Illustrates a whole lot about what's wrong with my state's .gov

[Ben]

I had a teacher in HS who was cited for it and had his license and gun confiscated because when the game warden approached, he leaned his gun against the vehicle in order to be polite.

 

Several of the cases i read about here happened for that same reason. The hunter wanted to be polite and not freak out the armed warden by making any sudden moves, so they leaned the firearm against their vehicle versus manipulating it as the warden approached.

[230RN]

In Nevada, it is (or was - haven't checked for a while) against the hunting regs to have a loaded firearm in or on the vehicle. I had a teacher in HS who was cited for it and had his license and gun confiscated because when the game warden approached, he leaned his gun against the vehicle in order to be polite.

Ditto here in CO.  The local Game Warden here, back in the day, used to warn people that was a technical violation.  That Warden had a couple of more or less funny stories about how the hunters involved would be amazed when they were told about that violation ("in or upon") and would then hustle to park their rifles against any other vertical thing besides their vehicles. 

The one who followed in his footsteps would write it up.  Never heard of any confiscation of equipment, though.  I could name names, but that would ID me too closely.

The aforesaid Game Warden here, back in the day, once told me that Wardens were the most powerful law enforcement officials in Colorado since they could enforce any law anywhere in the state.

Dunno if everything is still that way.

Terry, 230RN

[AJ Dual]

Considering the remote work they do, I'm sort of amazed more of them don't disappear.

[HankB]

A former colleague told me a story about a game warden . . . up in Minnesota, a bunch of guys were returning from a fishing trip and got stopped for a game check at a rest stop. Warden checked their licenses (all OK) and then told them to lay out a tarp on the ground, because he wanted them to empty their coolers and lay out the fish they'd caught.

They opened the back of their Suburban, and stepped back. Told the warden if he wanted to count the fish, they wouldn't interfere, but HE, not THEY, was going to unpack the coolers.

Nothing in the law required them to do his work.

As there was quite a crowd gathered, with ill grace, the game warden did so. All OK, no violations. When he went to leave, they told him it was up to HIM to repack the coolers, as the law doesn't require THEM to pick up after the warden, and if the fish weren't picked up, the warden would be a game violator.

He did so with iller (is that actually a word?) grace.

The best part of the story? The fish had been packed in DRY ICE, the warden didn't have gloves with him, and appeared to have some frostbite on his fingers.