From what I understand, the push to include all centerfire rifle was the reason for the earlier push for straightwall cartridges. I heard one time that this has been a gradual process over a generation or more, trying to get IN away from shotguns only.
The same goes for Ohio. Ohio had about a 30 year fight trying to allow Sunday hunting. Ditto for getting rid of the rifle proscriptions. The latter is just taking longer.
In both states, this kind of change only comes about slowly. You've got the tree-hugging greenies on one side and the traditionalists on the other. Both sides are going to whine no matter what. In the latter case, I just cannot fathom the goo, but I understand how it gets there.
If you learn to hunt in IN or OH, you're taught when you are young. Kids ask questions, like why do I have to hunt with a shotgun. Grandpa or Dad has to come up with the answer, and it usually sounds important. For me, the justification for Ohio's shotgun law as put to me as something like: "In Ohio, it's rather crowded, so they don't want the round carrying too far."
Of course, I was a bright little kid, so I couldn't figure out how you could fire anything up into the trees after squirrels, but you could not fire a rifle at a deer. I kept asking the question, and eventually figured out the law was just . . . well, it was just there. However, along the way, I also collected the drivel that every other Buckeye kid got from their Buckeye Dad. Ohio hunters are crazy. It helps protect the herd. It's part of our tradition. . . ad nauseum. I'm sure the same process happened with Hoosier kids and their mentors. The problem with Hoosier kids and Buckeye kids is that most of them drink the Kool-Aid and stop thinking critically. Kentucky kids never got the Kool-Aid, God bless them.
The more I dig into this, I'm fascinated with the process. The idea that this is a big conspiracy and you need to follow the money trail is cute one to be sure. Well, OF COURSE IT IS A CONSPIRACY, and OF COURSE IT HAS BIG MONEY BACKING. It's been the concern of a lot of people to get this problem corrected for years. The basic assumptions were wrong. The technology changed. The idea of shotguns being safer went out the window sometime about 1970. Meanwhile the numbers of hunters are dwindling and those that remain are getting older. It's hard to hand a kid a 12 GA and tell him to suck it up and learn to love the recoil.
Meanwhile you have counties where the deer are so numerous they're crawling up your leg, and no one would particularly mind except the critters are big and are prone to running out in traffic. Once you find yourself wearing one, you get to thinking: somebody should be doing something about this.
So YES! It IS a conspiracy; not only is big money behind it, but so are most hunters. We've been trying gently and nicely and politely to tell the bow [bleep], the greenies, and all the rest that their idea that the state should limit what you lob at deer is a fraud.
