RICHMOND – A Senate committee has approved compromise legislation to allow Virginians to hunt on Sundays.
The Senate Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources Committee voted 11-4 to lift the state’s ban on Sunday hunting. The bill recommended by the panel would permit hunting on Sundays only on private land in Virginia.
The measure now goes to the full Senate for consideration.
“We’ve designated hunting and fishing as a constitutional freedom in Virginia,” said Sen. Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax, who wrote the “private lands” provision. “How you can restrict hunting one day of the week?”
The committee Thursday considered four Senate bills regarding Sunday hunting.
Three of them would have lifted the Sunday hunting ban entirely. They were SB 151 by Sen. Phillip Puckett, D-Tazewell; SB 464 by Sen. Ralph Northam, D-Norfolk; and SB 512 by Sen. Frank Wagner, R-Virginia Beach.
The other bill – SB 173 by Petersen – limited Sunday hunting to private lands with the property owner’s permission.
The panel folded all of the bills into SB 464 and then passed the measure with the “private lands” provision.
The seven Democrats on the committee voted for the bill. Four Republicans voted for the bill, and four voted against it.
“It is time of the Commonwealth of Virginia to make a decision that the government should not be telling us, as property owners, what we can do on our property, and when we can do it,” Northam said.
The Senate has scheduled a vote on SB 464 during the coming week.
Existing state law prohibits hunting on Sundays, declaring it a “rest day for all species of wild bird and wild animal life, except raccoons, which may be hunted until 2:00 a.m. on Sunday mornings.”
Ten other states outlaw hunting on Sundays. They are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and West Virginia.
Four bills before the House of Delegates also would repeal or relax Virginia’s Sunday hunting ban:
• HB 921, by Del. L. Scott Lingamfelter, R-Woodbridge, would rescind the Sunday hunting ban entirely.
• HB 989, by Del. Will Morefield, R-North Tazewell, would allow hunting on Sundays between 2 p.m. and sunset.
• HB 369, by Del. Michael Webert, R-Marshall, would allow Sunday hunting only on private lands.
• HB 1002, by Del. David Ramadan, R-South Riding, would allow Sunday hunting only on private lands in Fairfax, Fauquier, Loudoun and Prince William counties.
All four measures have been referred to the House Committee on Agriculture, Chesapeake and Natural Resources.
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
why would bring in the church religion into this matter.do you think god would hang you on the cross if you hunted on sudays in virgina…it only make since to let hunters hunt on sudays it’s there rights, not yours…do you drink and sit in front of a tv. watching sports or reality tv. check your self
Yes! A very good piece of legislation. It should absolutely pass and should absolutely not be a partisan issue. End of story.
You may get drunk on Sunday during the game or ignore you child while you play on your computer on Sunday, you may even spend most of the day running from mall to store grabbing Sunday deals. You may even take your family out to a fancy restaurant, while everyone plays on their phones or Ipods during Sunday brunch. I will not be doing any of this. I will take my teen out for some quality father/son experience hunting for food on the table. We will thank God for the bounty we catch. My morning with nature is no worse than what society has created lately. I do not hunt as a sport, it provides a meal for my family. I fish on Sunday as well. Whether it is a Sunday in June or a Sunday in December, my lifestyle is not affecting you. If you claim society has given up on God, you may want to start somewhere else. Besides, do you honestly think the servants 2000 years ago did not go out early in the morning to hunt for a Sunday feast?
It would be nice if “public” land actually had some animals to hunt.
Please come and join the thousands that are supporting the grass roots effort to give Virginians the freedom and liberty to participate, on the 7th day, in an activity that is legal and safe the other 6 days.
http://www.facebook.com/groups/vasundayhunting4all/
You can also go here to an easy link to let your legislators know that you support the freedom to choose:
http://virginiasundayhunting.org/
The law change that we seek does not say “You MUST hunt on Sunday.”
I thought God took a rest on Sundays. Those conservatives want to tell everyone in the world what they can and can’t do with their lives. Now they don’t want us to rest on Sundays? AND GO HUNTING INSTEAD? This world is going to hell and a hand basket.
Actually…only 4 states (including Virginia) retain the 100% prohibition on Sunday hunting.
These are sales-tax dollars being lost to neighboring states.
So…you are a landowner and you don’t want hunting on your property—tell everyone you give permission to that they can’t hunt on Sundays at your place—no big deal! If the neighbors don’t like it, they can buy the place and put in whatever restrictions they want
Don’t like hearing guns…everyone can still target practice or shoot skeet on Sundays anyway…put in an archery-only provision.
Bottom line…seasons are good, bag limits are good…the biologists have to have the tools get the deer population in balance or deer will be declared a “nuisance species” (differing from a “game species”) and be permitted to be shot anytime. If the wildlife have to have a day…why not Wednesday?
This is a win-win for tax revenue, safer roads, less crop damage, individual landowners, foxhunters (who will now be able to lawfully continue hunting…as long as they buy their licenses), hospitals, and insurance companies.
More like bagged in trash bags and thrown all over my neighborhood. Sunday is the only day of peace we get.
That’s right! Because hunters don’t ever drive Mercedes!!!
Support hunters. The deer they bag may save the front of you Mercedes
It is 2012 and too many people understand basic science, so religion is dying a slow death. Time to clean these antiquated laws off the books. These aren’t Puritan times anymore.
Satisfy them gunnecks, Whatever happened to their religous sensibilities.
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