My dad is 86 years old, and he’s been feeding pet squirrels in his yard for years. Two of his little pets went missing. And then we discovered one of the poor things had been shot — right in his yard, inside Vancouver city limits. We figure the other one has been shot, too. It’s really hard to see Dad lose his animals, and they’re not doing anybody any harm. I want to get the word out: Are you allowed to shoot animals inside the city of Vancouver?
— Karen
Good question, Karen. The answer is: absolutely not.
“That would not be legal,” said Vancouver police spokeswoman Kim Kapp. In fact, depending on the type of firearm used, it can rise to the level of felony crime. The same goes for all Clark County cities and urban growth areas — places such as Hazel Dell, Felida, Salmon Creek, Orchards and Sifton. And the same also goes for “rural centers,” including Fargher Lake and Amboy.
Get the drift? Where there are concentrations of people, there mustn’t be shooting.
“Bullets can travel in unexpected ways,” said Kevin McClure, an assistant city attorney in Vancouver. McClure said the relevant law is a state law: RCW 9.41.230, which holds that it’s a crime to “willfully discharge any firearm, air gun or other weapon” in a public place or any place anybody “might be endangered thereby.” As far as McClure is concerned, that means anyplace within the city limits.
A different section of the same law reserves for the state itself the near-exclusive right to regulate firearms. If you scour Vancouver’s municipal code for firearms rules, you’ll find nearly nothing — because the state has done the heavy lifting already. (An exception is the Vancouver ordinance banning guns from city parks, McClure said.)
