Proposed Island County “No Shooting Ordinance” Takes Property Owner’s Rights

Author:bowen

February 28, 2013 by bowen | 2 comments

February 28, 2013

Dear Commissioners:

 
The Proposed Island County No Shooting Ordinance – Exhibit “A”, Chapter 9.06 is a really bad piece of legislation.  The subject of restricting discharge and use of firearms on the County owned property of Lone Lake, Goss Lake, Honeymoon Lake, and Deer Lagoon was discussed at length at a Special Session of the Board of Island County Commissioners that was held on October 12, 2009.  Bill Oakes, Public Works Director provided a Power Point presentation at the October 12, 2009 Special Session in which the following statements were made.
 
 
 
“Under State law, the test the Board must make to find that it can restrict the discharge of firearms is that people, property or domestic animals are reasonably likely to be jeopardized by the discharge of firearms.  If that can be determined, then the Board can restrict the discharge of firearms.  

Additionally, a couple of State laws combine to limit the application of noise in the restriction of firearms.  If the Board were to make a determination of jeopardy, it cannot make a determination of jeopardy based solely on noise”.

Last spring, then Commissioner Angie Homola decided that, based on a petition presented to the Board of Commissioners by the Nortcliffe Community she wanted to establish procedures for the designation of additional “No Shooting Areas” throughout Island County through a petition method. These “No Shooting Areas” would include private property, not just County owned property throughout Island County. Not only was her proposal a usurpation of private property rights, but there were also some very serious infringements of the rights granted to private citizens under the 2nd Amendment. America is a Constitutional Republic, it is not a Democracy where the majority rules under all circumstances.
 
Ms. Homola never was able to, or never tried to make the case that the owner of the large parcel adjoining the Nortcliffe Community was jeopardizing people, property or domestic animals in the area outside of the boundaries of his property, when he was honing his shooting skills on his own private land.  IN FACT, EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE WAS TRUE.  A Deputy from the Sheriff’s Office responded to complaints in the area , and he stopped the landowners’ activity until proper safety features were established.  Once the safety features were implemented on the landowners’ property it was deemed safe to continue his target practice.
 
Had Ms. Homola done her homework, this isolated incident should have ended right there, and the Nortcliffe Community should have been informed that their neighbor had every right to target practice on his own property as long as he complied with existing safety and noise regulations.
 
Commissioner Emerson made the following comment in her February 2013 Newsletter.
 
“The ordinance has taken on several forms over the course of the last few months, beginning with the most outlandish, arbitrary, and capricious language, to incorporating some needed exemptions, and now through the work of Commissioner Price-Johnson, creating a new 9 member citizens committee, so that the county commissioner board can be free of decision making responsibility”.
 
In light of existing State laws cited above, and in light of private property rights and finally, in light of our inviolate 2nd Amendment rights, no amount of tweaking, modifying, editing, or changing the existing draft of the Proposed Island County No Shooting Ordinance will make it acceptable, cost effective legislation.  Consequently, you are requested to call for a vote on this subject immediately and table this proposed Amendment to Island County code Chapter 9.06 indefinitely.
 
Sincerely,
Richard G. Bowen
2476 Avalon Lane
Coupeville, WA 98239
(360) 678-1167
 

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  1. avatar

    Cliff on March 1, 2013 at 12:18 PM

    The motivation to enact a no shooting ordinance as per our State Laws should come from one source. That is the person and the department that is currently in charge of firearm safety issues, the Island County Sherriff.

    Our sheriff has done an admirable job in keeping our county safe in the use of firearms on private property. Until the time comes that our sheriff comes to the Board of Island County Commissioners and informs them that we have safety issues that need to be addressed we should not even be having this conversation. Especially if this conversation has been started by a few disgruntled property owner who have gathered signatures on a petition that obviously may have been presented in a biased way. I am sure the petitioners included in their petition the fact that they consider this practice unsafe and harmful even though our elected representative the sheriff has determined that is safe. We cannot allow our county to be ran by special interest petitions especially when the information in those petitions may be based on untruths. Our commissioners need to look at the needs of the entire county not just a few who have created a special interest group.

    This issue was brought about by a few disgruntled property owners who have not proven by any reasonable standard that this is a safety issue, in fact the sheriff has visited this property numerous times and determined that Mr. Watanabe’s use of firearms on his property is safe which speaks directly against the petition of the property owners.

    You can read a previous article on Island Politics linked below where a few of the local property owners responded, it is clear from their responses that this has nothing to do with safety issues.

    http://www.islandpolitics.org/?p=8169

    Reply

  2. avatar

    Jeff leonard on March 3, 2013 at 2:18 PM

    I strongly urge all persons who are opposed to this new county ordinance to write the following organizations to get their involvement into this issue and force the Island County Commissioners to stop this takeover of our second amendment and property rights. It takes EVERYONE to write to these organizations to get them involved. So please get involved!!!

    Second Amendment Foundation:
    http://www.saf.org

    Citizens’ Alliance for Property Rights:
    http://www.proprights.org/

    Reply

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