Pennsylvania Sunday Hunting Restrictions One Step Closer to Being History

iSportsman Staff

After more than two centuries of restrictions rooted in the state’s religious Blue Laws, Pennsylvania is edging closer to joining the majority of states that allow unrestricted hunting on Sundays. On Tuesday, the Senate Game & Fisheries Committee voted 6-5 to advance both Senate Bill 67 and House Bill 1431 to the Senate floor, clearing a major hurdle in the effort to repeal the state’s longstanding Sunday hunting ban. The bills would eliminate current restrictions and open Sundays statewide for hunting, providing a significant boost to hunters and working families alike.

As it currently stands, each year the game commission selects three Sundays, typically during deer seasons, that hunters can hunt on Sundays. Some species, mostly predators, can be hunted on any Sunday they are in season. It’s a pretty random allowance.

“This is an idea that’s time has come,” said Senate Game and Fisheries Committee Chairman Sen. Greg Rothman (R-Cumberland), in an interview with the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. “Other states allow it. What we want to be doing as a state government is to promote hunting and make it as accessible as possible, especially to working families and to younger people.” The legislation has bipartisan support, with champions in both chambers—Rep. Mandy Steele (D-Allegheny) in the House and Sen. Dan Laughlin (R-Erie) in the Senate. Both lawmakers led efforts in 2019 to allow limited Sunday hunting, a move many sportsmen saw as just the beginning.

Supporters, including the Pennsylvania Game Commission, Hunter Nation and virtually every conservation and hunting organization in existence, say the bills will bolster the state’s hunting culture and at least in part address a leading reason people stop hunting: lack of time.

“Removing the prohibition on Sunday hunting holds the potential to add significantly more time to the hunting calendar and keep hunters hunting,” Game Commission Executive Director Steve Smith said in a statement. The Pennsylvania Farm Bureau also backs the measure, noting the potential benefit in reducing crop damage from overpopulated deer herds.

Still, as you would expect in today’s hyper-charged political climate, the proposal isn’t without opposition. Again, the groups you’d expect like the Sierra Club and Keystone Trails Association warn of potential conflicts with hikers and non-hunters who frequent the woods on weekends. Sierra Club has long tried to falsely position itself as a pro-hunting organization, yet repeatedly opposes any expansion of hunting opportunity in case after case.

Rep. David Maloney (R-Berks), the minority chair of the House Game and Fisheries Committee, called the bill constitutionally flawed and warned of “unintended consequences,” whatever those might be, such as nothing if you look at every other state where Sunday hunting takes place. Aside from the sale of alchohol in some states, hunting remains one of the few activities to be restricted on this day in a handful of states such as Pennsylvania.

With the full Senate expected to take up the issue soon, Pennsylvania hunters may finally see a long-awaited change that brings their state in line with the rest of the country—and gives them back a valuable day in the field.