Ego and wounded feelings should not stand in the way of commonsense legislation.
THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
September 25, 2019
Pennsylvania lawmakers should not allow ego and wounded feelings to stand in the way of a bill that would permit hunting on Sunday a few times a year.
Passage of the Sunday hunting bill was expected to be smooth and swift until some unfortunate remarks were made Sept. 10 by the new executive director of the Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmen and Conservationists — a major proponent of the initiative that has been sought for more than a decade.
Harold Daub, a former leader of Hunters United for Sunday Hunting, was at a legislative meeting with the Game and Fisheries Committee, meant to prime the state House about a Senate bill that would permit limited Sunday hunting. But Mr. Daub rambled into territory considered by some as rude. The Dauphin County resident rapped the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, urging lawmakers not to allow the bureau to “bully” them. He also made a sarcastic and dismissive remark about the Keystone Trails Association.
Mr. Daub was not diplomatic. Nor was he politically smart. But this bull-in-the-china-shop behavior shouldn’t derail a good move.
A Sunday hunting ban initially was part of a package of “blue laws” aimed at promoting church attendance, a notion that fails. Many Pennsylvanians are not Christian and Sunday hunting and church-going aren’t mutually exclusive.
Pennsylvania is one of only three states that haven’t lifted a general no-Sunday-hunting ban. Some limited hunting in Pennsylvania — coyotes and crows, for example — currently is allowed. The compromise Senate bill passed in June would have allowed three Sunday hunting days.
A perennial concern has been the safety of walkers, hikers and those who want to otherwise play in the woods. But this is a concern that applies seven days a week. Other states with safety concerns engaged in a test run of Sunday hunting, found it worked fine and lifted their bans.
The Pennsylvania Farm Bureau has opposed Sunday hunting for a reason that applies to the other six days of the week as well: trespass. Some hunters (and others) illegally trespass on private land. For farmers, that can mean crops being trampled at certain times of the year. For them, six days a week of hunting is better than seven days a week. This concern was dealt with in the pending legislation by creating a new primary offense: Hunting trespass. It would be enforceable by police and the state Game Commission and would be punishable by high fines and the possible loss of hunting privileges.
Senate Bill 147 was expected to pass the House with little debate until Mr. Daub’s inappropriate comments. That’s not a good enough reason for lawmakers to derail a process that’s been in the works for many years.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette link:
https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/editorials/2019/09/25/Pennsylvania-Sunday-hunting-remarks-Harold-Daub/stories/201909160022
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