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S.B. 165 Trial Hunting Authorization (Sen. Okerlund, R.)

7K views 14 replies 8 participants last post by  UtahJarhead 
#1 ·
According to S.B. 165 Trial Hunting Authorization (Sen. Okerlund, R.) (http://le.utah.gov/~2014/bills/static/SB0165.html):

This bill amends the Wildlife Resources Code.

This bill:
. allows a person to obtain certain hunting licenses or permits without complying with hunter education requirements under certain circumstances;
. provides rulemaking authority; and
. makes technical changes.
 
#2 ·
The AP, in their infinite wisdom, has written a short article about this that makes it sound like you have to have the trial permit to even be able to accompany a hunter on a hunt.

http://www.ksl.com/?sid=28760161&nid=12 ... id=queue-8

Young Utah hunters may soon be able to get a hunting permit to accompany an adult hunter without first taking a training course.

The Utah Senate unanimously approved the proposal on a 26-0 vote Tuesday. It now advances to the House for consideration.

The measure allows someone as young as 11 to receive the permit but would bar them from using a gun or archery equipment until they are 12 years old.
Some of the comments are hilarious, of only for the reaction to the story.

Matt
 
#3 ·
So many of those commenting either didn't read the article or have a reading comprehension problem. I am all for this program
 
#4 ·
But why? Why not just take the course and get your blue card? What is the benefit to me as a hunter who has taken the course? What is the benefit of allowing someone who has not taken the course to hunt? We seem to be so worried about getting new hunters interested but the current hunt quality's of the general hunts are driving hunters away. How about we address hunt quality for those who are getting their blue cards. I don't know anyone who has been prevented from hunting because of the lack of this law. The safety training in the course isn't super comprehensive but I'd feel better if those going hunting for the first time have such concepts as safe handling of a loaded rifle explained to them.

What is the benefit? When my kids are 11 and reach the accomplishment of being born after 1965 (sorry I find the double qualifier worded funny even if I understand it) to be allowed to trial hunt without just getting their blue card?
 
#5 ·
DaKnife said:
What is the benefit? When my kids are 11 and reach the accomplishment of being born after 1965 (sorry I find the double qualifier worded funny even if I understand it) to be allowed to trial hunt without just getting their blue card?
A couple of thoughts.

1-This may not be aimed at your kids or others who are already going to be interested enough in hunting to get their training first. What about the neighbor kid who might be willing to join you on a hunt and there develop the interest needed to take the class he otherwise wouldn't? If we want to preserve hunting we need to keep enough people interested or at least well enough informed that they continue to support it politically if not personally. That may well require getting folks involved who don't have a current family heritage of hunting.

2-Whose hunting experience has ever been diminished or enhanced based on a government mandated class? And why would anyone on this list, in particular, object to loosening up mandatory training? Sure, we all support training and education. But since when do we believe that government ought to be mandating it? It is a personal responsibility to know and obey applicable laws and safety rules. If a dad or grand dad can teach that his family, or friends without them sitting through a government mandated class, no skin off my nose. If someone breaks the law, punish them.

Or am I missing something?

Charles
 
#6 ·
I see your points, but as counter: that kid can tag along with a hunter without a tag or a weapon, as kids and neighbor kids have done for decades. In my opinion that is better prep and enticement than the risk of that kid actually filling a tag.

2 As to the class. We aren't talking about a class yo exercise a right, this is about hunting, including safe handling of rifles in rough terrain (remember rifles are not drop safe like handguns and hunters forget yhis and shoot themselves or buddies every year. The class also covers hunters ethics, and at least it used to touch on how to dress a deer. A usually spends years indoctrinating his children, he doesn't have that much time if any with the random kid or new neighbor. I was taught by my father from a young age but still learned or increased my understanding of the concepts. And many of us here are quite happy with some degree of mandatory training. I think Utah's requirements are just about right, DeWitt and others would really prefer a shooting req and include it in their classes.

Simply put. If someone wants to take game they should take the hunters ed course. If they want to just tag along they don't need the course or a license. And how many of us got to shoot before they got a license, the father has the license, carries the gun and tags the animal, but letting a kid (assuming he/she can handle the gun safely) take a shot, is very common.

I just don't see any value in this bill. If anything it's addressing an issue that isn't really an issue or a need.

Tapatalking via my Galaxy S4
 
#7 ·
This is an interesting situation.

A couple of points. We here are in a bubble of competence, personal responsibility, and common sense. I have spent over 6000 hours over the past 20 years helping with the Hunter Education program. I'm here to tell ya, common sense ain't very common out in the rest of the world. One of the scariest things to see is gramdpa digging his old rifle out of the closet and trying to teach grandkids "his way". Actually had to stop one tracking cars on the 201 freeway to show the young man how to find his target in a scope. It could go on and on.
The numbers from the fifties of hunting fatalities were staggering. That is why H.E. was instituted. The accident rate has gone down dramatically and this is one of the reasons. Another is fewer people hunting now.
Another result of the classes is it requires an actual commitment from both the family and the young person. It takes some effort and responsibility. That ain't all bad.

What will happen is the accident rate starts to go up? There will be a public demand to eliminate this "dangerous activity". Give it about 5 years. This is a solution looking for a problem.
 
#8 ·
So do we need to oppose constitutional carry since the lack of mandatory training would be sure to lead to an excess of accidents and the eventual public demand to end RKBA?

We are all very much in favor of education and training. I, for one, am opposed to mandatory training. Doubly so for anything connected to RKBA.

While the 2nd Amd has very little to do with hunting, at the time it was written and adopted I'll bet you'd have been hard pressed to find anyone who didn't consider hunting a 10th amendment right. A lot of our people had emigrated from England and Europe to escape oppressive laws including the notion that the state (eg the "Crown") owned all wildlife and thus commoners could only hunt with permission from the government.

I get it. With population growth and the loss of habitat, some regulations were required to preserve hunting opportunities for everyone. But lets not go farther down that road than needed.

I took Hunter Safety over 30 years ago as a Boy Scout. It included nothing about dressing out a deer or any other animal. It lightly discussed hunting ethics, but that is something that really has to be engrained by family or larger culture. It was about basic safety when hunting. But I haven't gone hunting in ages. I consider that a moral failing on my part. But it is true. I haven't filled a tag in decades, only purchased a couple in that time. What good is that training I took 30 years ago? Maybe we should require regular refresher courses? Maybe we should require those born before 1950 to take the course. :nilly:

We are not even talking about eliminating training. We're talking about allowing some kids to go with a responsible adult without first making them sit through a class for which they have very little motivation before going hunting. Frankly, I think letting them get out in the field might increase their attention when they come back and take the class.

I thought this group was all about "more freedom." :dunno:

Well, if nothing else, I sure don't want any crap from anyone the next time Utah's alcohol or marriage laws come up and I defend current laws rather than adopting the libertine position. :D

Charles
 
#9 ·
DaKnife said:
But why? Why not just take the course and get your blue card? What is the benefit to me as a hunter who has taken the course? What is the benefit of allowing someone who has not taken the course to hunt? We seem to be so worried about getting new hunters interested but the current hunt quality's of the general hunts are driving hunters away. How about we address hunt quality for those who are getting their blue cards. I don't know anyone who has been prevented from hunting because of the lack of this law.
I have been.

I used to hunt every year, prior to moving to Utah 6 years ago. Havent been hunting since, mostly because of the huge pain in the arse that is involved in getting hunter safety done. And admittedly, at least partially due to me being insulted by the requirement that I get the so called "blue card" in order to be able to hunt here, when I never had to have one to hunt anywhere else in my 40+ years of life.
 
#10 ·
Thanks a real example of someone this might help Gravedancer, I really couldn't think of a valid or semi-valid situation for why someone would want this. I do still have a counter to your point: What proof do we have that you really have been hunting for ## years in other states? What proof do we have that you have been introduced into how to safely hunt. (Please note I said introduced, not necessarily taught, learned or understand the concept.) Hunting in our wide open spaces is far different from in the close in brush hunting done in many other states, where even rifle shots are rarely longer than a hundred yards. I don't have an issue with someone with your experience, except that how do we know that your experience is in fact factual. Just take the cheap class and get your card (cheap assuming you can find the .22 ammo that is). It's not hard, it's not long (a little more than a cc class true). But it does provide a baseline of training if not actual knowledge, intelligence and common sense about how to safely and ethically hunt.

I grew up hunting in the mountains around Beaver, I was tagging along years before I was old enough to hunt. Back in the day come deer hunt every third rig was from California, and the majority of the time if a hunter was observed doing something unsafe or unethical it was those out of state hunters who had supposedly given some form of evidence that they'd learned to hunt in CA or elsewhere. But those were the guys hiking the hills wearing only white. Those were the hunters leaving gates open, that was the hunter who was hurriedly putting a tag on a deer I'd shot by the time my father and I tracked the blood trail to the body. (I didn't mind too much, I'd jerked the trigger when I fired and the blood trail was indicating a gut shot.) Now I'm not saying they were the only ones, or that they hadn't had some kind of training, or even that hunters with the class are always safer, more ethical or courteous. Only that hunters from outside the state who hadn't been through Utah's little class seemed (in my young eyes) to be the ones most often failing to be safe, ethical or courteous.

Hunting is a privilege, not a right and not a freedom. Rufus made some great points about why the HE program was instituted and how it's still necessary. Don't try to link this to Constitutional Carry or any other version of the right to bear arms. This is NOT about carrying guns. This is about getting a tag, and hunting safely, be it with a firearm, a bow or a muzzleloader, ethically and with a modicum (minute though it may be) of common sense. We are in fact talking about at least temporarily eliminating training, why go through the class when you can just take a trained hunter every year. You want the kid out there, fine let him tag along, but he doesn't need a tag. As kids we often brought friends who tagged along even as we did before we could hunt (back when you had to be 16 or almost to take a deer).

And this has nothing to do with freedom. Those who don't have the class (and are born after 1965) are welcome to tag along. They just don't get a tag. And we can't require those born before 1965 to take the class because that would be an ex-post facto law and those are unconstitutional. Therefore everyone born before the HE program was created are grandfathered in.

And I think Rufus hit a very key point at the end of his comment:
rufus said:
What will happen is the accident rate starts to go up? There will be a public demand to eliminate this "dangerous activity". Give it about 5 years. This is a solution looking for a problem
 
#11 ·
rufus said:
T
The numbers [of accidents] from the fifties of hunting fatalities were staggering. That is why H.E. was instituted. The accident rate has gone down dramatically and this is one of the reasons. Another is fewer people hunting now.
I note that all accidental/negligent shootings have declined dramatically since the 50s, not just those related to hunting. Are we to believe that the ever shrinking number of persons taking hunter safety courses is the reason for this? Or might it be something other than mandatory government classes for hunting that is responsible for the decline in non-intentional (and non-hunting) gun related injuries and deaths?

Are we going to credit the gun control of the 60s through 80s for improving safety? Maybe the federal and State GFSZ laws? Or the ban on scarey looking guns?

Education is a good thing. Mandatory government classes often are not. And I trust all here know the difference between correlation and causality.

Where is the evidence that mandatory hunter safety classes (in Utah) had any material bearing on accidental/negligent shootings nationwide when how many other States did not have mandatory training?

We can look today at concealed carry permit requirements across the nation. There is no material correlation between the amount of training required (from zero mandatory up through a few hours up to 16 or more hours of mandatory class time plus live range time) and the rate of either accidental/negligent shooting OR violations of laws.

rufus said:
What will happen is the accident rate starts to go up? There will be a public demand to eliminate this "dangerous activity". Give it about 5 years. This is a solution looking for a problem.
Respectfully, this is begging the question. Having failed to establish that mandatory training is the reason that accidental/negligent rates went down in the first place, there is no rational reason to think that allowing a person to hunt for a year under supervision without that training is going to cause the rate to go back up. Additionally, we can look to Alaska, Arizona, and nearly a half dozen other States that have moved to various levels of constitutional carry, along with another half dozen States with no mandatory training at all to get a permit (not to mention Vermont that has never required a permit nor training) to carry a gun around in public and it is clear that negligent discharges, violations of the law, or other problems simply do not increase.

It is a good thing to support training and education.

It is often not a good thing to demand government mandates.

Charles
 
#12 ·
DaKnife said:
... I do still have a counter to your point: What proof do we have that you really have been hunting for ## years in other states? What proof do we have that you have been introduced into how to safely hunt. (Please note I said introduced, not necessarily taught, learned or understand the concept.)
Counterpoint, where is your proof that hunter education is responsible for decreasing accidental/negligent gun injuries in the first place?

Can you demonstrate it was mandatory training in Utah rather than the nation wide GCA '68 that was responsible for the nation wide decrease in such injuries and deaths? Maybe it was the Brady Bill or the federal GFSZ law. Maybe it was the scarey looking gun ban.

Or maybe, it was an increase in voluntary education and a change in culture that emphasized safety that lead to both the decrease in accidents/negligence and the political will to mandate training. Food for thought, I think.

DaKnife said:
Just take the cheap class and get your card (cheap assuming you can find the .22 ammo that is). It's not hard, it's not long (a little more than a cc class true). But it does provide a baseline of training if not actual knowledge, intelligence and common sense about how to safely and ethically hunt.
Just give the cop your ID and let him look around your car. It's not hard, and if you've done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide it won't take long. Who really cares what books you check out of the library or what websites you visit. Right?

DaKnife said:
I grew up hunting in the mountains around Beaver, I was tagging along years before I was old enough to hunt. Back in the day come deer hunt every third rig was from California, and the majority of the time if a hunter was observed doing something unsafe or unethical it was those out of state hunters who had supposedly given some form of evidence that they'd learned to hunt in CA or elsewhere. But those were the guys hiking the hills wearing only white. Those were the hunters leaving gates open, that was the hunter who was hurriedly putting a tag on a deer I'd shot by the time my father and I tracked the blood trail to the body. (I didn't mind too much, I'd jerked the trigger when I fired and the blood trail was indicating a gut shot.) Now I'm not saying they were the only ones, or that they hadn't had some kind of training, or even that hunters with the class are always safer, more ethical or courteous. Only that hunters from outside the state who hadn't been through Utah's little class seemed (in my young eyes) to be the ones most often failing to be safe, ethical or courteous.
Sounds to me like a cultural problem as no class will change culture. Maybe the answer is not to require Utah hunters to take a class, but to simply ban Californians from hunting in Utah. :D With a little work maybe we could figure out some way to ban them from moving to Utah too. :D :D

DaKnife said:
Hunting is a privilege, not a right and not a freedom.
Can you tell me when, why, and how our right to hunt was converted to a privilege to be taxed, controlled, and regulated out of existence? And whether it is a right or a privilege, why should we be supporting mandatory government training in the absence of solid evidence it is needed (especially in the limited cases where it would be waived under this bill)?

Rather than mandatory training for hunters, how about some mandatory training for the guys running the DWR who seem to have managed to destroy the culture of hunting in this State in less than a generation while also being among the most ignorant of law enforcement types when it comes to our rights and privileges under Utah's carry laws?

DaKnife said:
And this has nothing to do with freedom. Those who don't have the class (and are born after 1965) are welcome to tag along. They just don't get a tag. And we can't require those born before 1965 to take the class because that would be an ex-post facto law and those are unconstitutional. Therefore everyone born before the HE program was created are grandfathered in.
Respectfully, this is a fundamentally and grossly flawed understanding of what an ex post facto law is or how it would work. By this logic, my grand father and father would never have been subject to Nixon's and Carter's double nickel because both were driving long before any national speed limit was put into effect. They could have continued to drive at 75 or more forever.

No, those born before '65 were exempted not because of any constitutional problem, but out of simple politics. To force them to take a class would have cost a few legislators their seats. To impose the class only on the up and coming generation, however, was political palatable. It is a bit like not actually confiscating guns, but only banning sales of new guns. It reduces political opposition as those who have already "got theirs" are less likely to be upset.

DaKnife said:
And I think Rufus hit a very key point at the end of his comment:
rufus said:
What will happen is the accident rate starts to go up? There will be a public demand to eliminate this "dangerous activity". Give it about 5 years. This is a solution looking for a problem
He might have if he had demonstrated that the mandatory class was responsible for the decrease in problems in the first place or offered any other evidence that this very minor exemption to the class would actually cause such problems.

By his math and assertion, I think Vermont is about 250 years overdue for massive problems, Alaska should have seen problems this year, and Arizona, Wyoming and other States that have recently adopted constitutional carry are going to soon have serious problems. Not to mention all those States that don't require any training at all for a permit to carry or that allow permit-free (and thus training free) OC.

Training and education are good. Government mandates often are not.

Charles
 
#14 ·
rufus said:
Look at the past decade, what we're doing looks pretty good. Still looking for a problem.
Still looking for the evidence that mandatory classes are the cause of these improving numbers. Correlation vs causality.

Looking for evidence that letting someone hunt for a year or so under direct supervision of a responsible adult who has been trained is going to cause a problem.

rufus said:
This isn't the same as constitutional carry. We're talking 12 year olds here, not adults.
So what is the problem? Where is the evidence that not taking a mandatory class before going out with a responsible adult is likely to cause problems?

Frankly, your predictions of blood in the hills if we let people go hunting without a mandatory safety class sounds a lot like the gun-grabbers' claims of blood in the streets if we let people carry guns for self defense, or if we let them carry guns in their cars without getting a permit, or if we let people carry guns for self defense without asking big brother for permission first. Where is the problem with a little more freedom?

Charles
 
#15 ·
Well, for what it's worth (might not be much), but my boss just moved to a house surrounded by a few thousand acres of farms late last year. Most every day, his two boys run out there with their shotguns or .22s (where they find that ammo, I have no idea!) and lay waste to the muskrat and **** population around their area. They sell the pelts to a place here in Ogden and make decent cash for a teenager and 11 year old.
 
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