Meeting Notes 080116 - Laserfiche WebLink

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6 listen to other people. There are no statistics pointing to a real safety problem. Mr. Hunnell said that the concern is pre-emptive; to do something before damage to property or injury occurs. He suggested some items to be considered for inclusion in an ordinance: intoxication, willful disregard of the safety of others, containment of the cartridge on the shooter’s property, containment of the cartridge on another person’s property where you have permission to hunt, and possession of the written permission to hunt on another’s land. Each Committee member then shared his or her position on whether or not an ordinance is needed: x Mr. Kirkland recalled the controversial ordinance that had been rejected by the Board of Commissioners earlier in the year. There was an item in there about restricting people to shooting two days a week; that was extreme. There was not anything in there about training or general firearms handling. It was all about safety –meaning containing the projectile -- and noise. So, if we’re doing an ordinance that focuses on safety and noise then it shouldn’t be hard for us to come up with something. But if we’re going to go off and talk about general firearms safety, how you handle them, and how you storethem, then that sort of ordinance is not going to go very far. If we’re going to recommend an ordinance to the Commissioners then we need to stick to keeping that projectile on your property andto reducing the impact of the noise on the community.If we do nothing, then I think that opens us up to some kind of ordinance in a year or two from now that may be even more restrictive than what we can create here. I believe we have to come up with an ordinance that encompasses both safe range shooting and noise. x Ms. Conti said that the Committee has been tasked to deal with the issue of firearms safety. The residents of Orange County are not expecting to be told that they need to get themselves educated. They are expecting specific measuresthat will givethem some comfort. The issue is bigger than education. I would support an ordinance that deals with noise and/or distance, she said. It ought to be simple enough to figure out how far a projectile can go. We might also look at some of the measures used to regulate hunting that we could use to deal with firearms safety and noise outside of hunting, for example, you can’t hunt with a firearm on Sundays between 9:30 and 12:30, or all day on Sunday within 500 yards of a church or residence. x Mr. Webster said he is in favor of an ordinance. I’m in favor of restricting distance and time, making sure people are shooting safely, zero tolerance for alcohol when handling a firearm, and having a large fine. When you impose a large fine then you are creating a disincentive to violate the ordinance, and it helps people to make good decisions.When you tap into someone’s finances, then it opens their eyes. x Mr. Tilley said he is in favor of discussing an ordinance if the right factors are put into it. I don’t think you can use decibels for addressing noise, because it’s burdensome on the Sheriff’s Office. We can do the distance and some of the other things probably, but not the decibels. x Ms. Barksdale said she is in favor of developing an ordinance and she likes the items that have been suggested so far. I’ll continue to think about it, she said, including as I sit in my office and hear from clients about domestic violence. But other than that, I like what we have so far. x Mr. Tesoro said that the Committee has been tasked with developing a recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners, not necessarily to draft an ordinance. We are supposed