If they are so great on deer, why is Texas one of just a very few states that allow anything less than a .243?
I've seen this argument used many times, so I decided to find out if it was true. I looked up the hunting regulations for each of the 50 states, one by one. The info is available online. Here's what I found.
It is
legal to hunt deer with a .223 Rem in these states:
Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, N. Carolina, N. Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, S. Carolina, S. Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, W. Virginia, Wisconsin.
It is
not legal to hunt deer with a .223 Rem in these states:
Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington, Wyoming.
That's 36 legal, 14 illegal. Moreover, of the 14 states where it is illegal, exactly half of them (7) don't allow the use of
any modern rifles. Those states are:
Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, Rhode Island.
So, there are only 7 states that allow the use of modern "deer rifles", but don't allow the .223 Remington for deer, while 36 states allow the .223. This is exactly the opposite of what most people believe.
If you think that I have gotten one or more of the state regs wrong, please feel free to look them up yourself and correct me. In a few cases, the rules were a bit vague, but most of them were quite clear. I did this research about four months ago, so it should be current as of this year.