Feb 27, 2019 2 min read

A lot of physical outdoor activities have been on a steady decline with the onslaught of computers and its spinoff of electronic toys. Kids riding bikes, backlot baseball games, fishing at the local creek and pickup basketball games are all on the endangered species list.

The sport of hunting is not, surprisingly, on the decline among the younger crowd, as well. So it is not surprising that it has been suggested that allowing hunting on Sunday would give the sport a boost. Do you think that Junior is going to put down the video game and pick up the deer rifle, if he could just hunt on Sunday? Is that really going to help things … and who is REALLY going to benefit from this change?

Is there a concern that there needs to be fewer “sick days” and school skips that Sunday hunting, especially during deer season, would remedy? How about the deer camp tradition? Is that going to attract more hunters to the woods if they could also include Sunday as a hunting day instead of a travel, settle-in day? Maybe.

What about the effect on all the non-hunting activities like church, football game parties and other family-oriented activities that are best reserved for Sunday? What is the logic here? Answer: It is the same logic that has given us the legalization of marijuana and the explosion of casinos … the almighty dollar. Legislators don”t really care if the sport of hunting survives … they only care about the tax dollars they are going to glean if restaurants are a little busier, more licenses are sold and there is an increase of hunting supplies rolling out of the sporting goods store. Never mind about the inconvenience to landowners or the interruption of our Sunday day of rest. If it involves more money in the tax till, Sunday hunting is a given.

Sally Brown-Pawlosky

Hickory