Hunters United For Sunday Hunting
huntersforsundayhunting@gmail.com
717-350-6741
Senators of the Pennsylvania Game and Fisheries Committee as the lead organization along with the 26-group cohort advocating for Repealing Sunday Hunting Prohibition in Pennsylvania, Senate Bill 67 please take a moment to read this correspondence. As you discuss, consider, and vote take a moment to understand the coherence of this bill. SB67 simply removes the 341-year-old blue law that prohibits hunting on Sunday. SB67 plainly provides full regulatory authority to the Pennsylvania Game Commission to set seasons and bag limits seven days a week.
The legislative standard is to be Sunday-inclusive. There is no bill that makes it through the legislative process of drafting, proposing, voting, and signing into law that excludes Sundays. Hunting on Sunday deserves to have the same principle and standard applied.
Hunter-citizens of Pennsylvania have been asking for an update to the blue law for over 50 years. They want the ability, opportunity, and choice to be able to hunt on Sunday. The past stumbling block of religion is merely a moot point. All forms of recreation are allowed on Sunday; fishing, ATV, horseback riding, canoeing, hiking, baseball, football, basketball, and all other organized sports without concern of creed. Businesses are no longer closed on Sunday as they once were under the blue law. So why shouldn’t the law be changed accordingly to authorize hunting on Sunday?
The fact is hunting is occurring on Sundays. Hunting occurs on the three designated Sundays by exemption to the law along with foxes, coyotes, crows, and non-regulated hunting grounds. The Pennsylvania Game Commission manages and sets the criteria for this. There is no reason they shouldn’t be provided with full regulatory authority to set seasons and bag limits for all huntable species regardless of the day of the week to coincide with the Agriculture Code set in 2007 which allows for agriculturists and farmers to hunt and harvest animals all days of the week including Sunday.
The time has come to trust the Pennsylvania Game Commission to do as they are charged and manage the wildlife resources for generations now and future. You as legislators are in a position to provide that path of additional options and opportunities for current and future hunters. In order to do this it takes the courage to change and remove the archaic blue law that prohibits hunting on Sunday.
There will be nothing lost but much gained with a YEA vote on SB67. Landowners will still have liability protection under 2007 Act 11. Sunday only written permission requirement remains. The purple paint law is unchanged. The only change is the ability, choice, and opportunity to hunt on Sunday as a person so chooses as set by the limits of the PGC.
It is truly time to end this 50-year quest and listen to the words of Senator James Brewster from the previous SB147 vote on this very subject; “When we passed the bill and ran the bill my comment was this will be a complete non-event to folks.” Those words held true then and they will hold true now. You have an opportunity to effect much-needed, much-asked, and well-deserved change. It’s time to look to the future and let go of the biases of the past, “If we open a quarrel between past and present, we shall find that we have lost the future,” Winton Churchill.
Thank you for your time and hope you vote favorably on SB67.
Kevin B. Askew, Executive Director, Hunters United for Sunday Hunting
Senate Bill 67 Repealing Sunday Hunting Prohibition in Pennsylvania
Supported and endorsed by: Pennsylvania Board of Game Commissioners, Hunters United for Sunday Hunting, Hunter Nation, Pennsylvania Governor's Youth Council for Hunting Fishing and Conservation, United Bowhunters of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Hunters Sharing the Harvest, Hunting Works for PA, Delta Waterfowl, Safari Club International, Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, National Deer Association, National Shooting Sports Foundation, Cervicide, Meat Eater, HOWL for Wildlife, Sportsmen’s Alliance, Hunt Quietly, Camps4Vets, Hunt Of A Lifetime Foundation, Ruffed Grouse Society/American Woodcock Society, Steel City Bowhunters, Wild Sheep Foundation, Hunters of Color, Harvesting Nature
