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On two separate occasions, our supervisors have rejected similar legislation by a two-three vote with only H.B. Wood and Dick Latham in support of the hupter control ordinances. The majority has accepted the argument that sheriff’s deputies and game wardens may use the law to harass law abiding hunters as well as the gun toting terrorists. We feel that chance of unwarranted harassment is a small price to pay for the protection the ordinances would afford local residents. A little harassment will keep the slob hunters out of Rappahannock. Obviously, it’s working to drive them out of other counties.
Common sense tells us that an overworked game warden or deputy is not going to waste time stopping trucks or cars that are moving at a reasonable rate of speed, too fast to suspect that the drivers are engaged in illegal road hunting. But with a hunter control ordinance on the books, law enforcement officials will stop and check those that creep along at a few miles per hour with guns and rifles visible and at the ready. Once the would-be road hunters are stopped a few times and ticketed for carrying a loaded rifle or shotgun in a motor vehicle or on public right-of-way without written permission to hunt from roadsite k.idowners, the terrorists will give up their illegal games in Rappahannock.
Reportedly, a county delegation will petition the Virginia .Game Commission to close the hunting season here at the same time the season closes on the other side of the Blue Ridge. But game wardens tell us that the odds of the commissioners complying with that request because Rappahannock has a problem with slob hunters are slim. Game seasons are set for animal control, not people control. Castleton area residents and other frightened landowners are now carrying loaded guns themselves, not to hunt but to protect themselves from those terrorists who persist in illegal hunting. It’s too late to do anything about the 1981-82 season, too late to fight slob hunters with anything besides public vigilance and cooporation in reporting the offenders if they are caught in the act of shooting from the road and can be identified. But before the season opens next year, we must work to persuade at least one additional member of the board of supervisors that Rappahannock’s citizens need and deserve the protection of hunter control laws. We must do it before a terrorist’s bullet hits a twolegged target.
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