Some states move to protect hunting; critics say moves are solutions in search of a problem

Fear that animal-rights groups might persuade the Democratic-controlled Congress would move to ban hunting has lead several states to try and include "right to hunt and fish" clauses in their constitutions. "This year, residents of Tennessee, Arkansas, and South Carolina will vote on right-to-hunt initiatives, and North Carolina and other states may yet add hunting-related constitutional amendments to their ballots," Suzi Parker reports for The Christian Science Monitor. "It's better to be safe on the front end than wait and deal with the problem when it's too late," Steve Faris, an Arkansas Democratic legislator who sponsored a ballot measure to make hunting a constitutional right, told Parker.

Ten states include the right to hunt in their constitutions, with Vermont first adding the protection when it was created as an independent entity in 1777, and Oklahoma most recently adding it in 2008. "It goes to the liberal nature of our nation's government and California's government. We are going to lose all our gun rights," South Carolina Republican Assemblyman Bill Berryhill, told Parker. "They do it incrementally. We should lock in the right to hunt for hunters and outdoorsmen and ensure it won't be taken away."

While the National Rifle Association and other pro-gun groups see a hunting ban as a real risk, critics of such measures call them a "manufactured 'wedge' issue – like gay marriage and so-called partial-birth abortion – to bring out voters for conservative candidates in swing states," Parker writes. Michael Markarian of the Humane Society of the United States told Parker, "We haven't opposed these measures. We don't really view them as having much of an impact. These proposals are a solution in search of a problem. Every state allows hunting."

The NRA says hunting restrictions are already underway, pointing to Michigan, which recently banned the the shooting of mourning doves. "There's an urbanization of life," Stephen Halbrook, a Virginia lawyer and author of the book The Founders' Second Amendment, told Parker. "People think meat comes from the grocery. Rural values are going by the wayside." (Read more)