As I continue poking around the subject of legal challenges to state statutes granting handgun carriers some degree of right to enter private property against the wishes of the landowner, an obvious analogy is statutes that presume or require that non-fenced, undeveloped private land be open for hunting, or be posted in some explicit manner to the contrary. There's a good student note reviewing the history of the British common law, how it quickly changed in colonial America, and how the effects of that change are reflected in such hunting/posting laws:
http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dlj/articles/dlj54p549.htm The author advocates tipping the balance of rights back toward the property owners (although, reading between the lines, I think this is more due to the author's bias against hunting than a deep respect for property rights). Nevertheless, it's an interesting history, and interesting to see the wide variety of ways that states approach the balance of rights question on this point. For those concerned about the viability of hunting long-term in the US, the article is worth reading. The "fixes" the author proposes would greatly increase the difficulty hunters would have in using private property. It's an area to watch. The author starts the article describing a failed challenge to North Dakota's statute, which argued that the presumption of land being open to hunting was an unconstitutional taking. The case was dismissed for lack of an actual controversy, so no ruling was made on that argument. I'll do a search, but if anybody knows offhand of any litigation by property owners over requirements that their land be presumed open to hunting (or over the posting requirements), I'd appreciate hearing about it. -- Bob Woolley St. Paul, MN [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Revenge is like serving cold cuts." -- Tony Soprano _______________________________________________ To post, send message to [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/firearmsregprof Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
