History teaches us that firearm ownership and access to hunting land are separate concepts, but solidly intertwined. The right to own firearms and access to hunting land went hand in hand throughout most of English history and that of the early U.S. After the American Revolution these two concepts separated in this country.
Equitable access to hunting land for personal use is mainstay for one of the world’s longest standing and most effective approaches to wildlife conservation. This approach through policies, laws, and institutions is recognized today as the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. Equitable access to hunting land means the ability of a person who does not own land, to access land to hunt without regard to status in life or the amount of money you have–or don’t have!
In the colonies, hunting and gun ownership were universal rights, not a matter of special privilege. These tendencies were amplified by the American Revolution in which the citizen soldier using his own gun successfully fought the best army on earth.
According to Carol Frampton, chief of legal services for the National Wild Turkey Federation, in 1789 the first Congress proposed what became our Bill of Rights. Several states were demanding a Bill of Rights as a condition of ratifying the original constitution. The Bill of Rights contained the Second Amendment which guaranteed a right to keep and bear arms. The stage for whether the Second Amendment allowed the states to prohibit firearm ownership was set by District of Columbia v. Heller, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 26, 2008. Heller was a D.C. security guard who could carry his handgun while on the job protecting others but could not keep one in his home to protect his family. He applied to register a handgun, but D.C refused. He filed suit seeking, on Second Amendment grounds, to enjoin D.C. from enforcing the ban on handgun registration and keeping a handgun in your home. The Heller case established that the Second Amendment was an individual right and D.C. had to accept the registration of the firearm and could not prohibit Heller from having a handgun in his home. The question remained, however, if individual states must obey the Second Amendment or can a state prohibit firearm ownership?
Then, in 2010 the U.S. Supreme Court addressed this very issue. In National Rifle Association v. City of Chicago, 567 F.3d 856 and McDonald v. Chicago, 2009 WL 1631802, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment–like most other Bill of Rights guarantees–applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. In this critically important case, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment applied to all Americans, not just the residents in the District of Columbia. The Court said the “Second Amendment protects a personal right to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes, most notably for self-defense within the home.”
Thankfully, equal rights to hunt in this country have been less controversial than gun control.
James L. Cummins is executive director of Wildlife Mississippi, a non-profit, conservation organization founded to conserve, restore, and enhance fish, wildlife, and plant resources throughout Mississippi. Their web site is www.wildlifemiss.org.
