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.
Some of the comments are hilarious, of only for the reaction to the story.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.
A couple of thoughts.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?
I have been.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.
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
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?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.
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.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.
Counterpoint, where is your proof that hunter education is responsible for decreasing accidental/negligent gun injuries in the first place?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.)
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: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.
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. With a little work maybe we could figure out some way to ban them from moving to Utah too.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.
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)?DaKnife said:Hunting is a privilege, not a right and not a freedom.
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.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.
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.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
Still looking for the evidence that mandatory classes are the cause of these improving numbers. Correlation vs causality.rufus said:Look at the past decade, what we're doing looks pretty good. Still looking for a problem.
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?rufus said:This isn't the same as constitutional carry. We're talking 12 year olds here, not adults.