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HUNTSVILLE – One northern Utah town is hoping to ban certain kinds of guns in the Pineview Reservoir. Huntsville officials say the town is growing and hunters are shooting rifles in dangerous areas.
The ban, if it were to be approved, would only apply to high-power hunting rifles. Mayor Jim Truett says the law prohibits people from shooting their weapons within 600 feet of the town, but, some of the bullets from a hunter’s rifle can go a lot farther than that.
“It’s the kind of thing that would travel one mile or two miles. Those are the ricochets where you know something is going to happen,” Truett says.
The exact weapons that would be affected have not been decided, yet, but this proposal would not apply to shotguns since those don’t shoot nearly as far as a rifle can. Truett says there have been deadly accidents in other places, and he believes this ban could prevent more from happening.
“[There was] a young man who got killed up in Monte Cristo last year. Somebody was sighting in a rifle. The odds of that happening in Pineview are tenfold.”
He adds that town residents have been complaining about shots being fired in the middle of the night or at dusk. Also, some hunters have been irresponsible with their rifles.
“A couple of years ago, a couple of hunters shot two bucks right from the guardrail on 100 South here in Huntsville,” he says, adding, “Someone’s going to get hurt. We need to be on the front side of this to try to get this worked out.”
This is not a decision that Huntsville city leaders can make on their own. Truett says the state and the U.S. Forest Service would have to weigh in on the ban before it’s approved.