As far as bag limits, if there were none, it would be easy to thin animal population. And that has nothing to do with dumbing down hunters. Limiting someone to lets say 2 deer, if every hunter got 3, that would be a 50% increase and could destroy animal populations.
It doesn't take much to figure, we have x amount of deer, so we'll allow y amount of hunters, to get z amount.
The alternative would be, that 4 guys go hunting for a week. They each bag 5 deer. Not because they're trigger happy, but they each have families at home they feed. If everyone who hunted did that the deer population would get ruined. It has nothing to do with wisdom or lack of wisdom. I might need/could use 5 deer. I have no idea the needs or desires of my neighbor, or the entire hunting community.
To compare bag limits with gun limits is irrational. They are to different issues.
As far as seasons go, that is tough. There can be arguments for both sides of that one.
Personally I think someone should have the right to hunt on their own land anytime they want. If they need/want a fresh deer in July, they should have at it.
Back to gun limits, why should Uncle Sally care how many rounds I have.
A comparable argument would be, we have a 55 or 65, maybe 70 mph speed limit. That means cars with v-8, v-10, or v-12 engines cause people to drive to fast, so we should outlaw all cars with large engines, and mandate manufacturers to put limiters in cars that would limit cars to speed limits dictated by sensors placed in the roads. Any one with a beautiful shiny Ferrari, capable of 160 mph, should turn it in. (as well as anybody with a motorcycle that can do the same)
Just because there are 2 million deer doesn't mean I'm going to shoot them all. But 50,000 deer hunters shooting 5 deer each would decimate the population. So a bag limit is set.
And just because I have 50 rounds in my gun doesn't mean I'm going to pull the trigger at every moving leaf.
Like wise, driving 70 mph, on a two lane road, in a residential area, in a school zone with 6 year old kids around isn't wise. Some kid is going to get killed. So a regulation (speed limit) is established, to protect the neighborhood.
Now my car has the capability of doing 70 mph on the highway and also doing 70 mph in the school zone. Should everybodies car be taken away from them in a school zone?
In a school zone, a cop doesn't care what your car CAN do, he cares what its doing in the speed zone.
Why does a ranger or DNR agent care how many bullets your gun CAN shoot. Its how many you shoot at a moment in time.
Not as you defined it. You said the state was being a "nanny" in defining what you could hunt with. I agreed. They are also being a nanny when they define what and when you can hunt. The fact that you agree with the requirement for the latter nannying doesn't change what it is.
So. If someone says that AR's shouldn't be allowed because of the magazine size, I say restructure the argument and ask them if they are arguing for a magazine limit on all rifles to hunt, what that limit should be, and why? Very quickly you will force them to rationalize their position, which most of the time they haven't bothered to even think about, and that you appear to be ready to meet with rational cross points of your own. Is it rational for your fellow hunters to expect you to look for a blood trail on an animal before you start shooting at another that would put you over the limit? I think not. As that requirement is impossible to enforce, magazine limits thus become rational.
Last fall I shot three deer inside of 6 seconds with a bolt action and expended four rounds doing so. I had failed to put down a deer with one of the rounds and had one round left in the magazine to deal with what I surmised might be a wounded deer if it popped out of the immediate cover. As it went, I found no blood trail on that deer.
My point is that in such a situation it becomes rational to want a greater magazine capacity.
As hunting laws are principally a matter of preventing the tragedy of the commons, restrictions will apply. However, the restrictions should be at the very least rational. Many states now allow black powder (single-shot) hunting seasons. You can say these aren't rational, yet it works because far fewer people will hunt these seasons than would with modern rifles. Thus it allows an additional management tool on the population of deer.