The Front Yard "Gun Range" Just Feet From My Neighbor's Kids' Bedroom Window #frontyardgunrange

This sat 8' from my neighbor's side fence where my kids play. There is no backstop. Behind it another fence and a home immediately behind that. The back wall of the home is direct path should any round miss its target, and everyone misses. In fact, NYPD can miss 22% of their FIXED targets and still qualify. Miss here, and there's a bullet hole in his neighbors home, at the least.

My son is 9. His best friend is 10 and that little boy has a 7 year old little sister. My son loves playing at their house. These are no computer game kids. They have a tree fort, rope ladders, tree swings and even a zip line. It is perfect place for the sort of innocent, creative, and active outdoor play I enjoyed as kid so many years ago. There's just one problem:

The outdoor "gun range" next door. That's right, the homeowner behind their property has decided his front yard, which is 8 feet from my friend's back yard property line and a few houses away from mine, is the perfect spot for a gun range. This is a residential neighborhood in the city limits of Saint Petersburg, Florida. The lots are as small at 1/4 acre. A gun range. With real guns. With real bullets.

Oh, but it gets so much better. Here are the words of our community association president in an email to the community this evening:

This is not a "back yard" gun range.  It's an amateur and reckless set-up in which a man has to stand in his front yard and fire toward his house (and therefore at the house behind him), at a pile of sand held together with an old wooden palette.

The pile of sand is 8' from a neighbor's property where small children live and about 20' feet from the children's bedroom windows.  

The owner of this house has arrests for DUI, cocaine and hydrocodone, and has had 2 domestic violence cases filed against him. His son has announced he is coming to the house with a "variety of guns," including an assault rifle.

That's right. Florida law allows people to build and maintain shooting ranges in their backyards. And unless an owner becomes negligent or reckless, there's nothing a neighbor can do.

For example:

* There's no restriction on the type of firearms or ammunition that can be used in a backyard shooting range.

* There's no restriction on the time of day or night your neighbors can use their gun range.

* And there's no restriction on gun ranges near a public school, day-care center or neighborhood playground. Talk about the need for duck-and-cover lessons.