Wolford v. Lopez · ¶101

Start with the “why” of the 18th-century laws. As the Court explains, ante, at 21–22, they were enacted in response to the various “abuses, damages and inconveniences” caused “by persons carrying guns and presuming to hunt on other people’s lands,” 1721 Pa. Laws ch. 246, §3 (preamble), in 3 The Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania From 1682 to 1801, p. 255 (J. Mitchell & H. Flanders eds. 1896). Perhaps chief among these was significant damage to property. One colony complained that “great Numbers of idle and disorderly Persons” would “hunt with Fire-Arms” and “tread down the Grass, and Corn and other Grain standing and growing in the Fields and Inclosures” in the process, causing “Ruin and Destruction [to] the most valuable Improvements.” Act of Dec. 20, 1763, ch. 1233, preamble, in Laws of New-York from the Year 1691, to 1773 inclusive, p. 441 (1774). Another lamented that wandering…

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