Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 1 · column 1 of 6 · from the scan, no model involved
By DAPHNE HUTCHINSON
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
Hunting season may have ended in Rappahannock but the county’s problem with hunting abuses has not.
At Monday’s board meeting, Supervisor Nelson Lane asked that attention be given to what he termed “a serious, severe problem in my district” — the problem posed by socalled “slob hunters” who trespass on posted property, shoot from roadways and otherwise intimidate landowners.
Supervisor Lane stressed that he is not against hunting. “I’m not looking to damage good hunting. I just want to see this incredible abuse stopped. It’s a form of terrorism,” he maintained, reporting that “slob hunters” have fired at houses and run people off the road in his district. “But I don’t want to see (controls) get so restrictive that they interfere with the right to bear arms.”
Mr. Lane told his fellow board members that he had appealed last year to the Virginia Commission of Game and Inland Fisheries for help in combatting slob hunters, only to be reminded by the commissioners that the county has not adopted local ordinances designed to help control abuses. Specifically, the commissioners pointed to enabling legislation that allows a county to prohibit the carrying of a loaded rifle or shotgun in a motor vehicle on a public right-of-way and the carrying of a loaded firearm on a right-of-way without written permission to hunt from landowners on both sides.
(Both have been considered by the supervisors and voted down by the majority on two earlier occasions. )
Commonwealth’s Attorney Peter Luke presented the board members with new copies at Monday’s meeting, noting that he was not advocating adoption but rather offering possibilities. “Hunting from the road is illegal,” he acknowledged. “But the problem is what constitutes hunting. How do you prove hunting?”
Supervisor Charles Estes announced his opposition to the prohibition against carrying a loaded firearm without written permission to hunt from landowners on both sides of the road. A person could be carrying a firearm without any intention to hunt, he maintained.
Cutting Rappahannock’s deer hunting season to correspond to the shorter season west of the Blue Ridge has been suggested as a means to combat hunting abuses, Mr. Lane noted. “But I don’t want to
94.8%