Town bans BB guns except in back yards

[The Straight Story]

Town bans BB guns except in back yards

Last week, the Payson council adopted Ordinance 805, which bans any “air, gas-operated, electric, or spring-operated gun, commonly referred to as BB guns, pellet guns, airsoft guns, paintball guns, or similar instruments.”

The law recognizes two exceptions.

You can fire off the aforementioned deadly weapons on private premises with the permission of the “person in lawful possession of the gun” — so long as the “projectile fired or discharged does not leave the grounds or premises.”

The law also makes an exception for an organized meet or shooting match on private “grounds or premises” with the permission of the “owner or controller” and a note from the chief of police.

http://www.paysonroundup.com/news/2011/jul/15/safety-reasons-town-bans-bb-guns-except-back-yards/

Slingshots will be next. Then pea shooters....

[NightWatcher]

1. where else should people be using them besides their yard or property?

the mall, grocery store, public park?

[The Straight Story]

5. I would walk to the creek with mine (nt)

[Igel]

11. Streets, public lands, woods.

Where I grew up they'd set up targets in the street. It was a neighborhood with lots of dead-end streets and little traffic. Few windows to hit that way.

They'd also go to the school grounds on weekends--lots of space, windows far away. There were some rather large, privately owned, empty lots. (A major corporation owned thousands of acres; it wasn't fenced or posted, so it was treated as a kind of commons for the teens.)

Some would shoot them from skiffs.

And even if they were firing them in their backyards they often aimed for things not in their backyards. When you have a 6k sq ft lot with a house on it, it's less fun to make sure that the BB stays in the yard.

In my 7 years of being a teen, I only ever heard of one kid being shot by a BB, and that was in the foot. He, of course, was holding the air rifle at the time, but his sneakers kept him from experiencing a lethal wound.

This was in the suburbs (that's putting it charitably: More like a small town that the 'burbs failed to expand into by virtue of geography). The kids tended to be fairly well behaved, the housing a bit diffuse with smaller houses and larger lots than many modern developments. No apt. complexes.

I'd be displeased with hordes of BB-gun toting kids in my neighborhood. I trust them less (they tend to be a bit more violent and nihilistic than even my HS cohort was), the housing is denser and the streets busier; the kids' families have been urban for generations with few outdoor traditions that don't revolve around a BBQ grill or wading pool. That, however, should be implemented by the parents because 1/2 mile away in the same legal jurisdiction is a long-established neighborhood that looks much more like the one I grew up in, where hunting and fishing are fairly normal and large amounts of kid-friendly undeveloped land are within a 10 minute walk of many of the houses.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

2. Well, people would put their eye out.

[WatsonT]

10. My first thought too

[LAGC]

3. Wasn't it George Carlin who said...

"You see now they're thinking about banning toy guns, and they're going to keep the fucking real ones!"

LOL.

[ret5hd]

4. deadly weapons???

[PoliticAverse]

6. Sometimes...

http://www2.godanriver.com/news/2011/jul/11/teen-killed-bb-gun-rockingham-police-report-ar-1165788/
http://www.whas11.com/news/local/BB-gun-deaths-not-uncommon-air-rifles-should-be-treated-as-firearms-87734872.html

[ret5hd]

7. well, sometimes a pencil or a fork is too...

it's just kinda unusual to see them classified as such tho.

[PoliticAverse]

8. I think the article's author was being sarcastic in calling them that...

based on the tone of the rest of the article.

[backwoodsbob]

14. they can be

my best pellet gun shoots .177cal pellets at 1800 fps.

That is WELL over the speed of a .22.

High end breakbarrel pellet guns are POWERFUL.


WARNING!!!!!...linked video below shows a wild boar being shot with Gamo air rifle(same model I have)..DO NOT CLICK if this will offend you.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a83qIROOio

[11 Bravo]

9. They can take my Daisy when they pry it from my cold, dead, hands!

[Dappleganger]

12. If they go after my beloved potato cannon there will be blood.

This isn't me, but ours is similar. We live on a creek and on the other side is protected preserve which serves as a haven for those goddamned wild boars which plague most of Florida. There's nothing more fun than driving them crazy by having spud practice on an early Sunday morning. :)

[jpak]

13. BB and pellet guns maim and kill lots of kids each year

far more than people know about