One of the surprises coming out of the ongoing controversy over the Maidstone Gun Club land lease from East Hampton Town is what else has gone on there other than shooting and gun education.

’Tis the season to be jolly, whether you like it or not, and East Hampton’s overheated (and occasionally silly) civic discourse on holiday lights has arrived right on time. 

Present-day ideas about land rights on the East End can be traced back to the English, who set out their plantations on the Island in the middle of the 17th century, and it is illuminating to see what laws came first.