The Right to Hunt and Fish - Outdoors - Fishing

The Right to Hunt and Fish

This coming November 2 people in Arizona, Arkansas, South Carolina and Tennessee will be heading to the polls to cast their votes for among other things the right to hunt and fish. Currently only 10 states have made the right to hunt and fish a constitutional amendment. To think many people, including myself, would never have thought that we didn't have the right to hunt and fish under the United States Constitution. This country has deep roots in the hunting and fishing trade leading back to the founding of our country. While I think it's great that these 4 states are trying to make the right to hunt a fish a constitutional right I wonder why it wasn't in the United States Constitution. I'm thinking that this is an issue for the federal government so the states can focus their forces on game control through already established game commissions.

Hunting and fishing is already regulated by state game commissions so that hunters and fishers don't destroy the resources we already have. The hunting and fishing industry brought in $76.7 billion in 2006, it provides jobs for millions and a way of life for a countless number of people across the globe,people living along the coasts of America, and ranchers living in my own backyard of the Midwest. How can one say that you can't hunt and fish without asking the majority of the world to change their dietary needs? How do these people suggest we obtain fish and meat?

The opposition of this proposition comes from animal right groups clamming that it is "A desperate attempt to prop up a dying pastime," (Ashley Byrne, a New York-based campaigner for PETA). I highly doubt that by giving the people a right that they already felt they had will help and "prop up the pastime". If anything I feel that it will increase people's feelings of being able to take care of themselves. Animal rights organizations consider the propositions a form of insurance for hunters and fishers if a case on the subject is brought to court, and it is. The only reason I can see that this upsets them is because without these propositions they have insurance that they can still bring up cases saying that they don't have the right to hunt and fish, they are afraid to lose power.

If these propositions don't pass will we lose the right to hunt and fish? No. If they pass will we be able to hunt anything and anywhere we want? No! You'll still be able to take your kids to the local stream or pond so they can cast their Spyderman or Dora fishing pole into the water and catch a fish or two. Fishing and hunting will still be regulated by game commissions. So why not go ahead and put it in the national constitution so states can focus on game commission controls and not a right that everyone thought they already had.

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