Hunting Dogs - Dogs Breeds

We’ll say this much for the orange cap-clad hunters who jammed into College of The Albemarle’s Community Auditorium last week: they at least know how to make a fashion statement.

But as for their efforts to intimidate Pasquotank commissioners into dropping a proposal to regulate hunting with dogs on private land — the sea of orange caps was a not-so-subtle reminder that “I’m a hunter and I vote” — we’re not impressed.

We believe it’s past time for Pasquotank County to join Chowan County and most communities by adopting reasonable regulations requiring deer hunters to get written permission from landowners before letting their hunting dogs run loose across private property.

We say reasonable because it is reasonable to demand that you have someone’s permission before engaging in any activity on their property. And it is unreasonable — un-American, even — to claim otherwise. One of America’s founding principles, after all, is respect for private property.

So why then are deer-dog hunters so outraged by the prospect of having to respect private property rights? Why do they feel compelled to show up in vast numbers, clad in orange hats, to defend a practice so at odds with what it means to be an American? Because that is, at bottom, what letting dogs run loose across someone else’s property without permission is: disrespect for property rights.

Deer-dog hunters of course arm themselves with tons of excuses to cloud the issue, to cover up the fact that in order to enjoy their recreational past-time, in the way they want to enjoy it, they have to deprive others of their property rights. One of their claims is that it’s unfair that they should be charged criminally for something that dogs do. As they like to point out, dogs can’t read “no trespassing” signs. They’re right; dogs can’t read. But it’s not for dogs that laws are written. Just as laws aren’t written for children but for those responsible for children, laws are needed to encourage those responsible for hunting dogs to take actions that will prevent damage to private property and that will hold them accountable if they avoid their responsibility. Remember, hunting dogs don’t just wander from home onto private property to chase deer; they’re carted to specific, deer-rich locations by hunters.

Deer-dog hunting supporters also claim that it’s unfair to deprive the “90 percent” of sportsmen who respect property rights of their enjoyment, when only “10 percent” of hunters are causing problems by disrespecting those rights. Of course the same argument could have been made against imposing tougher driving-while-impaired laws because only “10 percent” of drivers habitually drive drunk. Thankfully, lawmakers decided it was more important to protect society at large than to let a small group of drunk drivers practice their hobby.

But again, this is a made-up concern. No one is depriving the 90 percent of deer-dog hunters who respect property rights of anything by imposing a new law. Hunting with dogs will still be legal. The only folks who will be deprived are the 10 percent who disrespect property rights.

It’s time for Pasquotank commissioners to end this farce that’s trying to pass as a debate. They’ve been advised by the district attorney that a local law requiring hunters to obtain signed permission to run their dogs on private property is criminally enforceable. They also know that such a law has not only worked in nearby Chowan County, it’s acted as a deterrent there to dogs being let loose on private property.

Adopting a similar law in Pasquotank might cost commissioners a lot of votes from the orange-hat crowd. But doing so will uphold the rights of property owners, and what could be more American than that?

Source: DailyAdvance.com

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