PA Bill Number: HB2311
Title: Establishing the School Mental Health Screening Grant and Development Program.
Description: Establishing the School Mental Health Screening Grant and Development Program. ...
Last Action: Laid on the table
Last Action Date: Sep 23, 2024
Gov. signs bill that will allow hunters to use semi-automatic weapons (PGC Opposition) :: 11/28/2016
Newly passed legislation that will allow hunters to use semi-automatic rifles and handguns won’t have any effect on what hunters can and can’t use during this year’s rifle deer season, which opens Monday.
Still, many hunters and gun dealers look forward to the changes in rules, which ends a ban on using semi-automatic rifles and handguns to hunt in Pennsylvania.
“There are so many wonderful semi-automatic rifles that we’ve been prohibited from using for anything other than competitive and recreational (shooting) that now we’ll be able to use,” said Rick Hamilton, 69, a hunter and employee at ARH Sport Shop in Buffalo Township.
Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, signed a bill Monday that expands the weapons allowed for hunting to include semi-automatic weapons. The changes to the law won’t affect what kinds of guns people can own, buy or sell in Pennsylvania.
“I think it’s a good thing,” said Justin Chadwick, 35, who owns Justin’s Gun Shop on East Maiden Street in Washington. “I feel like we’re behind the times when we’re the 49th state picking this up.”
Currently, semi-automatic shotguns may be used to hunt deer in five counties – only one of which, Allegheny, is in Western Pennsylvania – and to hunt waterfowl and small game statewide.
Seth Myers, 19, of Houston, was in Chadwick’s store Friday with brother-in-law Patrick Burgess, 34, who was buying an AR-15. Myers said he’s hunted coyotes a few times – “I’m starting to get into it now” – and would use a semi-automatic weapon to hunt them if allowed.
The bill leaves it up to the Pennsylvania Game Commission to develop regulations on the use of semiautomatic weapons for hunting.
The agency said in a statement it will not complete the rules before April.
Matt Hough, executive director of the commission, told lawmakers last year he would like to see magazine capacity for semi-automatic hunting rifles used limited to five rounds.
Hough also said he wouldn’t allow semi-automatic weapons for hunting every species of game.
“One of the primary concerns we have heard is in regard to the use of semi-automatic rifles during the big game seasons,” said Hough, a Trinity High School graduate. “In any legislation, we would like to see the huntable species limited to coyotes, foxes and woodchucks, and to have the traditional deer, bear, turkey and elk seasons excluded from the authorized semi-automatic rifle usage regardless of the species.”
Chadwick said semi-automatic rifles allow for “quicker response for a follow-up shot” than their manual counterparts, and using them to hunt deer could cut down on cases where hunters lose the trail of a wounded deer, which is left to suffer.
“I’ve had mortally wounded deer run 200 yards,” Brent Allen, 39, of South Franklin Township, said during a discussion of the law Friday at Chadwick’s store.
Allen considers himself “more of a traditionalist” when it comes to deer hunting, but didn’t see a problem with others hunting the animal with semi-automatics. “I think it would be nice for varmint hunting,” he said, adding, “When you get two or three groundhogs in a field, you shoot one – buddy, you’d better get moving,” as the other two head for cover.
“I think it’ll just add to the hunt.”
