Tom Nobile

Staff Writer, @TomNobile

Ramsey is fast shaping into a battleground over the Second Amendment.

It has been one month since the borough’s Planning Board began hearing an application for a proposed 60,620-square-foot firing range. Since then, hundreds of people have signed petitions supporting or opposing the range, the Borough Council has introduced an ordinance that would effectively block it from operating and the council has been threatened with litigation by a gun rights advocacy group and the firing range's developer.

Mayor Deirdre Dillon said the council will vote next month on a measure to strip an exemption for indoor and outdoor firing ranges that was included in a 1961 ordinance that otherwise banned the discharge of firearms in the borough. The council is expected Wednesday to hire a national law firm to defend the borough against any lawsuits filed by supporters of the proposed range, dubbed the Screaming Eagle Club.

One of those supporters, Alexander Roubian, president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, vowed to respond in kind, arguing that his organization would have a "very strong case" if the council moves forward with revising the ordinance. As proof, he pointed to Chicago, which for years has fought a losing battle to restrict firing ranges.

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Twice the city has attempted to regulate shooting ranges within its borders, and twice the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has treated the laws like target practice.

First came an ordinance banning shooting ranges throughout the city, adopted in 2010 to help curtail near-epidemic levels of gun violence. The appeals court struck down the ban in 2011, finding it “incompatible” with the Second Amendment. The city responded by replacing the range ban with what the court called an “elaborate scheme of regulations” limiting shooting ranges to certain areas of the city through zoning. Second Amendment groups took aim, and in January the court again ruled against the city.

Range training is protected under the Second Amendment, the court decided, and gun owners have “a corresponding right to acquire and maintain proficiency in firearm use through target practice at a range.”

But Chicago is not Ramsey. Their approaches to gun regulation differ as well.

Language in the Chicago ordinances specifically targeted gun ranges and explicitly called for them to be banned or moved. Ramsey’s method, however, is less direct.

The borough already has an ordinance on its books that prohibits the firing of “any pistol, shotgun, rifle or other type of firearms anywhere in the borough.” What the council is expected to take up on March 8 is an amendment to strip away the gun range exemption. In effect, it would prevent shooters in a firing range from firing guns.

Roubian said his organization will file an immediate complaint in federal court if the ordinance passes.

“If one town can do this, then others can join and soon there would be a widespread ban,” he said.

The developer of the range, Peter Cuttone, has no intention of going quietly, either. His attorney, James Jaworski, wrote in a letter to the borough that the revised ordinance “undeniably impacts our client’s constitutional rights." Cuttone will do “whatever is necessary” to protect his rights, which may include court action, he wrote.

But Dillon argues that the borough's motivation for changing the ordinance is to promote the health and safety of residents.

Should the matter reach court, the borough would have to prove public safety is in jeopardy. Failure to do so is what doomed the Chicago ordinances. The appeals court found that the city raised “only speculative claims” of harm to public health and safety.

“That’s not nearly enough to survive the heightened scrutiny that applies to burdens on Second Amendment rights,” the court wrote.

David Kopel, a law professor at the University of Denver who specializes in the Second Amendment, said an ordinance like the one Ramsey is contemplating would have a “pretty slender” likelihood of surviving litigation in the wake of the Chicago decisions.

“If the core of the Second Amendment is self-defense, then gun ranges are right beside that core,” he said.

But nothing is guaranteed in another circuit court, he said. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is based in Philadelphia and hears cases originating in New Jersey, traditionally has been more hostile toward the Second Amendment than the 7th Circuit, which covers Illinois, he said.

Full-service firing range

The Planning Board continued hearing testimony on the firing range application Tuesday night. More than 100 people attended, several of whom waved signs reading "No Gun Range in Ramsey."

Cuttone testified that the range was designed with the borough's current ordinance in mind. Language in it protects ranges "which comply with the National Rifle Association specifications" and provide "adequate protection from hazard to life or person."

“The wording in that ordinance we took very seriously,” Cuttone said.

Experts will testify at future hearings on the range's plan to eliminate noise and lead pollution from escaping the facility.

“We will definitively debunk all of those issues,” Jaworski said.

The range would be unique to the state for its size and scope, developer Cuttone has said. The full-service firing range would have 67 firing stalls, a space for retail sales, gun rentals and a restaurant. Members would have access to locker and bath facilities, and a country club-style room with a fireplace, billiards and gaming.

At the first hearing last month, members of the Planning Board took issue with plans to allow daily gun rentals to users as young as 10. Cuttone had said background checks for criminal and mental health issues would be conducted on each person who enters the range. All first-time arrivals would go through a check-in procedure, which would involve demonstrating competency with a plastic gun and completing a written and physical safety evaluation.

Cuttone estimates the facility would have up to 150 daily patrons at its peak.

Seven suicides have occurred at New Jersey gun ranges since 2014, some committed by patrons who rented guns on site, according to a 2016 report by The Record.

The only other gun facility in North Jersey that would rival the Screaming Eagle Club in size is Gun for Hire, a 16,000-square-foot gun range in Woodland Park. Late last year, the range broke ground on a $12 million, 55,000-square-foot expansion.

In July, a 24-year-old Elmwood Park man shot himself there. Two months earlier, a Garfield man did the same.

New Jersey lawmakers responded by introducing two bills in the Assembly intended to reduce the risk of such tragedies by requiring proof that the shooter is authorized to own or carry a firearm.

The bills are awaiting hearings before the Law and Public Safety Committee.

Email: nobile@northjersey.com