This is the Bible Belt and the religious aspect is getting over played by the media and even getting picked up by outdoor blogs including the Black Bear Blog. Getting some Christian organizations to give news organization a sound bite was easy but if you think that is the only strong objection to this proposal you are wrong. This is a follow up to my initial post yesterday.
A big concern is also with other land users whether public or private. This issue was cited 77% of the time as opposition to the change where as religious opposition was cited 70%. Currently a good chunk of NC has about a 4 month long deer season (Sept- Jan). Other land users want to be able to utilize the land as well.
Hunters will argue that Game Lands are paid for through dollars spent by the to purchase licenses and taxes on equipment so they should have the lion share of the land use. This is partially right but in many cases our money has been pooled with other private organizations (Non Hunting) to purchase large tracts of land with the result of some of the land becoming Game Lands. I think it would be short sighted of hunters to downplay the partnership that purchased all the land.
A good majority of hunters in this study recognized this as a reason to oppose allowing Sunday Hunting. I’m not sure if this aspect of the opposition by other users was brought up but it’s the perception that hunting is an unsafe sport. Accidents get a lot of play especially if they involve firearms and lead to a perception our sport is unsafe. I think we as hunters do ourselves a disservice when we talk about how unsafe our sport is and further the false perception. Have you ever heard a hunter talk about how unsafe public hunting land is? Have you done it yourself? The facts are in NC you are far more likely to get killed or injured on private land then you are on Game Lands. Hunting as a whole is a much safer sport then football, basketball, and even golf.
Yes this does come down to a matter of choice, as stated many places, and who should have that choice? There is not enough support even among hunters to push this forward. National pro hunting organizations have certainly sided up on the side to overturn the law. I ask should they be listening to the hunters of this state or the nation?
Prior to the Commissioners meeting yesterday the ultimate decision rested with the legislators nothing that transpired yesterday altered that so we’ll have to wait and see what they do with this study.
