Kenneth and Lois Begly's picture window frames the woods and fields of the Deep Run stream valley near historic Union Mills -- and the squat cinder-block building of their longtime neighbor, the Deep Run Rifle & Revolver Club.

His-and-hers hearing protectors lie close by, on a wood stove in the living room and near the computer where Kenneth Begly keeps his records: bar and line graphs showing decibel readings; marked calendars of club events; and correspondence with the club, state health officials, and state and Carroll County politicians in his quest to lower the volume.

It wasn't always thus, he and other neighbors say, but in the past few years increased activity at the 53-year-old gun club has driven them indoors or out to the malls, and frightened their children and livestock.

The dispute has landed in Carroll County Circuit Court, where the neighbors' private-nuisance lawsuit seeks court-ordered relief. The nonjury trial began in January and is scheduled to resume Monday with testimony on behalf of the club.

Beginning about 1995, neighbors said, the club -- advertising by computer -- began attracting more members and guests to its popular cowboy-action, Annie Oakley and bowling-pin shoots. Parked cars on the two-lane country road bear tags from as far as New York and Georgia.

Deep Run President David Reazin defends the club's newer activities, saying fashions in shooting change like clothing -- or dance crazes.

"The types of events have changed -- but nobody's doing the funky chicken anymore as a dance, either," he said. "It's cyclical -- and the same is true of shooting sports. Trap-shooting has remained constant at two weekends a month for as long as anyone can remember."

In the Sunday cowboy-action shoots, authentically garbed shooters act out several timed events -- ministories, such as last summer's "Lonesome Dove" theme -- with revolvers, rifles and shotguns aimed at metal silhouettes of the bad guys, he said.

"It can look chaotic, but it is very well-orchestrated," Reazin said.

The monthly event was drawing about 80 participants when it was split to include a Saturday -- in part to appease the neighbors.

It was also done because "we had so many people of the cloth," he said. "Several of the ministers wanted to shoot, but they had to go to church on Sunday." The club now has about 60 participants Sundays and 20 in the Saturday event -- now called the Preachers' Posse.

Because the cowboy-action shoots drew about 30 percent female participants, he said, the Annie Oakley event was developed. The "stories" for those events have a woman hanging laundry or rocking a baby when the bad guys sneak up -- causing her to ditch the tablecloth or the child and start shooting.

Shooting five tenpins off a table might not sound as exciting, he said, but a bowling pin is difficult to hit right. Semiautomatics are allowed at this timed event.

Reazin primarily blames Begly for the dispute, saying the man across the street wants to use the club land for dog walking and ball playing as he did when it was less active. The club has 137 members.

He said the club didn't ignore a 1997 letter from Begly -- with 30 neighbors' signatures on a petition. His vice president was setting up a meeting when someone mentioned a lawyer, the club called its attorney -- and the peace talks stopped before they started.

Begly, a gun owner who describes himself as conservative, emphasizes that he is no newcomer, and that he knew the club was there when he bought his home 18 years ago.

"I'm not opposed to shooting. I have guns. Why would I move near a shooting range if I'm anti-gun?" he said.

They coexisted peacefully as he and his wife raised their children, put in an outdoor pool and improved their home in the 100 block of W. Deep Run Road, Begly said.

"We're reasonable people, with reasonable sensibilities, and that lived in peace with this club for years [until] they introduced new and different competitions, and activities that increased exponentially along with the noise levels," he said.

Some of the neighbors in court were members of the club years ago.

But where they used to hear about one shot per second -- a manageable sound, the neighbors said -- the gunfire has become almost constant and the noise level beyond their endurance.

A noise-control specialist for the Maryland Department of the Environment testified in January that his readings were so far above normal levels as to threaten hearing and mental health -- far beyond 13 other gun-range investigations.

But Thomas E. Hickman, an attorney for the Deep Run club, said it is exempt from state noise-pollution laws -- grandfathered -- because it has been in existence for so long.

The neighbors' lawsuit was the last of its kind to be filed in Maryland, said their attorney, Michael P. Darrow, because it beat by one day the July 1997 effective date of a law that protects gun clubs against private-nuisance actions.

Dana Lyons has lived next to the Beglys since 1991 in a renovated 1927 family homestead. Things have changed in her relatively short time there, she said. "This used to be real God's country. People were different, more respectful.

"When I first moved here, I kept horses across the street, and if I was riding, working with a horse, someone shooting would ask, 'Do you want me to stop shooting?' Not anymore." She stopped pasturing her horses near the club after a pregnant mare bolted at the sound of a gunshot, and she hauls hay and water to them.

Edgar S. Sell Sr., 79, of the 200 block of W. Deep Run Road is a longtime National Rifle Association member and a plaintiff. He belonged to the Deep Run club during the 1950s but now shoots at the nearby North Carroll Rod and Gun Club, which dates from the 1940s.

"I'm not anti-gun. I like to shoot. I go deer hunting and I've got about 50 deer," said Sell, who lives halfway between the two clubs -- about a quarter-mile from each.

The older North Carroll club causes no problems with its occasional clay-target shoots, neighbors seem to agree.

"A gun club is a pretty easy target -- pun intended -- for neighbors and for anybody who does not engage in shooting activities," said Reazin. "I don't know if noise is like pain: It's hard to remember how much it hurts when you cut your finger, you forget how much it hurts. As people retire, they're around more and they notice more than when they were working.

"I think this state administration is very forceful in taking a strong stand against guns and anything to do with them, and it's just a very good time in our society to assault a gun club."

"I'm not telling anybody that they don't have the right to shoot," said Begly. "Just be good neighbors -- and they're not. Not anymore.

"The club thinks we're anti-gun and an anti-gun club and we're out to shut them down, and we're not. If they go back to the traditional ways of shooting, that probably would be the end of it."

Pub Date: 3/11/99