A bill in Massachusetts could drastically decrease land open for hunting.

House Bill 657, introduced by Representative Kathi-Anne Reinstein (D- Suffolk), would double the size of the state’s no hunting zones near occupied dwellings.

Currently, state law prohibits possessing a loaded firearm or hunting on someone else’s land within 500 feet of an occupied dwelling without the dwelling owner’s permission. This bill would arbitrarily double that distance to 1,000 feet.

If passed, the bill would force sportsmen to get permission to hunt from adjacent land owners even on many of the lands they currently hunt. In effect the bill could shut down vast tracks of land that are currently open to hunting.

“This bill could prohibit sportsmen from hunting on lands they have enjoyed for years simply because the person living next door doesn’t like hunting,” said Jeremy Rine, U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance associate director of state services. “The current 500 foot no hunting restriction is already excessive, there is no justifiable reason for further limiting the amount of private land available to hunters.”

Take Action! Massachusetts sportsmen should contact their state representative ask them to oppose HB 657. Tell them there is no justification for limiting hunting land access and for infringing on private property rights. To find your state representative’s contact information, please visit U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance (http://www.ussportsmen.org/LAC).

I read in MassWildlife booklet that the 500' exclusion zone already closes off some ridiculously huge amount of land. With all the individual town by-laws and if this passed, it would effectively prevent hunting almost everywhere east of Worcester.

I can't find the hunter exclusion map on the MassWildlife website, but if you have the magazine (found at the town hall and most sportsman's stores), there's a pretty interesting, yet depressing, article in there about how little area there actually is to hunt and the rate that the area is decreasing.

This is gonna put an even larger number of deer and turkeys running onto rt. 95 and 495 for me to dodge.

The current 500' from a dwelling law is equal to 18 acres!

Here is where the letters need to go...
Minority Leader Bradley H. Jones, Jr
Republican, North Reading
Bradley.Jones@mahouse.gov

Speaker of the House Robert A. DeLeo
Democrat, Winthrop
Robert.DeLeo@mahouse.gov

Minority Leader Bruce E. Tarr
Republican, Gloucester
Bruce.Tarr@masenate.gov

President of the Senate Therese Murray
Democrat, Plymouth
Therese.Murray@masenate.gov

Just a thinly veiled first step towards outlawing ALL hunting in the state. I live in an area that you'd definitely call rural. Passage of this bill would eliminate half of the areas I hunt.

Here's the next step to getting this squashed. This is going to the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security (Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security (http://www.malegislature.gov/Committees/Joint/J22)), where the bill can be stopped dead. Here are some links to learn more about the process and where we stand. We are at step 2:

http://www.famm.org/Repository/Files/Ma ... rocess.pdf

Bill H00657 (http://www.malegislature.gov/Bills/187/House/H00657)

Here is a list of all the emails for the committee members:

James.Timilty@masenate.gov
Michael.Moore@masenate.gov
Harold.Naughton@mahouse.gov
Michael.Brady@mahouse.gov
Katherine.Clark@masenate.gov
Mark.Montigny@masenate.gov
James.Welch@masenate.gov
Richard.Ross@masenate.gov
Bruce.Ayers@mahouse.gov
David.Torrisi@mahouse.gov
Cleon.Turner@mahouse.gov
Linda.DeanCampbell@mahouse.gov
Brian.Ashe@mahouse.gov
James.Dwyer@mahouse.gov
Rhonda.Nyman@MAhouse.gov
david.vieira@mahouse.gov
nicholas.boldyga@mahouse.gov

If the bill passes, do you think they'll cease selling hunting licenses in this state, or will they continue to sell them without actually telling you that in order to use it you either have to own the land you want to hunt on, or hust so far west that you might as well save your money and pay to hunt in New York State?
The legislators will try and pass ANY bill that will make them look good RIGHT NOW, but as soon as the public gets wind of what transpires, these same legislators will claim that they were only acting in the best interest of "the public".

Yeah, right.

This smells like someone is looking for a public land-grab, and can't do it unless the hunting public is no longer part of the eqaution.

It's either that or someone might be pushing a "pet project" through that NEEDS land.

Just another nail in the sportsman's coffin in this bass-ackwards state!

Enough is enough this is BS!! I dont care how close they make it im not going to give up some of my hunting areas bc some Ahole want to make a new law.

reducing hunting to the limitation range of a shotgun was already
the solution supposedly ......so this is double dippin. :doh:

There's no rifle hunting in most of the state, so I'm curious what they are "allegedly" (by their open definition) trying to accomplish.

You can hunt coyotes with a rifle 1/2 before sunrise to a 1/2 after sundown.

Please write some letter guys!:uhuh: