Ind. lawmakers consider protecting right to hunt

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana lawmakers are again taking up a proposed state constitutional amendment that would guarantee the right of residents to hunt, fish and farm.

The state Senate's agriculture committee is scheduled to hold a public hearing on the proposal Monday morning at the Statehouse.

Republican Sen. Brent Steele of Bedford says he is sponsoring the amendment in reaction to animal-rights activists who he believes are trying to interfere with legal hunting and livestock production. Steele's resolution calls hunting and farming a valued part of Indiana's heritage and that they should be "forever preserved."

Both the Senate and the House approved the proposed amendment by wide margins during the 2011 session. If the same version is approved by lawmakers this year, it would go before voters for a statewide referendum in 2014.