Portage City Attorney Dan Bortnicki will take another shot at an ordinance that would prohibit discharging weapons in the city.
The exception would be at a shooting range built to meet or exceed specifications set out in the ordinance.
Over a month ago, he said, the police department reached out to him with what sounded like a simple question: “Is shooting a gun within the city limits illegal? And my first reaction was of course, as it is pretty much everywhere else.”
Then Bortnicki went into a deep dive of about 30 years of lawmaking. Pistols and rifles were pulled out of ordinance at some point, he said.
Reckless discharge of a weapon is still illegal anywhere in the state under the criminal recklessness law, but the city doesn’t expressly forbid discharging all types of weapons.
Police Chief Michael Candiano said the existing ordinance isn’t good. “Literally, it covers paintball guns and bow and arrow.”
Under the existing ordinance, if a resident has a berm in their yard and it’s in a residential area, there’s nothing the police can do. “We are banning paintball guns and bow and arrows, and everything else is fair game,” he said.
Councilman Ferdinand Alvarez pointed out in May that a resident complained to him about a neighbor’s BB pellets flying over the fence into her yard. Code enforcement went there and said there wasn’t much they could do, Bortnicki said.
BB guns are not regulated under city ordinance.
Bortnicki proposed an ordinance Tuesday to the City Council’s Ordinance Committee, but so many questions were raised that he’s taking it back into the shop for an overhaul.
The proposed ordinance doesn’t violate any Second Amendment rights, he said. People can still own, carry, buy and sell firearms in the city. It’s discharging the weapons that is at issue.
“This is not a firearms regulation at all. This is public safety-focused,” Bortnicki said.
One of the flaws with the existing ordinance is that it doesn’t have any definition of weapons that shouldn’t be discharged in the city. He’s updating it to make sure it includes air pistols, air rifles, pellet guns, paintball guns and BB guns.
Candiano said he would consult with colleagues to see what other types of weapons would need to be included. Nerf guns, for example, shoot projectiles, but not dangerous ones.
Councilwoman Gina Giese-Hurst, not a member of the committee, said during public comment on the proposed ordinance that the Consumer Product Safety Commission considers BB guns dangerous and lists examples of fatalities that have occurred because of improper use of them.
“BB guns can kill a person,” the CPSC website says. “High-velocity BB guns, which have muzzle velocities higher than 350 feet per second, can increase this risk. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has reports of about 4 deaths per year caused by BB guns or pellet rifles.”
Council President Victoria Vasquez said state law doesn’t define BB guns as firearms, so maybe a second ordinance that deals with recreational projectiles is warranted.
Councilman Collin Czilli suggested having subsections in the same ordinance to deal with that issue, offering two levels of violation, depending on the severity of the offense. Discharging a firearm is more dangerous than a BB gun or paintball gun.
Discharging a firearm would carry a $250 fine while other weapons would be a $50 fine.
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Vasquez also wondered if people with yards measured in acres could be allowed to discharge weapons in their own yards, not affecting neighbors.
But that brought up a logistical question of how to allow that. What if they had a large yard but were shooting the weapon near their property line? And if the city Board of Works were authorized to grant exceptions, as it can for exotic pets, would that increase the city’s liability?
“If you’re in the center of a two-acre lot and no one knows what’s going on, there’s no one to complain,” Bortnicki said. Closer to the edge of the property, complaints are more likely.
The revised ordinance is expected to be ready for the Ordinance Committee to consider again next month.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.