City Eradicates Hunting
It seems there has been a new way found to eradicate hunting in Michigan and the state’s Supreme Court has given it their blessing in a 4-3 vote.
Basically, what the ruling states is that a city or municipality has the right to ban the discharge of any type of weapon they want within its limits. At first, this doesn’t sound so unreasonable, but when you look at it on a grander scale, it is very disconcerting. Let me explain why I think so.
Populations of cities are growing all the time. And as people choose to move from within the city to the more rural areas on the outskirts of city limits, the city governments often extend city limits. Why? Many reasons can be a factor, such as increasing and/or maintaining the level of tax revenue or to provide water, electricity, waste or other such city services to these newly populated areas just to name a couple.
As this happens, rural tracts of land once used for hunting falls within the city limits and can no longer be used for that purpose. Without a grandfather clause, or a ruling that the state department overseeing hunting laws has authority above and beyond that of the city government, the amount of land available for hunting significantly decreases.
The reasonable ban of firearms within a city then becomes a perfect platform for anti-hunting groups to use as a tool to extend the eradication of hunting to these tracts of rural land that falls within the city limits. It’s an easy yes vote as citizens are rightly concerned with safety and violence within their city limits. And with the rapid expansion of many cities, the reality of this happening more often will only increase.
Something needs to be done to deter this before anti-hunting groups clue in and start using it to their advantage.
hunting, hunting sense, laws, regulations, bans, cities, city limits, firearms, weapons, anti-hunting groups, Michigan, Michigan Supreme Court, Saginaw
June 22nd, 2007 at 1:09 pm
As a Michigan resident, I was appalled by this decision. Michigan survives largely on tourism dollars. This decision is basically giving cities the right to tell hunters to take their dollars elsewhere.
It’s just stupid.
June 25th, 2007 at 7:37 am
Unfortunately we can witness this firearm bans in the cities more and more. Some municipalities even include archery equipment in such bans. On a brighter note we also see that municipalities begin to open up parks and suburban areas for special entry hunts that before where off limits for hunters. With an ever-growing deer population car/deer accidents reached all time high. In addition to the accidents many suburban folks complain about deer destroying their gardens, the towns and cities answer to this real problem is to permit bowhunting in such areas. Looking at it this way I don’t think that the antis will have a chance to use this firearm bans to their advantage.
But I see where you’re coming from with your concerns and to a degree I share them with you. As we can see here in Canada Toronto, Vancouver and other large cities have a total ban on forearms and carrying knives, yet they have higher violent crime rates than ever before. Bans do not solve an existing problem, such as crime, they make it often worse.
-Othmar Vohringer-
June 28th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
[…] June 28th, 2007 by Cliff Last week I posted that the Michigan Supreme Court ruled 4-3 to uphold a ban by the city of Saginaw on discharging any type of weapon in the city limits. I also voiced my concerns of this type of ban catching on, eliminating hunting land in more rural […]