Hunting enshrined by some states as basic right
Hunters in more than a dozen states can rest easy — their right to track deer or shoot pheasant has now been protected in their state constitutions.
Those rights will extend to hunters in Kentucky and Wyoming if voters there agree next year, and more states may soon follow.
The idea of enshrining hunting and fishing rights in state constitutions is sweeping the country even though supporters and hunters themselves acknowledge that no one is trying to in pry rifles from their hands.
“I haven’t seen anyone on a local level holding up signs in front of the public area saying we’re a bunch of evil-doers,” said Jason Brion, a Lincoln, Neb., hunter who nonetheless supports more protection for the sport.
But those behind the push insist the threat is real and that sportsmen need protection as the population becomes more urban and fewer hunters and anglers take to the forests, fields and streams.
“It’s obvious there’s less of a threat in Nebraska than, say, Massachusetts or Connecticut,” said Wes Sheets, chairman of the Nebraska Sportsmen’s Foundation, which backed the Nebraska effort. “But there is a threat. There is a concern. You don’t win wars in one fell swoop. You win them incrementally, changing the rules over time. One day you wake up, and everything’s different.”
The issue may be the rarest of all legislative phenomena — a measure related to firearms use that isn’t hotly disputed. Other bills to allow the open carrying of firearms or the carrying of guns on campus are causing fierce conflicts in state legislatures.
The reaction to the right to hunt campaign is mostly befuddlement.
“If we have a constitutional right to hunt and fish, why not a right to shop and golf?” asked Ashley Byrne, a spokeswoman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. She called it a “solution in search of a problem.”