Spalding County Approves First Home-Based Shooting Range

Brad Ward has had a shooting range in his backyard for more than 14 years in Williamson, just south of Atlanta.

“Most everybody that has property out here has some type of a makeshift shooting range,” Ward says. “Gunfire out in the country is not a bad thing, it is consistent.” 

But his is not your average shooting range.

Ward spent $200,000 building his 23-acre backyard into a commercial venture, Full Blown Firearms. Ward has been an NRA instructor for more than 20 years, and hundreds of people come to him every year to learn how to shoot ─ including the Boy Scouts, police officers and church congregations. 

So when Ward wanted to open a business to repair and restore guns, he sought out a business license from Spalding County. But he faced opposition.

“You go to them and you ask for a car dealership license or a hair salon license, they’ve seen that,” Ward says. “They had just never seen this before.” 

There were a lot of questions about safety and noise, and it took three months to get his business license approved. But commissioners won’t be accepting similar business license applications for home-based shooting ranges for at least six months. They say they need to figure out how to handle these requests in the future.