Firearm discharge ban mulled after errant bullets reported in Bluffton, Port Royal
Just before Christmas, five bullets ripped through a two-story house in the town of Port Royal, terrifying the family inside.
It turns out the rounds that struck the house were fired from a high-powered rifle at a target affixed to some hay bales on a property located only 400 feet away, in unincorporated Beaufort County.
Port Royal officials highlighted the close call at the Shadow Moss neighborhood at a recent public meeting and say it’s a problem that must be addressed before tragedy strikes. The tricky part, said Port Royal Mayor Kevin Phillips, is that discharging weapons in cities and towns is already illegal, but not in rural areas of Beaufort County.
“What is the legality of it?” Phillips said. “And that’s what everybody is trying to figure out. You can’t be shooting rifles into neighborhoods.”
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The discussion over errant gunfire highlights how population growth and development is increasingly bringing residential neighborhoods in cities and towns, where it is illegal to discharge weapons, into closer quarters with rural residents in unincorporated areas of Beaufort County, where it isn’t.
Last fall, residents of a Bluffton neighborhood brought their complaints about target shooting occurring on nearby property in unincorporated Beaufort County to the attention of the County Council’s Public Facilities and Safety Committee.
That committee is now considering a draft ordinance that would make it illegal to discharge firearms within 500 feet of any building, dwelling, park or playground, except with the permission of the owner or occupants.
Violations would carry a penalty of no more than $500 dollars or up to 30 days in jail or both.
The County Council’s Public Facilities and Safety Committee will consider the draft for the first time Feb. 2.
Beaufort County Spokesperson Hannah Nichols emphasized the proposal is only a draft and may change before it is discussed by committee.
No shooting buffer concerns Port Royal
Port Royal officials support a change.
“I just think we need to be mindful of those properties that are adjacent to neighborhoods,” said Van Willis, the town manager of Port Royal. “The safety of the situation needs to be stepped up significantly.”
Councilman Jorge Guerrero, said the gunfire in Shadow Moss, where he lives, left the owners of the home that was stuck “extremely distraught.” But it wasn’t the first time, he added, that bullets from nearby unincorporated areas had struck houses in the area.
“The concern is there’s no buffer there,” Guerrero said.
Any ordinance change, Guerrero said, should take into account the distance that bullets fired from pistols and rifles actually travel. “500 feet is not a lot for a high capacity rifle,” said Guerrero, a Marine combat veteran.
Could a firearms ordinance be enforced?
But officials with the Beaufort Count Sheriff’s Office say enforcing the ordinance over a 1,000-square-mile county with nearly 200,000 residents living in communities and prosecuting cases could be difficult.
“You’ve got to think about how far from the house you are going to do this,” Brian Kiel, assistant general counsel for the Sheriff’s Office, told members of the County Council’s Public Facilities Committee when they discussed pursing the ordinance in November.
Identifying the shooters will be hard enough, he said. Add to that the difficulty of proving how far the person was from the house at the time the errant shots were fired.
Added Major Jeff Purdy: “It’s a problem that needs to be addressed, but we need some teeth to go out and put our foot down and enforce it.”
Under state law, it already is a felony to shoot into an occupied dwelling, Sheriff’s Office officials noted, but criminal intent and the identity of the shooter must be proved. The state law and local ordinances of area cities and towns also need to be considered in crafting a county ordinance, Kiel said.
County Council members share concerns
Some County Council members share the concerns about errant gunfire with the residents.
“Whatever the state law is,” Council Mark Lawson of Bluffton said, “it’s not protecting our citizens so we are going to have some type of ordinance.”
Random bullets have been a problem in his own Sun City neighborhood, Councilman Joe Passimente said, noting a bullet went into one neighbor’s house that could have killed him had he been home. The owner of the private property in the county where the gunfire originated was unaware, he said, the land was being used for shooting. It’s time, he said, “to put the appropriate ordinance in place.”
“We continue to grow in areas that used to be totally treed,” Passiment said. “Not anymore, but there are still people on the property using firearms of all kinds whether they are handguns or long guns.”
The draft says “there exists a clear danger where firearms are discharged in proximity to the dwellings, buildings of others, and playgrounds and parks in certain unincorporated areas of the county and adjacent municipality areas” and that discharging firearms in these areas is “careless and negligent.”
Shooting isn’t being banned
The county is not proposing to ban shooting everywhere in rural areas. It would only be deemed careless or negligent and illegal to discharge of firearms in certain areas within 500 feet of structures — without permission from the occupant or owner.
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.
Residents ‘live under the threat of daily gunfire’
Residents of the Lakes at New Riverside community in Bluffton first called for modernizing the county’s firearm discharge rules during a Public Facilities Committee in November. The committee, made up of County Council members, makes recommendations to the full council.
Jeremy Bratcher, a 16-year resident who spoke on behalf of the Lakes at New Riverside community, shared evidence of firearm discharges into residential areas at that meeting.
Between April and September, he said, neighbors reported multiple reports of gunfire entering the neighborhood with audible “sonic buzz” overhead. He said 118 homes and hundreds of residents “live under the threat of daily gunfire.”
He noted a new elementary school was under construction a half a mile downrange.
The issue, he added, is not anti-gun but about the safe discharge of weapons.
He proposed updating in the county ordinances that align with the growth and density of the county before a “tragedy forces our hand.” The current ordinance, he noted was written a decade ago largely for rural and undeveloped areas and has no reference to proximity limits. It isn’t just a Lakes of New Riverside problem, he said.
“Rural lots with permissive firearm discharge adjacent to dense subdivisions and new schools, that’s the situation growing across the county and in the New Riverside corridor especially, as well as Okatie or St. Helena, northern Bluffton etcetera,” he said. “This issue will continue to repeat itself until modern standards keep pace with population growth.”
Bullets hit home, fence in Port Royal while kids were playing
Port Royal officials think something needs to be done in the wake the Dec. 21 close call in the Shadow Moss neighborhood when multiple rounds struck the house at around 1 p.m. on Catawaba Way. The resident reported hearing gunshots that he said shook the house, according to a Port Royal police report.
When Stephen Shaw, a Port Royal police officer arrived, he found the resident crouched down behind his vehicle in the driveway.
“I heard rapid fire gunshots coming from behind the residence,” Shaw said in his report. “I advised the resident to move to a safer location.”
The officer found the source of the gunfire on Fair Road, 397 feet from the Catawaba Way location and located in incorporated Beaufort County. He saw several hay bails on the ground and a plywood target stand with a paper target, without a backstop.
Authorities found a bullet lodged in a wall in a hallway at the Catawaba Way residence. It had ripped through a bedroom wall. Another bullet entered an upstairs bedroom, impacting the ceiling and shattering a glass bowl. Officers found multiple rounds in a backyard fence and a bullet in fencing in the front of the house.
At the time, said Mayor Phillips, kids were playing outside. One person he talked to counted 25 to 30 rounds and heard bullets bouncing off the concrete.
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Charleston County addresses issue
Charleston County approved a firearm discharge ordinance in October that bans shooting if it occurs within 100 feet of structure without getting permission from the owner or occupants.
When County Councilman York Glover of St. Helena Island saw that, “I said, hey we need to do something similar to this.” Just firing a gun is “nothing on St. Helena,” where hunting is commonplace. “But near a public place or near a residence, there should be some kind of restriction to that,” Glover says.
This story was originally published January 15, 2026 at 12:51 PM.
