There’s also currently no general law, at least in NC (and NC is specifically the state “Ban” is talking about), against shooting along the roadsides… as long as you’re not shooting onto or across the public road. Likewise, it’s not illegal in many parts of the state to fire centerfire rifles from flat ground. This isn’t CA, with our canyons and ridges. Along most of coastal and central NC, a bullet fired from five feet (average shoulder height) at a running deer is liable to end up a long ways from where it started… and population density is rising quickly. We recognized this even before the suburbs spread into our hunting grounds, which is why most clubs required ground hunters to use buckshot, and relegated rifles and slugs to elevated stands. That common sense, self-regulation has gone by the ways in the past couple of decades.

True, you shouldn’t have to legislate common sense. People should know better. But if they don’t, there’s a point where someone (the government) is going to step in for the bystanders who are in harm’s way… and when the legislature gets involved, it’s often bad news for all hunters.

I totally agree that, in some cases, the “good ol’ boy” system enables some of this behavior to take place. But that’s not the only problem here. Houndsmen have got to realize that the problem is largely within their own ranks. The rural countryside is changed, and they’re going to have to change with it, or they’ll become another anachronism.

I have to agree with the approach of states like GA, where deer houndsmen are only allowed to run their dogs on large tracts of land. I don’t know if 1000 acres is the perfect size or not, but it isn’t altogether unreasonable either. If your land isn’t large enough to contain the hunt without spilling over onto other’s property where it’s not wanted, then you shouldn’t be running your hounds there. (I’m sure, by the way, that you are aware of the difference between running three or four dogs for hogs, and running a pack of fifteen or twenty hounds for deer. But even the hog dogs can range pretty wide, and they have no idea what a fenceline or Posted sign means.)

I also think that legislation restricting the use of centerfire rifles without elevated stands is reasonable in areas like coastal NC, particularly for driven game (but even still-hunters miss). And a law prohibiting hunting from the highway right-of-way makes sense as well, although there’s no reason houndsmen can’t line the road to collect their dogs.

The alternatives, of course, if left to the legislature and the general public, are going to be outright bans on everything… no more hound hunting… no more centerfire rifles (many states have already done this)… etc. Like the lead ban, if the folks who stand to lose the most don’t get actively involved in finding solutions, then they’re going to be left out in the cold when someone else does it for them.

The problem is that these laws (just like our firearms laws) are not enforced, too many good ol’ boys in the court system that just don’t hold the real criminals accountable for their actions.

On the other hand, as Michael is pointing out, painting ALL houndsmen with that same broad brush is neither constructive nor accurate. There are still plenty out there who abide by rules of common sense and etiquette. And I personally know of more than one houndsman who has stepped away from the sport under the realization that they can no longer run the hounds due to the sprawl of development.

There has to be a better answer, but the houndsmen themselves have to step up and police their own ranks.

We may as well go ahead and lump all Gun Toting hunters in the same category as “Poachers” because we know that all poachers carry guns!

While we are on that subject we may as well ban all firearms because surely all firearm owners are irresponsible and wind up shooting someone with their reckless shooting in all directions.

Lets just go ahead and ban hunting altogether because all hunters are nothing but poachers and don’t follow the laws anyway.

You know, I think I am going to stick with my first statement and say: Lets Just Simply Ban All Ignorant People!
There, problem solved!

But Kevin, you said it best of all “Please just let it die and go away”

The one thing which we “all” know is that whatever California does, the rest of the states soon follow because if you look at the money trail it eventualy leads back to California.

And Othmar hit the nail right on the head when he said to keep “blogging away” for this information medium will travel the quickest and reach lots of outdoorsmen and outdoorswomen.

As has been mentioned before, we need to take a long hard look at the things we take for granted and the practices we’ve “always followed”, and consider them versus the impact of not changing.

As far as enforcing current laws versus making new ones, that’s the problem in a nutshell… in most counties there is no law against using the high-powered rifles on flat ground, and there’s no law against hunting off the highway right-of-way.

It used to be that common sense and courtesy regulated hunters and kept them from doing things like that. And as I said, before the rural areas became so populated with urban/suburban refugees, the conflicts with non-hunters or other property owners were minimized.

Now it’s become a matter not only of public opinion/perception, but of safety pure and simple. And if hunters won’t regulate themselves, the law will have to do it for them (hence the CA lead ammo ban, for example).