To the editor:
I am sorry, but the more and more I read and study the below ballot initiative, the more I am inclined to vote “No.” I see this ballot question as a “red herring.”
Why do we, the people, “need to embed authority in our state constitution consolidating and giving our General Assembly” basically unrestricted powers to limit our rights to lawfully exercise both our natural and inherent constitutional rights to hunt and harvest game and fish to feed ourselves and otherwise bear and use arms to protect ourselves?
I see this ballot initiative as just another end run around the limitations of the powers of the General Assembly set forth in the state constitution. Like the recent property tax cap initiative, this proposed ballot initiative basically makes legal what was previously unconstitutional, that being unfair and unequal taxation. It allows that which is not permitted in the back door to be permitted in through the front door.
The current proposed ballot initiative, though it can be interpreted as providing for the preservation and conservation claimed by the endorsing writer, also provides for and empowers the General Assembly to do the direct opposite and that is to limit, restrict and eliminate the rights currently provided for all in the name of preservation and conservation.
The ballot initiative also now provides a clear and much easier path for special interest groups, who would have as their agenda the elimination and imposition of further restriction on the use of guns, hunting and fishing.
I for one plan on voting “No” to this ballot question. I encourage all others to do likewise. Come on, people! Do you honestly think our legislators would vote for and promote a bill which would lessen and limit their powers over us, the governed?
John Priore
The Constitution Committee of Hancock County
