.

One area gun-range operator said the county made a reasonable effort to publicize the park but should have gone further to dispense information to avoid a feud.

Although the park has been discussed among sports shooters for two decades, residents who moved in after the public forums began seven years ago could have missed all the scuttlebutt, especially if they're not shooters, said Steve Carmichael, who runs the Las Vegas Gun Club's center.

"If you're not into shooting, I don't know how you'd know anything at all," he said.

Contact reporter Scott Wyland at swyland@reviewjournal.com or 702-455-4519.