As Jackson County Commissioner Joe Cowan’s motion to enact a shooting range moratorium died for lack of a second Monday night, one word could be heard distinctly above the crowd’s murmuring.

“Cowards, cowards!” rose a strong, female voice.

For the third time in the past two months, commissioners and a standing-room only audience listened to more than an hour of public comment from proponents and opponents of a moratorium on shooting ranges.

The moratorium was first proposed when Smoke Rise Gun Club began making plans to purchase property and locate a shooting range in the Caney Fork community. At that time, commissioners charged planning board members with writing a draft moratorium, but it was never enacted. The draft resurfaced after Smoke Rise set its sights on Tilley Creek.

Located off of N.C. 107 South just past Western Carolina University — near the county’s recreation center — the Tilley Creek community traditionally has been a quiet, rural cluster of homes. That peacefulness will be destroyed if a shooting range for the 100-plus members of the gun club is constructed, said community residents.

“They’re not the kind of neighbors you’re used to dealing with,” said Tilley Creek homeowner David Fox.

But neighbors need not stay neighbors, said moratorium opponent Todd Mathis.

“Sell out and leave,” Mathis told those who don’t want to live next to a range.

Mathis said that as long as a person had the money to buy property they should be able to do with it as they wish. Any regulation of any kind is a senseless infringement of personal rights, Mathis said.

“We keep dabbling in these ordinances and this zoning and all this bull,” he said. “It might as well be communism.”

A moratorium on shooting ranges has been a hot topic of debate since late last year when members of the Smoke Rise Gun Club began looking to relocate from Cashiers. Part of the club’s former property has since been sold to Trillium, an upscale development company.

Smoke Rise members contemplated buying property in Jackson’s Caney Fork community, which is about halfway between the group’s Cashiers location and the new Tilley Creek location. Caney Fork resident Sam Matthews appeared before commissioners to ask for a moratorium to be placed on shooting ranges, but commissioners failed to act.

The Caney Fork community was spared, as Matthews told commissioners Smoke Rise had begun looking outside the county. However, just a few months later Matthews offered Smoke Rise a 194-acre tract he owned in Tilley Creek. Matthews has not spoken at any of the public meetings held on the issue.

The 194-acre tract contains a historic farm once owned by the Pressley Family, who lost it during foreclosure in 1991. A descendant of the family, Cindy Anthony, previously implored commissioners not to allow a shooting range on the property. She encouraged commissioners to save the property for posterity, as state officials have declared the farm — complete with barns, a springhouse, outbuildings, and a house with a wraparound porch — a prime example of an early Appalachian homestead.

However, commissioners appeared swayed by the gun club members’ personal property rights argument. Opponents of the moratorium claimed that it was the first step in banning weapons use throughout the county.

During a planning board meeting last week, moratorium opponent Mike Clark said that on Easter Sunday he had found a groundhog in his garden and shot it. With an ordinance regulating gun ranges in place, that may not have been allowed, Clark said.

Moratorium proponents have maintained that any moratorium or ordinance written for the regulation of gun ranges would not be aimed at individuals.

“We own guns, we enjoy shooting guns,” said Caney Fork resident Gerlinde Lindy. “This is not about guns.”

Instead, proponents have argued that they are looking to protect their own property.

“What about our rights, who’s going to protect us?” asked Tilley Creek homeowner Michelle Hopkins.

Smoke Rise is expected to close on the Tilley Creek property within the next three months.