Is it legal to make your basement into a shooting range or create a makeshift shooting range out of an old shed or something outside? What are the Cecil County MD laws for a shooting range? I have an acre of property with neighbors all around me just trying to find out what my options are.
Residential Indoor Shooting Range
- Thread starter Dizzle
- Start date
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- Sep 5, 2016
- 778
I spent a ton of time last year researching the use of some commercial property for a shooting range and the same problems apply to residential. In the end, lead contamination killed the deal for me because I may not be able to sell the property down the road. I'm overly cautious with this so take my opinion with that in mind.
Federal and State laws require sellers to disclose all known hazards in a commercial or residential property and you would be required to disclose potential lead exposure from a shooting range. God help you if you don't disclose and it gets discovered after you sell. You can use and claim you only use lead free ammunition but until the market switches over to lead free entirely, the lead paranoia will remain for MANY years to come.
Once you disclose the use for a shooting range, banks will require a Phase 1 and a Phase 2 environmental study if they haven't already ran for the hills. Many commercial real estate buyers will just drop their offer price significantly but most will walk away even if they can get financing. Residential is far worse IMO. Finding buyers with kids or family willing to live in a property with heavy metal risks will be slim to none. Banks won't touch these properties even if they will be properly remediated. The environmental studies and remediation could be costly, and frankly it's not worth it.
I suspect major lawsuits are coming for heavy metals in ammunition just like the greedy lawyers exploited for asbestos and now baby powder. With 40 million Americans shooting every year, the lawyers won't have any problems finding clients to claim damages. The issue with lead in ammunition is going to get worse and the anti-gun nuts are going to use it for all it's worth. When that issue comes to the forefront, anyone who owns real estate involved with the manufacture or use of ammunition will likely have headaches.
- Sep 5, 2016
- 778
Sure can, how much spare cash you have lying around? Here is one of the documents I referred to during my research. It's from the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a little overkill in some areas but it's solid information overall.
https://www.usashooting.org/library/Youth_Development/HS_and_College_Programs/Lead_Management_-_NSSF.pdf
I was thinking of the same thing and am curious of the legalities of it, however I do shoot in the yard legally so the basement should be no problem. Can't wait till the pool opens, would like to do some expansion tests 
I did a countertop job in a huge custim home in MoCo. The owner showed me his indoor 75ft long pistol range with special filtered ventilation system.
GoldGunsGirls
Active Member
That's crazy. That has to have cost him baaaaaare minimum $100k, and probably closer to $200k to get that installed. Maybe more.
Tell future buyers that the property is actually on a Galena deposit... bam, no longer a bug... now it's a feature :-)
It was only space for 2 shooters maybe 8ft wide max. I’m guessing less than $100k. However money was not a limiting factor in this house. This guy has $25,000 carpet just in his master bedroom probably $200k in custom kitchen cabinets.
Moonlighter
Noob
A lot of the contaminants are airborne, hence the emphasis on ventilation. I would think a buyer's concerns could be easily mitigated with an environmental inspection and tests. If the buyer was a shooter, an indoor range would be MAJOR plus.
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