Future of the Limited Firearms Deer Zone

[Scandiacus]

As I sit here waiting for the "muzzleloader" season, and the late antlerless season to start in southern Michigan, I've been pondering hunting regulations. Indiana previously only allowed straight-walled rifle cartridges for deer hunting, but just recently they started allowing bottlenecked cartridges on private land. I haven't seen MUCC or anyone else pushing for Michigan to follow suit in the Limited Firearms Deer Zone, but I think they ought to. I see no good reason to continue the non-sensical restriction on rifles for deer hunting; the equipment regulations should be consistent throughout the state.

Are there any groups actively pushing to make that happen?

Does anyone with more knowledge of the rule-making process have any notion of whether the powers-that-be (NRC? DNR? Other?) would even consider it?

Edit- I re-found a thread from last year (which I had apparently commented on, but since forgotten about) about how MUCC had a proposed resolution for this just last year, but it did not pass. With friends like these.... :P

[Scoop]

I see no good reason to continue the non-sensical restriction on rifles for deer hunting

"Safety", of course.

[Moleman-]

I had hoped that the regulations would eventually be slowly opened up when it became apparent that using rifles didn't cause an increase in damage to property or loss of life. I would be for dropping the "limited" from zone #3. If they want to take baby steps, then perhaps drop the case length next. Not much difference with some of the newer shorter high pressure rounds and their older lower pressure but longer counterparts.

[balrog006]

I had hoped that the regulations would eventually be slowly opened up when it became apparent that using rifles didn't cause an increase in damage to property or loss of life. I would be for dropping the "limited" from zone #3. If they want to take baby steps, then perhaps drop the case length next. Not much difference with some of the newer shorter high pressure rounds and their older lower pressure but longer counterparts.

Agreed-as well as amending the name of the Zone 3 “Muzzleloader” season to just another deer season, with “Muzzleloading” being reserved for Zone 1 and 2. This of course creates issues with geography vs equipment and could have people run afoul of-wouldn’t it be best to either just leave them all as muzzleloader or change them all out to all legal weapons and make it easy and simply for people to understand and follow without being law abiding criminals

[RMC]

I would love to be able to used my Remington Model 7, 7mm-08 on my own land.
Then sell my shotguns and muzzleloader.

[Leader]

It may just happen, I gave away my trusty .30-.30 meat gun along with the scoped 20Ga. shotgun.

I don't go north anymore & Grandsons need guns.

[GregAK4]

I’m currently rotating between my Knight Mountaineer 45 caliber fast twist and my Ruger go wild American 350 legend. I think they should throw it open as well and as soon as they do I’ll be switching to my 243

[RMC]

I also gave away my Winchester 30-30 to my SIL. I have had it 51 years, but not shot it in over 40.

[michiganpi]

When they divided the state and restricted Zone 3 to shotguns only, the best you could get was a rifled Brenneke slug for your your smooth barrel shotgun. A 50-75 yard accurate, with a 100 yard maximum safe kill range. Guys were still using buckshot and thought it was a good choice. Hunting from an elevated platform was not allowed.

Soon after, I think it was Browning that made a bolt action slug shotgun with the first rifled barrel. Finally a long distance slug gun, On his weekly show Ted Nugent called it his "sniper shotgun" accurate to distances not possible with a smooth bore slug (even if the shotgun barrel had rifle sights or its receiver was drilled and tapped so you could mount a scope). Soon rifled barrels were the normal southern zone gun, and later cantilever scope mounts were added to these rifled barrels making it easy to mount a scope without altering the receiver. Now we have the straight walled cartridges with a 200-300+ yard range legal in Zone 3.

The original restriction of limiting short distance firearms for safety reasons in Zone 3 is no longer a valid argument (in my opinion) and common sense choice of the weapon you choose to use should be allowed. If the person only owns an acre or two and is in a subdivision, a rifle is obviously not a safe choice. If I own acreage and want to use a .243, 30-30 or 30-06 it should be allowed.

I think Texas has a 5 or 10 acre minimum restriction on discharging a rifle for target practice or using a rifle for hunting.

[Scandiacus]

That would be an improvement, but I think caliber restrictions based on parcel size alone aren't a good idea, as they leave out the bigger picture. For example, I do some of my hunting on a 16 acre parcel between two subdivisions to the east and west, but my blind and stands on that parcel are set up with zones of fire exclusively to the south for safety. It's literally miles to the nearest house to the south, and it would be safe to use bottle necked cartridges when hunting from those stands/blind.

It's the same problem with the 150 yard safety zone, really. You could be hunting 300 yards away from a house, facing it and potentially shooting towards it, which could be very dangerous even with some slug setups, but it would be 100% legal. But don't you dare set up a stand 100 yards from your neighbors house and facing away from it, or it's a misdemeanor if you don't have their permission!

I understand why regulators are reluctant to do it, but I would favor eliminating more regulations and just charging people with negligence when they actually ACT negligently. But at a bare minimum, cartridge (and safety zone) rules should take more than just parcel size and distance into account.