[Ulysses]

You can add this stupid law to the "gun plugged to 3 shots" law. The more I hear of these stupid laws and the heavy fines that go with them, the more disgusted I am with game enforcement officials in general. They have strayed FAR, FAR away from the original intent of enforcing reasonable laws to help preserve game for future generations. Now they are mainly revenue generators who look for some technicality to cite you for some offense. Their actions are alienating the very citizens who pay their salarys and fund their agencies through their license fees and taxes. I'm at the point now where if I saw a game warden in need of help, I would just tell him that helping game wardens is not in my job description as a hunter and he will just have to solve his prediciment the best way he can.

I heard that last year they were giving (or threatening to give) citations at a big sporting clays event in one of the states in the north-central US (perhaps Wisconsin) because the shooters had uncased guns in a vehicle (their golf carts with gun racks). Give me a frigging break :!: :x :x How stupid is this :?: :!:

 

[Ulysses]

Ranburr,

Regardless of whether they are nice guys or "turds in a punchbowl", they are government employees! That means they will toe the line of whatever directives come down to them from the higher-up bosses. The higher-up bosses know where their funding comes from and they like being a boss of numerous employees. (It keeps them with a good job and a good paycheck). Therefore, they will do whatever is necessary to keep the money rolling in. I know a little bit about being a government employee and know how it works.

Individually, the game wardens may be great guys, but they've got jobs to do, orders to follow, and families to feed (their own). If they want to continue being a game warden, they will follow orders no matter what they may think of the orders personally. Just as in your example, it made no difference to them that you simply forgot you had that box of lead shotshells in the car. They found a technical violation and slapped a ticket on you. You are not the only person to have received that type ticket. As I have said, I support necessary and reasonable enforcement of the game laws. However, in the past 15 to 20 years, IMO, the game enforcement agencies have turned into typical government bureaucrats whose sole function is to preserve their own little fiefdom and jobs at the expense of those they are suppose to be serving. They've lost my support and the support of many who have fallen victim to some technicality.

 

[Ulysses]

In case some of you may think I'm being extreme in my views of the practices of the game department officials, I would invite you to read the current (March 04) issue of NRA's The American Rifleman. On page 14 is an article by NRA President Kayne Robinson titled "The Good, The Bad, The Ugly". The same article may also be in The American Hunter.

The article points out some of the outrageous actions taken by the game departments which, in his opinion, are very discouraging to law abiding hunters. Among those examples is the arrest of a person who happens to be sighting in his hunting rifle on the family farm during deer season in a "shotgun only" state. Another example of abuse is the routine stopping of hunters and the searching of their cars without any suspicion whatsoever of any violation of any kind. He points out that in his many years of being a law enforcement officer, he couldn't just stop someone and search them without probable cause, but game department officials (game wardens) routinely stop people without probable cause and search their vehicles, check their licenses, and check that everything is in 100% compliance with all the bureaucratic red tape. He mentions the numerous hunters that have been arrested and issued citations because they failed to MAKE A PHONE CALL to get the Harvest Information Program number and write it on their license, thereby rendering their license invalid :!: Give me a frigging break :!: :evil: :evil:

My comments on this thread were not inspired in any way by this article. I just happened to sit down today to look through the magazine and right there in black and white was an article dealing with the very thing we are discussing on this board.

So, those of you who are supporting the game department officials regardless of what they do, may want to reconsider your support. As I've said repeatedly, I fully support the enforcement of legitimate, reasonable laws that help preserve our wildlife. I DON'T support the senseless enforcement of nitpicking laws which have zero effect on the game populations and serve only to raise revenue for the enforcement agencies and piss off law abiding hunters. The enforcement agencies are shooting themselves in the foot, and I'll damn sure tell them so.