(2010-04-09) You probably figured it out from our legislative report: noise control bills (indeed any environmental protections) have our attention. God hasn’t been making more land for us lately, and what we have is rapidly being developed, paved and used up. The future holds only more angst for us, as land-use policy is contested. Legacy activities – like a chance to plink or hunt, or to farm, or to ride – will become ever more restricted as urbanites seek to live their idea of country life. Local control of land-use policy is the ultimate demonstration of “tyranny of the masses” – he who has the most votes wins, and a little piece of ground sporting 200 townhouses trumps one farmer every time.
Maryland is one of the few states with state-wide noise laws, in addition to localities having their own “extra rules.” A patchwork quilt indeed and more elaborate now as a result of the recent session. Republicans intent on promoting more of their brand of big government – Andy Harris comes to mind – issued talking points to support the Harford County bill and quash gun groups from even reporting on it much less taking a position. They assured everyone that “no standards are changed.” That much is true! Unfortunately, it is the present standards that are the problem.
Maryland’s unique state-wide noise law is tremendously restrictive, and all the more so as a result of case law (from those who have fought it – including gun clubs) directing how noise must be measured for enforcement. The devil is always in the details! “Background noise” from a major highway puts out an enormous amount of energy, but under law this energy is averaged, meaning it is difficult to reach actionable levels. “Impulse noise”, however, is measured in a way that emphasizes peak pressure. While there is far less energy, it is far easier to register a violation.
Shooting activities fall under this noise law handicap, and in a climate where we must spend all our political capital cleaning up others’ messes, we’ve never had enough juice to repair noise law too. The most we’ve been able to do is enact protection for legacy ranges – but all individuals and new facilities fall under the highly restrictive limits.
Instead of full repair, our stopgap has been to channel noise issues to the state level (much like in preemption) then quietly gut most of the noise control program’s budget. Our protection from wanton bureaucratic abuse over noise was to make officials have to focus on egregious violations, and not have the luxury of attacking casual shooting activities. (Of course, the Ehrlich administration’s record of range closings shows this can happen anyway.)
The GOP idea to enable local enforcement of state noise law destabilized this arrangement. Yes, standards stay the same – but activities that we see as legitimate would be trivially exposed to predatory enforcement. Harford County already proscribes shooting within 150 yards of a residence. Had Delegate Jennings’ amendment not succeeded, the distance to get impulse energy down to levels in state law (and so be safe from a Harford sheriff eager for votes from all the neighboring townhouses) would have effectively multiplied this distance many times. Harford-inspired Calvert bills show that the Andy Harris ‘local enforcement’ genie is out of its bottle. We have more battles to come.