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32 <br /> advocating for Lenoir. Section(g) is the one thing that provides some teeth and distinguishes our <br /> ordinance from Lenoir. I'm reminded, she said, of a woman who stood in front of us at the end of <br /> the previous meeting and asked if we have talked about issues that we have never even broached: <br /> time of day, shooting at night, distance from structures, how much land must you own before <br /> you can shoot, what is sustained shooting, what's a safe berm, how far must a berm be from a <br /> structure. <br /> Mr. Tesoro and Mr. Tilley said that the Committee had indeed talked about all those issues. <br /> Maybe, said Ms. Conti, maybe somebody just mentioned that issue. But we never discussed it, <br /> and it certainly never got incorporated into the draft ordinance that is in front of us now. What is <br /> in front of us now is practically useless to people who are not shooters in this community. I <br /> believe this Committee was created because of the blow back that came from the regulations that <br /> were proposed by some other governmental entity, to try to assuage the concerns in the gun <br /> community that their freedom was being impinged upon. There are other people in the county <br /> who have freedoms that are just as important as those. I don't think we have begun to address the <br /> freedoms of the non-shooting community. I'm embarrassed now because I realize I was <br /> appointed to this Committee to represent the interests of those people, and I feel like I have failed <br /> them miserably. So, for all the freedoms in this room, your freedoms as shooters have not been <br /> infringed one bit by this ordinance. We have gone through this whole process just to protect the <br /> rights of the shooter. Now, how about you address just for one second the rights—which are <br /> equally as important—of the non-shooters? There is one paragraph in this ordinance that <br /> addresses the rights of the non-shooters, and now we're about to get rid of it. After having spun <br /> our wheels for months now. We could have done this at the start by saying, "Let's just do Lenoir <br /> County." <br /> In reply to a question from the facilitator, Ms. Conti said she had no idea how to satisfy the needs <br /> of non-shooters who are disturbed by the noise from unreasonable firearm activity while at the <br /> same time satisfying the needs of responsible shooters who do not want infringements upon their <br /> freedom to shoot. If we lose (g) from the ordinance, the facilitator said, it is because we as a <br /> Committee could not figure out how to mutually satisfy those two sets of interests. It is OK if we <br /> are at that point, he said, to recognize it and let it fall to the Board of County Commissioners to <br /> try to figure it out. The Committee would have more control over the solution if it had a good <br /> recommendation, but we need a substantive idea. If Dr. Arvik's proposal to eliminate <br /> "unreasonably loud" is insufficient then let's keep hacking at it, he said, unless you all have <br /> decided that we are done. I don't want you to be done out of frustration. I want you to be done <br /> from an intelligent decision that we cannot come up with a solution at this time with this group <br /> of seven people who are here tonight. <br /> Dr. Arvik said that we have failed if neighbors are disturbed by the location and time of <br /> somebody's shooting. We haven't given Chief Deputy Sykes any tools for dealing with that. If <br /> 13 <br />