Richard Dickinson has a gun range in his Fruitland Park backyard. For a gun range, it’s as safe as he could build it. Two dozen railroad ties, five yards of dirt, a target angled toward the ground and a ‘field of fire’ restricted by old tires and a 50-gallon drum.
He even applied for a city building permit.
Trouble is, Dickinson’s backyard is on a city street, three blocks from Fruitland Park Elementary School, four blocks from Gardenia Park, and one block from Mayor Chris Bell’s fully restored, 100-year old showplace on busy Berckman Street.
We’re talking quiet, tree-lined downtown Fruitland Park, not exactly an urban hub but a walkable neighborhood of small yards and homes with lots of children.
Many of Dickinson’s neighbors and most of the city’s commissioners wish he’d find a safer place to shoot his guns.
And it seems almost axiomatic that they could stop him. Crowded cities and outdoor gun ranges don’t seem suited for each other.
But commissioners, police and sheriff’s deputies are powerless.
City commissioners planned to take up the issue during Friday’s regularly scheduled meeting, and Dickinson plans to be there to defend his rights. But the most commissioners can do is to pass a resolution, which is likely. According to most experts, ranging from Pinellas and Monroe County sheriffs to mayors, commissioners and the state’s Attorney General, Dickinson’s backyard gun range is completely legal.
Dickinson is one of a growing number of urban, backyard sport shooters in Florida empowered by a curious loophole in Florida law doesn’t quite allow backyard gun ranges but doesn’t prohibit them.
And Florida legislators have decreed that state law supercedes local ordinances when it comes to guns. No ifs, ands or buts.
State law prohibits Dickinson from firing across a public road, over a house or discharging his weapons in a “reckless or negligent” manner. But that’s it.
And that’s been the law in Florida since the 1980s. Fruitland Park’s ordinance banning gunshots in the city can’t be enforced.
And in case anyone would try, legislators decided in 2011 to add some teeth to their “free range” approach to urban gunplay. They passed a law that threatens commissioners with removal from office and fines of up to $5,000 for passing local ordinances that restrict the use of guns.
Welcome to Florida, “The Gunshine State.”
Does that mean a Villager could build a gun range in his back yard, say, overlooking a golf course?
Actually, it does. When it comes to guns, Florida law supercedes CDD and HOA jurisdictions too.
Fruitland Park’s backyard gun range is the latest example of a trend that started in Broward County shortly after Governor Scott signed the 2011 law.
It’s happened in Sunrise, on Marathon Key, and in St. Petersburg. Palm Beach and Broward counties sued the state two years ago to try to ban urban outdoor gun ranges but 2nd Circuit Court Judge John Cooper threw out most of the case. He decided in favor of the counties on one point: the governor cannot remove commissioners from office for passing restrictive ordinances.
Earlier this year Rep. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg, filed a bill to change the law. Earlier this week Rouson’s bill was rejected by a subcommittee panel.
Probably for good reason. Rouson’s bill would have made it a misdemeanor to fire a gun—except in self defense—at a residence.
For home owners whose residence might encompass 50 acres or so—not uncommon in Lake and Sumter counties—such a law is arguably intrusive. For anyone with a practical understanding of Florida politics, that was a no-brainer.
Fruitland Park Vice Mayor Chris Cheshire calls the law “frustrating.” Commissioner Rick Ranize called it “idiotic.” Commissioner Ray Lewis said much the same. All three are members of the National Rifle Association.
And few people in this part of the state want to attack the Second Amendment.
Cheshire probably has the best take on the issue.
“I don’t think the legislature intended for this to happen. I think it was an oversight. This isn’t a Second Amendment issue, it’s a safety issue,” he said.
Florida’s gun laws aren’t the most liberal in the country by a long shot, despite the many and strident criticisms leveled at the state over the past several months.
For example, “open carry,” or the ability of gun owners to carry their guns openly and in plain sight except where prohibited (government buildings, e.g.) is allowed in every state except six. Florida is one of those six.
Marion Hammer, the “gun-packing grandma” who has lobbied effectively for the NRA for more than three decades—and, some would argue, written Florida’s gun laws almost single-handedly—said the issue is a tempest in a teapot.
“Bottom line, somebody needs to enforce the law and quit running around saying they can’t do anything. They have become the problem, not the law,” she wrote in response to a query.
