Madison Parents raise concerns over gun armory located within walking distance of two schools

MADISON, Ala. (WAFF) - Parents in Madison are up in arms about Rocket City Armory, a locally-owned armory set to open just yards away from Midtown Elementary and Pre-School Primrose School of Madison.

“Honestly, I thought it was going to be, I don’t know, a lawyer’s office, a doctor’s office, childcare. Something like that,” said Rebekah Faris, a mother of three. “I was not expecting that at all.”

“To have an armory open right across from my daughter’s preschool is really distressing and not something I expected from such a family-oriented community,” said Lauren Zack, another parent whose 4-year-old attends Primrose.

“I just thought it was in extremely poor taste to put it that close to a school -- an elementary school and a daycare,” said Ashley Singleton, a third parent with concerns about the armory.

With Nashville’s deadly school shooting approaching the two-month mark, parents are finding Rocket City Armory’s location crude, fearing the effect it could have on their kids.

“My oldest daughter, she has really struggled with anxiety in regards to the climate in America right now and what’s been happening at schools,” said Faris. “And it’s just been a really anxious thing for her and so I immediately went to that. Of her seeing that. Of her knowing. Because the sign itself has a gun on it.”

We reached out to the city of Madison with their concerns. We received a statement saying it understood the parent’s concerns but pointed to the Gun Free Zone Act as why Rocket City Armory is within its right to operate from that location.

Federal law prohibits anyone from having or firing a gun within 1,000 feet of a school but attorney Mark McDaniel says on private property, Rocket City Armory is free to run its business, so long as the gun being handled isn’t loaded when a customer leaves the store.

“They don’t need to be within 1,000 feet of that—if they leave that school zone, they load that gun in the car, and it happens to be somebody watching that, and they’re within that 1000 feet, then they got a problem,” McDaniel said.

WAFF 48 reached out to the owners of Rocket City Armory and the owner, Jared Hill, released the following statement:

Rocket City Armory is a family owned business, with generations of residents here in Madison. We care deeply about our community and its people. Our business is more than selling firearms. Rocket City Armory is all about raising awareness and building firearm safety standards in Alabama, teaching the history of firearms and the artistry in the trade of gunsmithing.

We understand the recent concerns about the distance between our business and the new elementary school in Madison.

When Rocket City Armory opens, we promise to uphold all firearm laws including the requirement that all firearms are to be unloaded before entering and leaving our establishment. We will not allow unaccompanied minors to enter our store without adult supervision. The safety of children and neighbors in Madison is critically important to our Rocket City Armory family.

Parents plan to continue reaching out to city and school leaders to see what more can be done about their concerns.

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