I'm not so sure Volker has all his facts straight, especially on deer populations. I'd also question why those counties only. I'm not opposed to rifles in Southern Tier. I'm more w/CMA here on the accuracy issue. I too hunt Northern Zone w/ rifle where I live, and have a camp in Southern Tier. I absolutely regret the Shotgun opener. I can't stand hearing all the repeated shots, sometimes guys even reloading & emptying again. I can never figure why.many hunters w/shotguns seem to always try and outshoot its abilities. So I gotta believe if a hunter is given a rifle, practices, and becomes very accurate with it taking advantage of its capabilities. Then therepeated shooting would decrease. Less shots blazing through the woods seems a heck of alotsafer to me. Many areas of Northern NY are farm lands also. Its not all woods. Plus if you look at some of the 04' DEC harvest numbers by town. You'll see that several Northern Zone areas had higher deer takes then some Southern Zones. My own Northern township is a perfect example of a higher take then the Southern Tier township my camp resides. Plus its been working fine in PA for yrs, andya know how popular hunting is there. So I'm all for it. Heck last 2 seasons I've carried my muzzleloader during shotgun season over the darn slug thrower.Far as safety on shotguns I say NYS implements a 3-shot plug rule to slow these guys down!!!