Contact Your State Representative First Thing Next Week!

The Mississippi House is running out of time to act on NRA-backed House Concurrent Resolution 30. If the state House does not act by Thursday, March 15, this important Right to Hunt and Fish constitutional amendment will have no chance of passing in this legislative session and will not appear on the November 2012 ballot. 

The language of this proposed amendment reads as follows:

"The people have the right to hunt, fish and harvest wildlife, including by the use of traditional methods, subject to laws and regulations that promote wildlife conservation and management and which preserve the future of hunting and fishing.  Public hunting and fishing shall be a preferred means of managing and controlling wildlife.  This section may not be construed to modify any provision of law relating to trespass, property rights or the maintenance of levees pursuant to Article 11."

HCR 30, sponsored by state Representatives Bubba Carpenter (R-1) and Charles Busby (R-111), would keep the existing fishing and hunting structure in place while protecting future generations of sportsmen from attacks initiated by well-funded anti-hunting extremists who have assailed sportsmen throughout the country in recent years.  Specifically, it would prohibit regulations that would ban the use of “traditional methods” such as bow hunting or the sustainable taking of wildlife such as deer, elk and doves.  In addition, it specifies that hunting, fishing and harvesting of wildlife shall be used as a preferred means of managing and controlling wildlife.  This constitutional amendment would ensure that sportsmen will continue to be used as the state’s responsible game managers instead of the taxpayer-funded sharpshooters and unproven expensive wildlife contraception schemes employed in other jurisdictions.

Fourteen states, including the neighboring states of Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee, have adopted constitutional amendments protecting the right to hunt and fish.  If passed by the Mississippi Legislature, HCR 30 would appear before voters on the November 2012 ballot. 

Please contact your state Representative today and urge him or her to vote for HCR 30, so that sportsmen can vote for this important measure on the ballot in November!  Contact information for state House members can be found here.