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15 <br />What does safety mean? It means not getting hurt by someone using a gun. Ms. <br />Conti isn’t worried about the noise from her neighbor; it’s an irritant to her, but her <br />worry is about getting shot. Me too. I’ve got people on both sides of me with their <br />own ranges. I have seen the ranges, I understand the ranges. I know what he is <br />shooting. I can count the rounds. He is shooting safely. But the people with less <br />knowledge than those of us who are responsible gun owners don’t know he is safe. <br />What can we do to help the County teach people that what is going on at the ranges <br />is safe? We have to give the Sheriff’s Office the training to know what is safe. The <br />deputy I interacted with did not know what was safe, and he was wrong. <br />Mr. Tilley saidthe people who are shooting unsafely now will not stop shooting <br />unsafely because of a County ordinance. Dr. Arvik saidhe understands that, that <br />you can’t cure stupidity. But if people want to know what safety is, he said, then <br />we have to offer them the opportunity to get that information.In hunting, you have <br />to take a hunter safety course in order to get a license. If we don’t come up with <br />something to address the potential of danger from unsafe firearm use then wewill <br />have wasted a lot of time on this Committee. <br />Mr. Hunnellsaidthe Committee needsto think bigger and longer term. The <br />county is changing, growing denser, and the people are different. Maybe the <br />County can put money in the budget for the Sheriff’s Office to conduct firearms <br />safety classes for young people, which is what I had available to me when I was a <br />kid. Or maybe we can do something in the school system to help people understand <br />the safety issues associated with handling firearms. We can do things to address <br />safety that will have benefits over the longer period of time as the county changes. <br />Mr. Kirkland saidhehas not seen any county ordinances addressing firearms that <br />pertain to noise. There are some set back and distance limits, but not noise control. <br />Mr. Kirkland asked how training would fit with an ordinance.We can’t tell <br />someone that before he shoots on his own property that he has to have some sort of <br />class. I agree 100% that it is very important to have the training, but that has to be <br />on a voluntary basis. Maybe the Sheriff’s Department could offer a class that <br />people would volunteer to take, but I would not make that a requirement in an <br />ordinance.Most people get their training from their daddy or grandpa while <br />shooting on their own property into a berm or a log. Safety is keeping a projectile <br />on the confines of one’s property. That can be done through earthen berms or logs <br />or a barricade. That’swhere I would focus our attention, on the safety associated <br />with keeping the projectile from crossing a property line. Noise might be addressed <br />through a tangible distance between the shooter and others. Distance can be