Beaufort County considers 500-foot gunfire buffer. Public can weigh in March 9
After residents reported bullets striking a home north of the Broad River and whizzing past neighborhoods to its south, the Beaufort County Council is considering a new proposal that would create a buffer between gunfire and nearby homes, schools and parks.
The ordinance, if passed, would make it illegal to discharge a firearm within 500 feet of any building, dwelling, park or playground in unincorporated Beaufort County, except with the permission of owners or occupants of those spaces.
Discharging weapons in local cities and towns is already illegal, but not in the rural pockets of Beaufort County, where residential developments are moving closer to undeveloped areas.
Exceptions to the 500-foot buffer would be made for owners who use firearms in defense of life or property, shooting nuisance animals, permitted shooting ranges and for law enforcement or wildlife officials. To violate the proposed ordinance, it would require that the gun discharge is “both careless and negligent.”
Violating the rule could result in a fine of up to $500 or up to 30 days in jail.
.jpg "i25pr20678(9).jpg")
The proposal requires an additional reading and a public hearing before it can take effect. Both are scheduled for March 9 during Beaufort County’s regularly-scheduled meeting. Public hearings allow the community to weigh in, each permitted three minutes to speak.
Council members weighed several concerns before advancing the ordinance past its initial reading on Feb. 23. Chief among them were enforceability and balancing safety with personal and property rights.
“I sincerely do not want to put something on the books that is a ‘feel good’ to try to solve the problem that ultimately curbs law-abiding citizens from exercising their right to use their firearms on their property,” said David Bartholomew.
“We are creating a law for an instance where we have one problem, maybe two,” said Logan Cunningham, referencing the recently-reported incidents that prompted the drafting of the ordinance. He went on to argue that discharging a firearm into a building is already a felony under South Carolina law.
Officials with the Beaufort Count Sheriff’s Office previously told the council enforcing the ordinance over a 1,000-square-mile county with nearly 200,000 residents could be difficult. Identifying the shooter would be difficult enough, on top of proving how far they were from the building at the time the shots were fired.
“A family had to take cover, literally,” said County Chair Alice Howard, in reference to the incident in the Shadow Moss neighborhood when multiple rounds struck a house and back fence. “We can make revisions... If we need to work on it, we will work on it.”
This story was originally published March 9, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
