Target Shooting
Shooting on private land
On rural land you own or have permission to use, the answer depends on state law, local rules, and safe setup. Start with a real backstop.
You can target shoot on rural land you own — or someone else's, with permission — if you do it safely and legally. The catch is that 'legally' depends on state law AND your city and county.
The statewide rules
What the law forbids (RSMo 571.030)
Statewide, RSMo 571.030 makes it a crime to knowingly discharge a firearm in these ways. Read them as target-shooting rules — Missouri's self-defense law (RSMo 563.031) is a separate exception to most of them:
- On, along, across, or from a public highway — including shooting at a mark, an object, or at random toward a road.
- Into a dwelling or an assembly building, or into a train, boat, aircraft, or motor vehicle.
- Within 100 yards of an occupied schoolhouse, courthouse, or church.
- Into an outbuilding.
- At or from a motor vehicle, at another person, or at a building or habitable structure.
- While intoxicated and handling a firearm negligently or unlawfully, or discharging it.
Penalties run from a misdemeanor up to a serious felony.
The intoxication rule, plainly
Stated plainly: the safety rule is no alcohol or drugs around firearms, ever. The statute itself criminalizes intoxicated negligent or unlawful handling, and intoxicated discharge (with a narrow self-defense exception) — but don't split hairs. If you've been drinking, you're done shooting for the day.
Inside city limits: assume no
Inside city limits, assume NO unless you're at a lawful range or the local ordinance clearly allows the discharge. Most towns and cities restrict it. Under RSMo 21.750 the state preempts most local gun rules, but local governments may still regulate open discharge — so the local rule is the one that matters. Check your city code.
Your county may add rules
Your county may add its own rules — for example, a minimum distance from dwellings. That's a county ordinance, not state law, so check the county before you shoot, even on your own rural land.
The safety must-haves
The safety must-haves are where 'you own every bullet' lives: a real backstop (a solid earthen berm or dirt hillside — never open air, brush, or a thin fence); know what's beyond and around your target (houses, roads, livestock, neighbors, hikers); shoot well away from property lines, homes, and people; never shoot at a flat or hard surface or at water; and be a good neighbor.
Before you shoot on private land
Confirm all of this first
- You own the land or have the owner's permission.
- You're outside any city discharge restriction.
- County rules allow it.
- You have a real earthen backstop.
- No road or structure is in or near the line of fire.
- No livestock or neighbors are beyond the target.
- Fire risk is low.
- Everyone on site knows the cease-fire signal.
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