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I assume that since the state preemption law, 16-11-173, allows counties to ban outdoor shooting entirely, that means the county could create rules and conditions for using its outdoor shooting range facilities. Such as that the person must have passed a firearms safety class. And / or sat through a presentation about range safety and rules for this particular facility.
If people had to take an NRA safety class to use this this range, and local gun shops and indoor shooting ranges offered such classes for a fee and earned a profit from that training, maybe that would give places like Autry's Armory a reason not to oppose public use of a County-owned outdoor range.
As for opening up an entirely separate range for public use, not law enforcement use, normally I would say that's not a legitimate role of local government, but HERE IN FAYETTE COUNTY, the local government has pretty much banned outdoor shooting with anything other than shotguns, thanks to their stupid laws and huge land lot size requirements. You've got to own a million dollars worth of land to legally fire your $200 Russian rifle under the blue sky.
So maybe a new County-owned shooting park would be a good idea.
Is there a county landfill? Piles of trash would make excellent backstops for bullets. And landfills are already located in the most remote areas of the county where people are more tolerant of noise and funny smells.
I think the only way to make any public outdoor range safe is to have a range officer on the property at all times, and actively supervising public shooting, combined with full and positive ID of everybody on the property. Not just shooters, but every member of the group. All should have to show I.D. and check-in for every visit. Otherwise you'll have ******** bringing old televisions to the range to shoot them up, and people shooting fireworks and rockets there and setting the woods on fire, and hood-rats from Clayton County coming over to try to steal some guns from the firing line while the shooters are all downrange changing their targets...
If people had to take an NRA safety class to use this this range, and local gun shops and indoor shooting ranges offered such classes for a fee and earned a profit from that training, maybe that would give places like Autry's Armory a reason not to oppose public use of a County-owned outdoor range.
As for opening up an entirely separate range for public use, not law enforcement use, normally I would say that's not a legitimate role of local government, but HERE IN FAYETTE COUNTY, the local government has pretty much banned outdoor shooting with anything other than shotguns, thanks to their stupid laws and huge land lot size requirements. You've got to own a million dollars worth of land to legally fire your $200 Russian rifle under the blue sky.
So maybe a new County-owned shooting park would be a good idea.
Is there a county landfill? Piles of trash would make excellent backstops for bullets. And landfills are already located in the most remote areas of the county where people are more tolerant of noise and funny smells.
I think the only way to make any public outdoor range safe is to have a range officer on the property at all times, and actively supervising public shooting, combined with full and positive ID of everybody on the property. Not just shooters, but every member of the group. All should have to show I.D. and check-in for every visit. Otherwise you'll have ******** bringing old televisions to the range to shoot them up, and people shooting fireworks and rockets there and setting the woods on fire, and hood-rats from Clayton County coming over to try to steal some guns from the firing line while the shooters are all downrange changing their targets...
