Republicans on the Portage City Council rejected a plea Tuesday to make shooting BB guns illegal in the city.
The council voted 4-3 along party lines to strip out proposed language from an ordinance that would have outlawed the use of BB guns, bows and arrows, crossbows, paintball guns and air rifles within the city.
Instead, the council majority voted to ban the use of firearms in the city, rectifying an apparent oversight in 2011 that removed the prohibition on shooting firearms from a list of weapons that were banned.
By voting for the ordinance, Councilman Collin Czilli stressed repeatedly, the Republicans were voting to make the use of bows and arrows, paintball guns and other weapons legal.
“It breaks my heart,” Councilwoman Gina Giese-Hurst said after the vote on Councilwoman Penny Ambler’s motion to strip all weapons except firearms from the proposed ordinance.
Resident Deborah Hric told the council the issue over BB guns that led to the discovery that discharging firearms was no longer illegal stemmed from her neighbor putting a target on the perimeter of the neighbor’s property and shooting BBs into her yard.
“They (police) told me he could shoot them all day or all night into my yard,” she said.
“Would you like me to come and shoot a BB gun into your yard just randomly, any time of day or night?” Hric asked.
Giese-Hurst told horror stories involving BB guns, including children who died of fatal wounds. “I’ve worked in the health field for 35 years, and I’ve seen a lot of things,” she said, including some in her own district.
She offered a handout that listed the “best BB guns of 2026.”
“If you carry a real Glock, this is the perfect training pistol,” Giese-Hurst read from that article. The BB guns look like actual guns, not toys.
She then explained that BB guns are more high-powered than the Red Ryder of “A Christmas Story” fame that adults warned Ralphie about.
Some go up to 1,000 feet per second – nearly on par with a .22 caliber handgun – when the BB leaves the muzzle, but 300 to 500 fps is more common. “Four hundred fps is equivalent to the speed of 272 mph,” Giese-Hurst said.
Ralphie’s iconic Red Ryder BB gun has an fps of 240. “Things have changed, and we need to change.”
Ambler said she understood her colleague’s concerns, but “kids in backyards can be hit with axes, hammers” as well as various balls and other objects. “You can’t restrict people’s backyard freedoms in those ways.”
Restricting backyard freedoms under the guise of public safety is government overreach, Ambler said. “I don’t think we should even have the authority to take people’s freedom in what they do in their backyard away.”
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“I grew up with BB guns in the back yards, but the technology has changed, and the danger is there,” Giese-Hurst said.
Police Chief Michael Candiano said he tried to find statistics on calls involving BB guns, but they’re not searchable in a way that would reveal that information.
He backed up Hric’s version of the police response to her call. If someone shoots a BB gun and it accidentally hits a neighbor’s house, that’s a civil matter and the police can’t do anything. If the shooter is reckless, like firing a weapon into the air, a state law regarding reckless behavior would apply.
That’s what started the discussion of the ordinance voted on Tuesday. City Attorney Dan Bartnicki was asked by the police to research the issue and found that in 2011, the ordinance was updated and firearms were left out. “It did appear that a couple of things were pulled out by what we call in law a scrivener’s error,” he said.
Unlike the federal government, Portage doesn’t keep detailed records on the history of legislation online. “I went into the boxes and found it,” he said. Then he updated the ordinance at the council’s request to clean up all the definitions, including using the firearms definition under state law.
Czilli was upset about the Republicans’ move to remove the prohibition against using non-firearms weapons. “It’s been completely legal since 2011 to shoot off a gun unless it was a rifle,” he said.
“The council just unilaterally changed the code with no input from the public. Zero. None.”
Mayor Austin Bonta said Wednesday morning he planned to sign the ordinance later in the day, after Clerk-Treasurer Liz Modesto could provide him a copy that reflected the changes the council voted on Tuesday night.
Bonta said he believes bows and arrows shouldn’t be used in the city limits, but he would sign the ordinance as approved by the council so the prohibition against using firearms would be restored.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.