Pitt County commissioners are reviewing a 3-year-old proposal for managing the recreational use of firearms but gave staff no direction for addressing tensions in a neighborhood in northern Pitt County.
Instead, several commissioners directed residents of Holly Pine subdivision, located off Fleming School Road, north of Greenville, to contact state Rep. Gloristine Brown and state Sen. Kandie Smith about exploring possible state legislation regulating recreational gun use.
About 10 residents from the subdivision attended Monday’s Pitt County Board of Commissioners meeting to learn what, if anything, the board could do to stop one of their neighbors on Duce Drive from firing multiple weapons at random times of the day.
“They’ll be shooting at 1, 2 o’clock in the morning and on Sunday evening they just unleash a barrage,” said Bishop Joe Dixon, who represented the Holly Pine residents.
There are 30 homes in the neighborhood and residents have contacted Pitt County deputies multiple times about the noise but the shooting continues.
“I know from our attorney we don’t have a gun ordinance,” said Commissioner Mary Perkins-Williams, who asked for a discussion on the issue. The county has a noise and hunting ordinance, but neither addresses the issue of people firing weapons near the homes of neighbors and at all hours of the day and night, she said.
Pitt County Attorney Gibson said the county’s current noise ordinance describes a violation as the creation of any unreasonably loud or disturbing noise. “It’s a very subjective term,” Gibson said.
“The biggest issue with the noise ordinance is the way it’s written,” said Lt. Adam Wainwright, a patrol supervisor with the Pitt County Sheriff’s Office.
If deputies respond to a report of a noise violation and they hear no noise, there is nothing they can do.
“We can’t cite anyone for a violation of the noise ordinance … when there is no evidence of it,” Wainwright said. They can’t make an arrest based on a bystander reports.
Also, if deputies do hear noise, they need to have a neighbor who is willing to let deputies come on their property and take a reading and then be willing to go to court and testify about that, Wainwright said. They also can’t use recordings made by citizens because they can be amplified or altered.
“The only real options are to amend or adopt a new ordinance,” Wainwright said.
If the neighborhood has a homeowners association it could adopt a covenant governing the use of guns that could be enforced in court, Wainwright said. However, it would involve a civil proceeding, the sheriff’s office or county wouldn’t be involved in the enforcement.
Wainwright cautioned commissioners about developing an ordinance that was too broad. Firing weapons next to a neighbor’s house is different than shooting on 20 acres of land.
“It’s not good, neighborly behavior to be disturbing everyone else, but to try and do something countrywide might be a little bit far-reaching,” Wainwright said.
Commissioner Tom Coulson said state statutes govern the location and design of shooting ranges. Why couldn’t the county adopt a rule that requires people who want to fire weapons at all hours to build a shooting range that conforms to state law, Coulson said.
“There is a time and place when certain things need to be done. I can’t understand people who think that if you can stand between your house and (your neighbor’s) house and it be 50 feet apart, 75 feet apart and shoot guns,” Coulson said.
Gibson asked if commissioners wanted to pursue such an ordinance. Coulson said he believes the General Assembly should make it a state law.
Pitt County Manager Janis Gallagher said the commissioners on Dec. 21, 2020, established a firearms committee to create a proposed ordinance regulating recreational shooting in areas of the county outside municipalities. At that time 25 North Carolina counties had ordinances regulating recreational use of firearms, she said.
The commissioners withdrew the proposed ordinance in April 2021 because of community opposition.
Gallagher brought the proposed ordinance’s language to Monday’s meeting for the commissioners to review.
“The research has already been done, an ordinance has already been drafted,” Gallagher said. “If the board would like us to go down this road again, the work has already been done.”
Coulson proposed the recreational gun use ordinance in 2021.
“I know there is going to be an outcry from the hard-right, gun advocates who think it’s an infringement on their rights,” Coulson said. “But by God, I own guns, I shoot guns. I have all my life … that ordinance we proposed did not infringe on their rights but because of the noise we backed away from it.”
Commissioner Mark Smith, the board’s chairman, said he too is a gun owner but he’s not going to fire them off near his neighbors’.
Commissioner Beth Ward recommended giving Dixon and his neighbors the contact information for state Rep. Gloristine Brown and state Sen. Kandie Smith so they can begin exploring state legislation to address the issue.
Dixon said he’s concerned because the situation is escalating. A neighbor recently confronted one of the people firing the guns. His wife had to step between the two men to calm them down.
“He has guns too. It was about to be Dodge City,” Dixon said.
That couple now plans to sell their home, he said. The wife has asked her husband to stay away to keep the situation from escalating.
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