Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire HUNTING.......Right or Privelege?

Waders,
<br>or any of you legal eagles or constitutional scholars,
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<br>My question is: In a legal sense, is hunting a right or a privelege? I understand some folks may say that hunting is a GOD given right. I don't wish to debate that issue. I hope to find out youall's opinion on the question from a legal prospective.
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<br>For instance, our 2nd Amendment gives us a constitutional right to keep and bear arms (although there is and will be considerable debate in our courts).
<br>But that same constitution says nothing about drivers licenses or hunting,etc. I believe the Constitution relegates those powers to the states. It is my opinion that unless the individual state's constitutions specifically state that hunting is a guaranteed right or unless that constitution has been amended to include hunting as a guaranteed right, then hunting is not a right guaranteed, but rather a privelege granted by enactment of legislation. My point being that our privelege can be legislated and/or petitioned right off the books. There is no guarantee.
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<br>That is why it is so important for each of us to take our responsibilities very seriously. We must show the non-hunting public that we are conscientious, responsible, law-abiding citizens who respect the privelege we have been granted. We must be good stewards of the land and of the wildlife, lest we lose our privelege.
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<br>I am not a legal scholar, so please educate me!
<br>ps: opinions from others like myself are welcomed!
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<br>rutnut

Well, I'm neither of those things, but based on what is going on here in Alaska with our discriminatory "subsistence rights", here is my opinion.
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<br>Hunting is a privilege, but is backed by constitutional guarantees of equal treatment to access those privileges (particularily on public lands) as to access , use, non-discrimination, game management, State's Rights, etc. All of which the feds are violating shamelessly in Alaska, along with our Statehood Act (turns over mangement to the State), civil rights, Alaska's Constitution (guarantees "in common" use), and several amendments to the US Constitution, including portions of the Bill of Rights as to equal protections, etc.
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<br>The feds, in short, are illegally and arbitrarily assigning preferential hunting and fishing priveleges by race and geography on federally managed lands in Alaska, and have annexed management of fish and game from the state on all FEDERAL,PRIVATE AND STATE lands (animals migrate). Often on enhanced, introduced, or reintroduced (at public and sportman's expense) species which were never previously part of stone-age subsistence lifestyles of the area.
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<br>They use as their "authority" the part of the US Constitution that gives them responsibility for managing the interests of Native Amercans, but they slide around the racial discrimination issue by using the term "rural" instead. The next atrocity, already underway, is to slip the urban Natives in under the "subsistence" umbrella as "customary and traditional" heritage - as if no one else has such traditions. They have already effectively gutted the prohibition against selling "subsistence" caught products with a $1,000 per person annual "limit", with no age or household restrictions or effective monitering and enforcement proticalls) The far-left liberal 9th Circuit Court (primarily Californian judges) agrees with this travesty, and our Dem. Governor killed the State's lawsuit appeal(in return for the Native vote, some of it rewarded with 10 gallon gas vouchers at Native owned stores) at that level , before it could reach the US Supreme Court. "With Prejudice" - meaning we cannot reinstate it as a state suit, negating years of legal work and buckets of money to get it that far.
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<br>Whether private individuals or groups will ever manage to get it before the US Supreme Court is questionable, and certainly far more difficult, both in effort and money, and starting all over.
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<br>Oh yeah - The people who decide whether or not a population of animals is large enough to support any harvest by nonresidents of the area (whether or not the animals are actually in the "subsistence" area at the time) in addition to the "subsistence" harvest, are the heads of the various Federal land management agencies, and area Native leaders. Federal, state, and private biologists, game managers, personal use, "sport" and recreational hunters, guides, and everyone else with an interest have no say whatsoever, tho the "Subsistence Board" may magnanimously allow non-mandated public testimoney..
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<br>So, now I know how Robin Hood and all those other peasant trash felt, bucking the Aristocracy. I have not yet resorted to their methods. The operative word being "yet". You guys outside can expect to see similar assaults on your public lands hunting and fishing, using Alaska as a precedent. Assuming they get away with it, and it looks like they will at this point - certainly we are not getting a damned bit of help from other states and little notice even from the big Outdoor magazines , sportsmens groups and the like. Pity, as we sure could use it.
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This past election (2000) us Virginians voted a Constitutional Amendment that hunting and fishing were a right!

Does anybody think that might be covered under the tenth amendment, all other rights thing?

From the federal view point, game management is a state goverment issue. There is no right to hunt or fish under federal law. Now native americians have the 'right' to hunt and fish by 'trearty'. Techincally there are "captive nations" within the US. Because of that, issues of native americans does not fall under the 10th Amendment issue of equal protection. SOL... that is how it is from the federal level.
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<br>The reason I know some of this is becuase a personal friend is a lawyer and does "indian" law. This is based on treatries and not the consitution. What a mess !!!!

In MY opinion;
<br>When a person needs personal protection for himself or family, he has the right to any weapon or means!!
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<br>When a person needs food for himself or family, he has the right to persue and gather regardless of man made laws!!
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<br>I am a free American and I reserve my god given rights.
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<br>While I recognize the need for laws to govern the populations in the different societies, when it comes down to subsistence and protection for the individuals, who has the right to govern? -- no

Hunting is a priveledge granted by the state. I am not a lawyer and I don't play one on television but I believe that it works this way.
<br>Most of our law is based on English common law. Under English law all game belonged to the king who granted the right to hunt it to who ever he chose. No Irish need apply!!
<br>When this country was set up the several states were supreme and the ownership of game transfered from the king to them. Just as the states owned all the unclaimed land within their borders so they owned the game.
<br>The question of which is supreme, the states or the Federal government was settled in 1865. Central government won.
<br>The central government left with the states the managment of game except in cases where the game was migratory. Thus we have migratory waterfowl federal rules. What the basis is for authority to set them I don't know. Interstate commerce clause maybe?
<br>BCR

Boggy, -- you got to be right, the interstate around here claims a lot of game, large and small. There is a cafe over here called, "Road Kill Cafe", no joke. Our cafe is, "Yall Come Back Cafe". You had a bad experience there with a new waitress that was gone the next day, sorry. -- no