It's a sign of our perverse times that this would be necessary, but in one state after another, similar language is being added into individual constitutions.
Indiana legislators on Monday renewed debate about a proposed state
constitutional amendment that would guarantee the right to hunt, fish
and farm and place the issue before voters as a statewide referendum
next year.
Indiana would join several
other states adopting similar measures that supporters say are needed
because wildlife hunting and modern agricultural practices are
threatened by animal-rights activists. Opponents maintain the provision
isn’t needed and question singling out hunting and farming for
constitutional protection.
Of course the environmentalists are whining, because it means they will be less able to litigate farmers, sportsmen and individual counties into the ground, collecting huge awards in the meantime--all in the name of 'preserving Mother Earth', to be sure.
Tennessee passed a right-to-hunt-and-fish amendment in 2010, and sixteen other states have some version of the same idea now permanently embedded in their Constitutions.
Unsurprisingly, the BigBlue States like Hawaii, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Pennsylvania have all rejected similar initiatives.
It's irritating that this needs to be done, but with an overweening gubb'mint that views everything it sees or touches as its property, this needs to be done.
This journal article from Michigan State's Animal Law Institute by Jeffrey Usman lays out a compelling case for it, surveying law and practice from Saxon England forward. There is always someone out there in duh gubb'mint who decides that everything belongs to them, and we little people must ask permission in order to live, work, eat, hunt, fish or farm.
It's well worth a read.
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