LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Randomly firing a gun in the city is currently not against the law om Louisville. But Metro councilmembers are discussing an ordinance, introduced last month, that could change that.
During a meeting with the Democratic Caucus of Metro Council on Thursday, Louisville Metro Police Chief Erika Shields spoke about the firearms discharge ordinance.
The ordinance would make shooting a gun randomly anywhere in the city a Class A misdemeanor and punishable by up to a year in jail. Prior to the city-county merger in 2003, the city of Louisville had a similar ordinance in place.
According to the ordinance, MetroSafe received 5,756 calls about shots fired in 2021. LMPD said, in many cases, they have no method of punishing people responsible for the random shots.
Shields said the new ordinance is not a gun control measure but a safety control measure.
"Right now, the way the state law is, our cases are not taken forward unless we have a victim," she said. "So if we're getting ShotSpotter hits that we have gunfire in an area, we go out, someone's shooting a gun, there's not a victim, that's not chargeable."
Louisville began using ShotSpotter in the summer of 2017. It's a system that detects audible gunshots and automatically reports them to MetroSafe. The system uses a series of microphone sensors scattered around the city to find the location of the gunfire. The program received funding to expand in 2022.
Exceptions to the ordinance would be made under the following circumstances:
- When defending persons or property
- By peace officers, military personnel, or similar officers in the execution of their official duties and during training
- Within a properly zoned and constructed indoor firing range
- When legally hunting on at least five contiguous acres of open land
- When engaged in target shooting, skeet shooting or sport shooting.
The ordinance will be discussed again next week during a Public Safety Committee Meeting.
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