Maryland State Police announced additional deer hunting training for SWAT teams. JK. But not by much. “Frederick County’s farmers have embraced a suggestion from state troopers that helps them reduce their deer population, but any landowner can take advantage of the offer,” officer.com reports. The program links “a trooper who wants to hunt” with “a farmer who wants to have deer hunted on their farm.” Why cops? Bribery! JK. But not by much. Frederick County Farm Bureau President Charles Brault says the program’s for farmers worried about “letting inexperienced shooters or people you don’t know hunt [their] farm . . . The farmer benefits by reducing deer population on their land; the police officers enjoy a recreational activity and provide venison for their families, the farmer or the Hunters Feeding the Hungry Program, and the public gains by a reduction in the number of deer accidents.” So it’s win, win, win, lose (non-LEO deer hunters).
So do the troopers have to pay for the tags and hunting license?
In theory…
Tags, you are concerned about tags? If I lived in the area, I’d keep any large dogs inside. I bet they kill two dogs for every deer they take.
Of course, state troopers all have impeccable gun-handling skills.
Especially those who come from big cities and have zero gun handling experience before going to trooper academy and getting their requisite 40 hours of (mostly) handgun training.
Just more elitism from our government.
Agreed completely. I’m not confident that their skills will transfer in any meaningful way to the art of hunting. From swapping their service pistol for a scoped rifle, to the necessary post kill field dressing etc. However I’m sure some of the troopers have a hunting background.
For farmers leery of inexperienced jackwangs (whether public or LEO) hunting on their property, I would suggest contacting avid bowhunters. No real issue with ND or poor shots (or poor eyes) downing your cows, pets etc.
Come to think of it, somebody should really start a ‘match.com’ site for hunters with room in the freezer and farmers with white tailed rats ruining their crops.
Actually, I believe Frederick County is shotgun only. I;d be more worried about them ventilating my house after missing a shot through the trees.
Elitism, crony government, a means to extort cooperation from private citizens and undermine property rights!
A perfect example of Socialism In Action!
Most of the areas in Frederick County are not what I would call “big city.” This is one of the counties that is trying to secede from Maryland after all. If they grew up in Frederick County there’s a good chance they hunted before they became police officers.
It’s amazing how quickly the trappings of feudalism are returning. Hunting is for the vassals, retainers, and men-at-arms who have pledged to serve the ruling class. We, the governed are too dumb and should keep to the plow.
Interesting observation. A correct one, also.
A very good point.
Not really, unfortunately.
Under English feudalism a thousand years ago, commoners were required to achieve and maintain profficiency in arms in case the militia were needed, or in case of war. They were also required to make or obtain a longbow, arrows and a pike.
What we’re seeing today is more a reduction to peonage rather than peasantry – the people wholly owned by the State, as in Tsarist Russia.
Bad, bad and bad.
Oh I’m not saying that we won’t have the opportunity to serve in the ferd as “arrow fodder.”
Though instances of long bow use in conflict occur as early as 633, the use of the long bow in what we would call battles did not occur until 1236. To be explicit, the long bow was not used in the battles opposing the Norman invasion of 1066, though the Anglo-Saxon armies were otherwise well-equipped.
A thousand years ago the Anglo-Saxon nobility still ruled most of modern-day England, slavery was still a standard institution (it’s what happened to the Celtic losers when the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes gained control of England), lordship encompassed all the land, and hunting was not a right for freemen not landowners, who were lucky even to gain small cattle-grazing privileges. Then the Normans came and things got worse. Slavery was ended, replaced by serfdom, which law encompassed a much larger fraction of the population than slavery. By 1315 95% of the rural population were bound serfs. Serfs did not have long bows unless they were drafted to the 14th century wars. During battles of the Hundred Years War, the most famous of which was Agincourt, bows were handed out in preparation for battle, then collected.
Yes really actually, serfs were only handed weapons to kill whoever their owner wanted them to kill, as in other people. If a serf or peasant was ever caught even suspected of hunting “the king’s” deer or what have you, fingers were lost or worse.
Just plants another seed of “Cops are smarter, safer, and more responsible, therefore more deserving”.
Of course! Such a great idea! Because use poor citizens who shoot regularly for recreation, hunt regularly for years, or are ex-military with lots of field experience are no match for the magnificent LEO!!!
I wonder if they carry bear spray as well?
More and more oddities from the state I was born and raised in. So glad to live in Michigan now.
I will say this, MD has some good looking trooper cars. Michigan’s distinctive bubblegum machine lights are pretty cool too though, even if my first MI trooper experience was watching one chase a sport bike up US-23 while making my drive to move up here, and 2 miles down the road seeing the broken down Crown Vic, sans exhaust, sitting on the shoulder. Sport bike nowhere to be found.
Makes me sad that folks out there still believe the “cops are better” fairy tale.
I can tell you right now having a bunch of cops wandering around my land “hunting” would not make me feel safe. Especially for my dogs welfare.
+ ∞
We have bow hunting on our property. A couple of guys in my brother’s reserve unit take out deer and feral hogs. Win win, plus we don’t have to put the dogs up.
Annnd MD finds yet another new way to fail and disappoint. It’s like they’re planning this with the express goal of makin ex residents really disappointed and ashamed.
All Animals are equal, but some Animals are more equal than others.
This is fantastic practice for when the deer start forming gangs and go around raping women.
To be fair, I have seen a LOT of slob hunters. It’s very difficult to convince a farmer to give permission to hunt their land, even if they are overrun by geese and deer, because one or two slobs spoils it for the rest [I cannot tell you how many times i have driven by a deer carcass in a field decaying, just the antlers taken, its very irritating when i see that]. Plus, they want people who will actually shoot does to reduce the population, not wait for the 10 pointer.
So, I can see why people would be irritated by this, but I can also see why farmers would turn to a program like this.
This should work well. Most hunters can only hit one deer at a time, but a cop should be able to hit about 7 for each one he aims at. The one he aimed at will of course be unharmed.
Growing up in Frederick in the 80s to the early 90s, until I graduated from Sling-a-whore, the county was mostly rural and hunters aplenty. But now, it has become mini Rockville and most of the hunters are gone. But, this is truly a bad thing. They should allow all hunters to do this.
OK. As a retired cop, who just cringes every time there is an anti-cop story here.
I’m appalled at this story.
A post above referred to this as feudalism. It looks exactly like that.
I’m dumbfounded. As I work for my Master Hunter license for the state, having to demonstrate knowledge, judgment, reasoning and accountability, this just floors me.
WTF is this nation coming to. Ancient Rome? The start of the fall?
It seems that this crud is becoming more and more prevalent, every day.
Tom
I understand your tribal loyalty but I am heartened to see you come to the acceptance that not all LEOs are ‘pristine and daisy fresh’. Truth is certain personality types are drawn to positions of power and some of them are not able to resist the urge to abuse that power eventually bureaucracies fill with these types resulting in Banana Republic goverment
ensitue,
No tribal loyalty here. I took the job because it was kind of a calling. I was a paramedic and thought I could help more than just one person at a time.
I wanted to catch bad guys. Murderers, rapists, burglars, thieves… Bad guys.
I’m really glad to be retired.
Same. I am under a sworn oath to the Constitution, which in effect, for the time being, results in me serving the state. It’s very easy to confuse the two. There will come a time for us all to choose between them; I just hope that enough of us still remember the difference when that time comes.
I’m sorry, I just don’t get the outrage. Sure it’s an odd initiative, but I don’t see anyone being forced into anything. Would people have the same response if it was soldiers, instead?
This should piss off the fudds.
This is a great idea! Great chance to follow our ex-Vice President Dick Cheney’s example!
I was listening Maryland radio the other day and there was an advert recruiting for the Freemasons. It is a corrupt, desperate and vice ridden state.
Why, it’s the best state that money can buy!
– This comment was approved by Spiro Agnew.
A whole bunch of kids here just made that adorable scrunchy face they make when we old farts come up with a quip like that.
Why would anyone willingly let a bunch of cops freely wander their property?
Arm the deer! ARM THE DEER!
Can someone tell me how many deer Maryland farm-owners may themselves hunt each season? Are they subject to the same tag-and-limits rules as non-landowners? If so, would it not be much more just to let the owner who cultivates and forests the land simply have the right to a hunting quota which reflects the annual excess?
The article beneath the link actually says that the Frederick County Farm Bureau “called for expanding and simplifying the deer crop damage control permit process to allow using weapons of choice by designated shooters, and simplifying the deer harvest reporting process.”
A pot of people would actually PAY money to hunt these properties. I would. They should allow the farms to make money on the side by selling permits to remove deer.
But this after all is a socialist state.
Thanks. In most of Europe, certainly in Sweden, a government wildlife resources agency evaluates the number of deer (moose, etc.) that can and should be hunted on a farm property to keep the animal populations stable. This allocation (for example, 21 deer on a 1,000 acre farm/forest unit) can be hunted by the owner over a five-month deer season. The owner can alternatively rent out the hunting right, or part of it.
in the US hunting early on became a populist system, i.e. ‘anybody can hunt two deer’ or similar. When it comes, though, to allocating a hunting privilege to state or local police, an amazing line is being crossed. It is a full-fledged leap from populism, past the landowner’s rights, to the government’s assertion of privileged hunting status on behalf of its own employees. That isn’t socialism, that is disenfranchisement of hunters and land ownners in favor of the standing army of armed state employees. Whose theory of government and property is at work here? We landowners don’t own our own hunting? We have to give it away to state employees? We cannot rent out the right, even though our grain feeds the deer?
The idea came about 100 years ago that the game should be managed for the benefit of the public. So game animals on your land aren’t under your control.
Personally, I like the way Nevada set up their landowner comp system on deer. You get a survey of how many animals are on your land, how much damage they’ve the potential to cause, and the F&G guys grant you X tags per Y deer.
You can sell these tags off to the highest bidder. The hunter does NOT need to hunt on your land, only within the unit containing your land(s). So the landowner gets a few thousand dollars from selling off the tag and doesn’t need to put up with hunters on his land. Win/win.
A LOT of landowners in Western Maryland and the Eastern Shore do just that. To the point that hunters in the rest of the state form “clubs” to be able to pay the fee that the farmers demand. This also doesn’t include the fee for the “guide” of course. I quit hunting here decades ago because pf the fee-based hunting practices and the jam-packed nature of public hunting land.
i don’t think this is done under a crop damage permit though, just fee-based hunting on fallow land. I hunt suburban archery around DC/baltimore on public lands, i never have a problem filling my freezer.
more farmers around here should do this, especially for the geese. more deer are killed by autos than bow hunters in HoCo and MoCo.
Do they provide pictures to the officers so they know the difference between a deer and the family dog?
They know. That’s why the deer are safe.
What on earth does police shooting have to do with hunting? Nothing. If they are attempting to sell the argument that this would somehow provide practice for police snipers, the idea is absurd. Such snipers are often never needed. When they are, the shots are, facts show, relatively short range. We haven’t need a police sniper in my township ever. Of COURSE cops think it would be nice to gain excess deer-hunting privileges. So do bakers, nurses, lawyers, and retail clerks. Years of licensed hunting experience would be a MUCH better criteria than “he’s a cop.” Obviously.
Just because they’re ‘special’….AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!
Maybe they’ll just apprehend the offensive deer, detain them, and the judge will let the deer off with probation, then the deer will walk free…
The deer aren’t in a house with a suspect wanted for overdue library books so I think this is a waste of time.
My first thought, as a guy who used to be a farmer, is that any farmer who takes them up on this offer is stupid. Very, very stupid.
Invite a cop (or plural, cops) onto your property with weapons… without a warrant? Yea, that’s stupid right there.
Farming is difficult enough, but there’s a veritable blizzard of regulations being issued every year at the state and federal level which, if interpreted broadly enough by cops on your land, could get you into a regulatory enforcement nightmare. Cops are not your friends.
Second, the gun handling skills of cops around livestock, expensive equipment, buildings, etc – just say “no.” Never mind their penchant for shooting dogs. Imagine what they’ll do around livestock.
Lastly, the comment above about feudalism is spot-on. This is another data point in our decline into third-world status. But that’s to be expected, I suppose. Elect third-worlders to political office, get third world results.
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