Lawsuits

[paulvallandigham]

ACtually, I can see a good reason to take on a state regulation that discriminates against older shooters whose eyes no longer allow them to be able to shoot open sight, but they can still shoot if allowed to use a scope. This is a handicap shooter complaint, and no one can argue that the current regulation is arbitrary, and discriminatory, and for no legitimate state purpose. Hunting is allowed to help control the population of the herd of deer. The state's interest is to make sure that primary objective is achieved, that the methods used are not cruel to the animals, nor overly dangerous to other hunters and users of the lands. A scope is actually a safety devise. The regs. could still require a side lock action, and even Black Powder with Round Ball, to keep the in-lines limited to the regular rifle season. But, its probably not unreasonable to allow hunters who need them to use a long eye Relief Scope on their side-lock rifles to hunt in a primitive firearms hunting season. I certainly dont' think most traditional shooters would begrudge a man from using a scope site when his vision is going because of age related problems, such as cateracts. Surgery will ultimately take care of that problem, but doctors won't authorize the surgery until the vision has gotten bad enough by their standards. In the meanwhile, the guy needs the help of a scope.

 

[Greenmtnboy]

Paul I see your point, If thats going to be the case than they need to create two muzzleloader seasons.
One that is truly primitive exposed hammer or flint lock and patched round ball and a season for all those blind,inline shooting, scope using folk
:hatsoff:

 

[paulvallandigham]

I'd rather thay require black powder muzzle loading shooters shoot black powder, and not substitutes, Sidelocks, or underhammers, NOT in-lines, and make the inline people shooting modern pistol bullets while littering the landscape with plastic sabots use their guns in the regular rifle season. I think we can tolerate a shooter using a scope sight to see his target in the traditional season, provided he uses it on a sidelock or underhammer traditional gun, shooting black powder. If they want to even the playing field, then require shooters who want to use a scope to have a letter from their optomitrist attesting that the shooter has a vision disability and needs to be able to use a scope sight. That is the procedure that is now done here in Illinois before an archer can hunt with a crossbow, where a phsician's letter is required attesting that the shooter cannot use an ordinary bow, because of some physical limitation affecting his arms and shoulder.

The State is interested in culling the deer herd, and making hunting available to a wide range of interested parties. Secondarily are the rules it uses to make the opportunity to take an animal equal among the same class of hunters. Archers are not asked to compete with rifle men, or high powered pistols. Shotgun shooters shooting slugs and muzzle loading traditional hunters shoot in the same season, but there is an extra season for both traditional muzzle loading, usually non-antlered only, and an additional season for pistol shooters, only in a few counties, again non-antler only. The number of permits issued for these limited hunts is set based on the need to cull additional animals from the herds in these counties. Hunting is a management tool, and the Departments in charge should not engage in unnecessary or unjustified discrimination. Remember, whenever a State does discriminate, it has the burden of showing that there is a valid reason for doing so, based on the core objectives of the legislation. Regulating the deer population should not justify a regulation that says someone who needs to use a scope to hunt because of deteriorating vision cannot hunt. There is no good reason to impose such a blanket restriction against this class of hunters( ie. vision handicapped hunters, who, with the aid of a telescopic sight on their traditional rifles can still safely shoot and hunt.)

 

[shortjack]

I agree with you 100%. I've been sending letters to the Iowa DNR for the last 5 years saying traditional and in-line muzzleloaders should be seperated into 2 different seasons. I understand that a person might have eye problems so that he needs to use a scope because he or she is handicapped, but then again since I use a traditional muzzleloader with iron sights and patched roundball am I not handicapped compared to in-line hunters who use gobs of powder with a ballistically better bullet and a 3-9 scope, more down range power and less bullet drop. I would like to here any arguments for or against what I'm saying.

 

[flashpanner]

Maybe not make another category for type of gun/ignition system. Maybe leave it as is and let the in-line crowd shoot with the std hi-power group. They already are trying to achieve the same potential as the hi-power group anyway. We could then have the original group called "Traditional" as we are familiar with already.

 

[paulvallandigham]

I tend to think like Flashanner, and would leave just the two seasons, and NOT create another season for the in-line crowd. Since they are trying to cheat, and have modern gun performance in a single shot gun, let them shoot in regular modern gun season with the folks they imitate. Leave traditional to be what it originally was meant to be, save, perhaps, letting people with eye problems qualify to use a scope sight on their guns. I also don't have any problem with state run hunts for the wheel chair bound hunters, using fixed stands, and helpers to get them there. There is no reason for them not to use an open sighted, sidelock ML rifle from a chair.

We should remember that the hunting accidents in Colorado dropped substantially with the advent of mandatory Hunter Safety Education, required wearing of blaze orange, and scope sights on almost all hunting rifles. Shooters were much less likely to misidentify game, or mistake a human for a deer looking through a scope than over open sights. Blaze orange helps, no doubt, but you might be surprised how little it helps when you are standing or sitting absolute still in the woods. Movement is key for the human eye to recognize even blaze orange at a distance.

 

[Old Charlie]

Let’s just get rid of black powder seasons altogether. The inlines will be dead in a week.
Old Charlie

 

[Greenmtnboy]

Hay guys earlier on this thred I asked who Toby Bridges was and if he had allterior motives( money making reasons) for this suite.
I live in Gunnison CO where there is one of the main DOW offices, and was planning on writing a letter to our two local papers.
Before I do I wanted to know about Toby because I have heard some negtive things about his past.
:hatsoff:

 

[paulvallandigham]

Mr. Bridges is a gun writer, who writes for The Muzzleloader Magazine. He also has authored several books. He has most recently been identified with In-line guns, and has promoted their use. He obviously is not going to get much support from a website that disallows any postings about in-lines, and prefers traditional ML rifles and shotguns.

 

[shortjack]

Here in Iowa there are two gun seasons Early shotgun and late shotgun no high powered rifles, thats only for the january bonus antlerless only season. And it is legal to use a muzzleloader in the shotgun seasons, but if you hunt early muzzleloader season you can't hunt the shotgun seasons. So in Iowa that brings it back a full circle to where we started, on whether in-lined scoped rifles shooting sabots should be classified as muzzle loaders the DNR had in mind when they opened an early muzzleloader season years ago. I doubt that anybody even remotely thought that somebody would take a muzzle loader and modify it to make it a longer shooting, scoped sighted, less troublesome in wet weather, when they opened an early muzzle loader season.From what I understand the reason they opened this particular season so people who used muzzle loaders had a better chance of bagging a deer because the weapon they used was by todays standards, a primitive weapon. But the law written is muzzle loader season, not primitive weapon season. I know there is no way they are going to change the that law to primitive only because us traditionalists are way outnumbered and Knight rifle and all these sporting goods dealers make a lot of money off of in-line muzzle loaders. With that kind of money being pumped into DNR fund from taxes from these sales and Knight Rifles being manufactured in Iowa it isn't realistic to think that they would allow writing of the hunting season to be changed to primitive only. The only solution I could come up with that might have a slim chance of being considered is 2 seperate seasons. But to be honest I don't think there are enough of us traditionalist muzzle loaders left to get it changed, but I am going to keep on sending letters in every year regardless.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Now you see the politics of it. You have a major manufacturer of in-lines in the state, making jobs, paying taxes, etc. The new things have also appealed to a group of hunters who were never interested in traditional BP guns, too. That means more revenue from sale of hunting licenses and permits. Since the State's interest is keeping the deer population in check with available habitat, it needs to have those hunters buying those licenses, and permits to keep the money coming in to run the dept., and needs them to cull the deer herd. The DNR could care less what form the guns take in those special seasons, so long as they don't see a rise in people being shot, or damage to property claims rising because bullets are flying too far. Frankly, the shooting and hunting population is getting older, and young people are not taking up the sport. Anything that will get hunters to buy the permits and get into the field works for the politicians. Anything that MIGHT bring new shooters out into the woods helps to counteract the decline in hunter numbers.

 

Let’s just get rid of black powder seasons altogether. The inlines will be dead in a week.

:haha: Good Point.

Why do we need a special muzzleloading season? What was the original intent of the season anyway? Is it too crowded in the regular season to use a traditional muzzleloader?

 

[paulvallandigham]

Three Reasons were given for the additional seasons: 1. Money- the State gets to sell many more permits; 2. it gives traditional hunters a season where they don't have to compete with modern gun shooters, and not as many shooters in the woods; 3. It allows the state to encourage hunters to hunt counties where the number of deer taken in the regular season does not meet the desired quota for those counties, as a management function.

 

[Old Charlie]

I hunt with my muzzleloaders all year anyway. I don't eaven own a center fire rifle any more.
Old Charlie

 

[shortjack]

I'm not sure how or why they started the special muzzle loader season in Iowa, it's been going on for at least 20 years that I know of.Now a company called Bad Bull Muzzleloaders came out with a new muzzleloader, it uses smokeless powder like the Savage. It doesn't say what caliber it is but it claims you can shoot a 300-grain bullet at a muzzle velocity of 2900 fps. and a 200-grain sabot at 3150 fps. At a 225 yard zero the 300-grain bullet would be 3 inches high at 100 yards, 1.5 inches high at 200 yards and 8 inches low at 300 yards. And it is just under 2000 ft/lbs of energy at 300 yards, this data was taken out of this months Iowa Game and Fish magazine. The in-liners say that us traditionalists are playing into the hands of the anti-gunners when we complain about the use of in-lines and scopes.IMHO with this kind of technology of the rifle I just described with the high tech, high power in-line scoped capabilities it's them not us who are playing into the hands of the anti's.When Knight Rifle and these other in-line makers start seeing more and more of these smokeless in-lines being used they are going to have to re-tool and make their own smokeless muzzleloaders and you know they will try to push the velocity even higher to the point that modern muzzleloading rifles are going to be more like high powered rifles than muzzle loaders, hell the ballistics of this rifle is better than my 45-70.After seeing this gun advertised, as far as I'm concerned the in-liners are the ones cutting their own throuts not us traditionalists.