On March 28, the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) announced that hunters will be able to use modern sporting rifles to harvest small game and furbearers in the 2017-2018 hunting seasons. The decision comes after the Commissioners preliminarily approved a proposal in January that would have allowed semi-automatic rifles to be used in all seasons where manually operated rifles are permitted.
The PGC amended that measure and made no changes to the list of lawful firearms for hunting big game.
Pennsylvania is now the 50th state to allow modern sporting rifles for hunting purposes. The PGC Commissioners indicated that if support for hunting big game with semi-automatic firearms grows in the future they will consider additional regulatory changes.
Studies conducted at both the state and federal level have found that the number of hunters and trappers have been on a generally declining trend over the past several decades. To increase recruitment, retention, and reactivation (R3) of hunters and trappers, which initiative do you think would have the greatest impact?
