Residents from around the Hatch Road area off of NC-54 are asking Orange County commissioners to do something about loud gunfire from one neighbor’s property.

Kelly Hogan said she has lived in the neighborhood for 16 years and has come to expect the sound of sporadic recreational shooting nearby. But in the past two years, she said, things have become a lot more intense.

“We have been told that there is no evidence the range is commercial, and the rules have been followed and that gunfire is an exception to noise ordinances,” Hogan said. “Yet hundreds of neighbors, including young children and veterans, are exposed to noise like they have never heard before in our backyards.”

Several residents raised their concerns over safety and cited a video on Facebook that they say shows the owner of that property handling firearms in an unsafe manner.

One resident said he’s heard bullets in the forest near his backyard. Another said she discovered she had had a closer call when work was recently done on her house’s gutters and a .22 caliber round was found in her roof.

Around 10 residents spoke on this topic last week.

At the end of the meeting, county attorney John Roberts said it was not the first time this issue had been raised, but he said that current state legislation prohibited the county from applying a noise ordinance retroactively against recreational shooting areas outside the townships.

“Anything in existence would not be affected,” he concluded.

County commissioners have also been receiving many emails from residents concerned about the intensity of gunfire in the Hatch Road area. Commissioner chair Penny Rich told WCHL’s Aaron Keck that their hands are tied by the legislature.

“We’re going to look at it again, as we do when complaints come in and hope that maybe we can think outside the box to do something,” she said. “We also hope that the folks who are shooting would be good neighbors and understand what it’s doing to their neighbors.”

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