§ 128.052.Limitation on Civil Action and Recovery of Damages

The private-party counterpart to the governmental bar, with a proof requirement attached.

Subsection (a): a civil action may not be brought against a sport shooting range, its owner or operator, or the landowner, for damages, injunctive relief, or abatement of a nuisance relating to the discharge of firearms.

That is the neighbour’s claim, and it is what the chapter exists to stop. A range operating lawfully generates noise, and residential development that arrives afterwards generates complaints. The bar prevents the range being closed by nuisance suits from people who moved toward it.

Subsection (b) preserves four claims: breach of contract for use of the real property; damage or harm to private property caused by the discharge; personal injury or death caused by the discharge; and injunctive relief to enforce a valid ordinance, statute, or regulation.

So a stray round is actionable and the sound of shooting is not. That is the line the chapter draws, and it is a coherent one.

Subsection (c) then adds a proof requirement to the surviving claims. Damages or an injunction require the claimant to show, by a preponderance of the evidence, through the testimony of one or more expert witnesses, a deviation from the standard of care reasonably expected of an ordinarily prudent range, operator, or landowner in the same or similar circumstances.

Expert testimony is mandatory, not merely available. A claimant hit by a bullet from a neighbouring range must prove through an expert that the range fell below industry standards — the fact of the injury is not enough.

That requirement, combined with the report deadline in the next section, is what makes these claims difficult to bring.