no rifle states

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birdshot8's

birdshot8's

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i was reading the Thompson Contender post, in it was mentioned by the OP his state would not allow rifle but would allow a pistol with a 15 inch barrel shooting a rifle round. I am curious as what is the justification for not allowing rifles.
 
No, it doesn't have to make sense, but it would be nice to know that rationale behind it - crazy as it may be.
 
Well from the way I understand it ( I live in one of the retarded states) It has to do with Population. They seem to think that bullets from a rifle are much to powerful and will blow through a deer and keep flying till it hits an occupied house 3 miles down the road. Now granted that scenario could very well happen with conditions perfectly suited for it to happen, such as, no trees, full metal jacket armor piercing ammo, animal hit was uphill and hit no bone, person shooting was an idiot named Bubba, (yes I am being a bit sarcastic) Fact is it is just another form of gun control and the public allowing it to happen through ignorance and stupidity. (Not being sarcastic now)
 
can someone with more knowledge than I post a list of said states? It would be much more easier that way than having to search through fifty (well 49 excluding my own) states worth of legal codes.
 
I worked on a job and 1 of the guys was from a state or at least county that didn't allow rifles for deer hunting. He said it was because of the hills. Some years back a lady got killed by a bullet. Someone fired from down hill to up hill and the bullet went over the top and resulted on a tragedy. That may not be the real reason, but was his explanation.

I think in 1 or 2 WMA's here rifles are not allowed on deer.

There is a bolt action shotgun (slugs) that is supposed to be very accurate.
http://www.tarhunt.com/tarhunt/
 
Court, rifles are not allowed for deer in most of Iowa.

However, I am not aware of any reg that prohibits rifles for other game in the counties that do not allow it for deer - so, AFAIK, you can use a 22-250 or a .338 Win Mag to shoot coyotes if you want to. I'll look at the regs later to double check.
 
that has always confused me a bit here in SE iowa i can hunt deer with my 30-30 in Jan. two counties north i can use a .416 for coyotes, but not my 30-30 for deer.

makes no sense to me
 
Try this on for size!!

Here in the stupid state of Ohio we have some dandy game laws. Examples-It is illegal to hunt deer with a shotgun unless it is plugged to hold no more than 3 shells. However you can deer hunt with a pistol and stuff that puppy clear full! Here you can deer hunt with a .357 revolver. You CANNOT hunt deer with a .357 lever action carbine! Never mind that they both fire identical ammo!!!!!!!!! You can hunt small game and varmints with anything you can carry. Not deer!!!!!!!!! This is but a few of the reasons I have quit deer hunting altogether!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:cuss::banghead::banghead::cuss::fire:
P.S.-I called the ODNR "helpline" 3 times to inquire if a 45ACP pistol would be legal to deer hunt with. GUESS WHAT? I got 3 different answers!!! Guess you really can't fix stupid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
i had wondered if there had been a study made which found pistol and shotguns safer for deer hunting. Or it was a carry over of times when deer were very scarce. to me it seems to be a feel good law.
 
1/3 of Michigan is no rifle for deer. (bottom 1/2 of the lower peninsula)
Illinois and Ohio are both no rifle for deer.

As stated above though, you can hunt varmints with a .50BMG in any of those states!

As i understand(?) it, the no rifle zones/states are based on population & terrain, IE flat.
 
Yes to can hunt deer in Ohio with a .45acp Glockgod.
Requirements are caliber .357 or larger. Minimum barrel length 5". And must be a Straight Walled cartridge.
Stupid it is, but thats the law....
I may take out my T/C Encore with a fifteen inch .45-70 this year.:what:
 
Michigan is similar. In the shotgun only zone you can use any centerfire rifle you please to shoot varmints, but not deer. You can use a .44 magnum handgun, but not a rifle that shoots the same .44 magnum rounds. There is no logic to it.
 
Rifles are allowed in southern Iowa during certain seasons, but not northern Iowa. The justification is that southern Iowa has many more hills than the northern part of the state (flat as a pancake except for the northeastern corner and a narrow strip of hills in the western part), has more stands of trees, and tends to be more sparsely populated. From what I understand, policy makers were worried about bullets missing targets and traveling a long ways.

Coyote hunting would be impossible with a handgun and difficult with a shotgun. I would suspect that the reason why rifles are allowed for coyotes is that for all practical purposes, that's the only way and coyote hunting is not nearly as popular as deer hunting. The likelihood of having problems is less.

You don't have to agree with it (I don't), but that is the nanny state that is Iowa.
 
I also hate what being a shotgun only state does to the availability of used rifles at reasonable prices.
 
The justification is that southern Iowa has many more hills...
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Can you post a link? I've heard that speculated (and I'm partial to believe it as well) but I have never seen an "official" rationale. So, is that from the DNR?
 
Can you post a link? I've heard that speculated (and I'm partial to believe it as well) but I have never seen an "official" rationale. So, is that from the DNR?
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Never seen it in writing either. The closest thing that I can find to an official justification from the DNR is this:

"There are a couple things going on with our hunters that seem to keep us from getting ahead of the herd in (southern Iowa)," he said. "South central Iowa doesn't have any large cities, so we just don't have lots of hunters down there to take advantage of all the deer. So we've had to add seasons, add things like the bonus antlerless high-powered rifle season in January to get people to travel and hunt in those areas.
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Whole article is available at: http://www.iowagameandfish.com/hunting/whitetail-deer-hunting/IA_0707_01/index.html

Also, the quotas are a lot higher in southern Iowa than the northern part which would indicate to me that the deer populations are higher. http://www.iowadnr.gov/law/files/huntingregs.pdf
 
Thanks Klineia. There are a lot of deer up in the NE corner of the state too - I wish they would let rifles be used up there too.
 
Exactly why rifles aren't allowed during deer gun season in Ohio, I don't know. If any of you wish to change things, you should write to your State game department. My theorey of why rifles aren't allowed in some states is:

1. The fact is rifle bullets will go a lot further than a shotgun slug and can still do considerable damage to a human being at long range. It is also a fact that straight walled cartridges don't generate the velocities bottle necked cartridges do. It's a lot simpler to make one rule that applies to the whole state than single out flat areas for one set of rules and mountainous areas for another set. There are a LOT of deer hunters that practice with a few shots out of their guns once a year and they're out there in droves on the opening day of gun season so I think shotguns are safer. One year hunting on my farm, I saw 4 or 5 other hunters within 400 yards of me.

2. Back in the 1970s the deer herd, I've heard (pun intended), was so small in Ohio that it was big news when one was killed on the road. That's a lot different now but the wheels of bureaucracy move slowly in changing a law once conditions that prompted the law have changed.

The stupidest cartridge laws I ever saw came from the State of Delaware. The contradictions and obvious lack of firearms knowledge is laughable if you don't live there.
 
1. The fact is rifle bullets will go a lot further than a shotgun slug and can still do considerable damage to a human being at long range. It is also a fact that straight walled cartridges don't generate the velocities bottle necked cartridges do. It's a lot simpler to make one rule that applies to the whole state than single out flat areas for one set of rules and mountainous areas for another set. There are a LOT of deer hunters that practice with a few shots out of their guns once a year and they're out there in droves on the opening day of gun season so I think shotguns are safer. One year hunting on my farm, I saw 4 or 5 other hunters within 400 yards of me.
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I was at the range last year on opening day of deer season last year and a guy showed up to sight his muzzle loader because he had been hunting, missed a deer, and decided that he really did need to sight the thing in.
 
I was at the range last year on opening day of deer season last year and a guy showed up to sight his muzzle loader because he had been hunting, missed a deer, and decided that he really did need to sight the thing in.
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Sight the thing in? No kidding!

There really are people out there who think that:

1. The factory sights in the guns for them.

2. If you sight in with one load you're good for all.

3. That all you need to do is bore sight and then you're good to go.

4. That you only need to sight in a gun once and then you're good until the gun wears out.

5. That if someone is hit in the hand with a 223 bullet, it will take their whole arm off.

6. That a 25/06 bullet goes at 4,200 fps.

7. That if land doesn't have no tresspassing signs it's OK to hunt there.

Though I think some of this is amusing, it's also really kind of sad since those involved in many cases probably don't really want to be ignorant but just haven't had the opportunity for good training.
 
NY has opened a few southern counties to rifles now but there are areas that are still shotgun only. But the handgun regs state "any centerfire pistol or revolver, barrel length under 16 inches". So hot handguns with bottleneck cartridges are legal but not a 30-30 rifle.
 
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