What are your thoughts on hunting?

[lomfs24]

Oddly, I only yesterday saw the parallels between hunting and fishing in terms of pride of accomplishment.  To fish successfully one needs knowledge, patience, the right equipment, and luck.  To hunt successfully, one needs those same four elements.  I guess I was a little silly to equate hunting with combat.  I saw the gun and thought soldier.  Silly.  A gun is a landlubber's fishing pole.


 

Funny you should bring that up. I once knew a religious fellow in Oregon who didn't think it was alright to hunt. All the same reasons, taking another life, just for the sport of it, cheaper to buy meat at the store so it can't be for food...etc... However, he did think it was OK to fish. When asked what the difference between taking a deer's life and a fishes life was he replied that when you are out in the forest or driving your car down the road, you can see deer but you can't see fish. HUH??? OK!

[envilid]

Funny you should bring that up. I once knew a religious fellow in Oregon who didn't think it was alright to hunt. All the same reasons, taking another life, just for the sport of it, cheaper to buy meat at the store so it can't be for food...etc... However, he did think it was OK to fish. When asked what the difference between taking a deer's life and a fishes life was he replied that when you are out in the forest or driving your car down the road, you can see deer but you can't see fish. HUH??? OK!

That's idiotic. I use to fish with my dad all the time didn't think it was too bad because someone told me they don't feel pain. I don't really have fun fishing so I don't go anymore, but a year or so ago I decided to look up whether fish felt pain or not and I'm not sure the study showed absolutely that they did but the time it took a fish to start feeding again after it had a hook through its mouth was substantially larger than a fish caught with a net.

[Pharaoh Cat]

I'm not sure the study showed absolutely that they did but the time it took a fish to start feeding again after it had a hook through its mouth was substantially larger than a fish caught with a net.

Pain would be a reasonable explanation for that.  As for me, I assume anything that flees, fears, and anything that fears, known pain, since pain is nothing other than sensation triggering fear.  Fish flee.

 

[Stevil]

As a society I don't think we are ready for people to own guns and go recreational hunting

I live in a small country with relatively restrictive gun laws, but...

Victim of hunting accident named
Brothers had heated argument before shooting fatality
Stalker's fatal error stuns teacher's colleagues
Coroner calls for gun law changes over death
Turkey hunter shot and killed
Teen hunter shot in foot
Shot hunter fights for life
Hunter dies on first day of duck hunting season
Shooting victim pleased friend not jailed
Fatal shooting accused in court ahead of funeral
Danish tourist acquitted of hunting trip shooting
Don't jail man man who shot my son: Father
Pig hunter fatally shot in hunting accident
Hunter who shot friend escapes conviction
Coroner finds hunter's death result of mate's 'buck fever'
The son who shot his father
Lucky teenager survives rifle bullet in skull

[lomfs24]

Seventeen cases in just less than 6 years? It's not good, but in comparison is it bad? How many people have been killed or maimed in the past six years from car accidents? I would venture a guess that you are less prepared as a society to drive cars than you are to own firearms. In the US there are more people killed each year by misdiagnosis of medical doctors than are killed accidentally by firearms. And if you throw in number of people injured by doctors and firearms the numbers are astounding. It would appear that as a society the US should not have doctors.

[Stevil]

Seventeen cases in just less than 6 years? It's not good, but in comparison is it bad? How many people have been killed or maimed in the past six years from car accidents? I would venture a guess that you are less prepared as a society to drive cars than you are to own firearms. In the US there are more people killed each year by misdiagnosis of medical doctors than are killed accidentally by firearms. And if you throw in number of people injured by doctors and firearms the numbers are astounding. It would appear that as a society the US should not have doctors.

Cars are necessary to get to work, school, supermarket.
Medical Health is necessary to get well.
Recreational hunting is a hobbie for fun

[Ali]

I guess I would rather that a person hunt and eat an animal than just buy it at the grocery store.  But as a vegetarian - yeah, gross.

[lomfs24]

Yeah, I shouldn't have snapped Stevil. I am a hunter and a firearm enthusiast myself. Perhaps I view firearms in a different light than some. I view a firearm as an inanimate piece of steel that if used improperly can and will cause devastating harm, just like a car. I don't view the piece of steel as the scary part of the equation. It's the person holding the piece of steel.

I am just tired of people pointing to accidents... or incidents that were not accidents and saying "Oh, look that scary gun killed someone. We should ban all firearms!" They tend to point at the firearm as the problem rather that pointing at the problem that caused the kid to feel the need to walk into a school with a firearm in the first place. Wasn't the gun that did it. The gun was just the tool.

Just like in these seventeen articles that you posted, none of them were the fault of the gun. I guarantee you that in each and every one of those instances the gun was simply doing what the person holding it told it to do. So do we ban the gun from everyone? Or do we address the problem of the person holding the gun.

Anyway, sorry about snapping Stevil, and I will get off my soap box now.  

[xSilverPhinx]

Actually, there's a better case for alcohol being banned. It's the cause of a huge number of car accidents and is used recreationally. But, um...yeah.

[xSilverPhinx]

Oddly, I only yesterday saw the parallels between hunting and fishing in terms of pride of accomplishment.  To fish successfully one needs knowledge, patience, the right equipment, and luck.  To hunt successfully, one needs those same four elements.  I guess I was a little silly to equate hunting with combat.  I saw the gun and thought soldier.  Silly.  A gun is a landlubber's fishing pole.

Combat? You go into combative mode against a grizzly and all you're gonna get is mauled. 

(and I mean really get down and dirty with a bear, not tackle one from behind the computer screen )

The skill level for hunting isn't necessarily that high though. You learn to handle a firearm properly, learn to stay quiet and how to track an animal you want sucessfully. Shoot.

[Stevil]

Actually, there's a better case for alcohol being banned. It's the cause of a huge number of car accidents and is used recreationally. But, um...yeah.

Yes, there is a very good case to ban alcohol.

[Stevil]

Yeah, I shouldn't have snapped Stevil. I am a hunter and a firearm enthusiast myself. Perhaps I view firearms in a different light than some.

No worries, I didn't take it personally.
I understand that in some countries gun ownership is a hot topic. Not so much in NZ.

I was very keen as a child with guns. I have used air rifle, 22, 308, shotgun, pistol (can't remember what), a semi automatic. They are extremely dangerous and should only be handled with the utmost caution. I don't see ownership as a legal right, but as a privilege, and that people ought to be tested for competency and maturity in order to own one. To have two people die per year so that others can enjoy the sport of hunting, I'm not sure if that is acceptable collateral damage. Would need to evaluate against other sports. But it seems more sinister having a person shot with a gun rather than falling off a cliff or off a horse, or off a boat. We can't put too many restrictive laws in place and hence wrap society in bubble wrap.

Personally I have no interest in owning a gun, for recreation or for defense. I think it would put my life more at risk if I owned a gun.
There are many people in society that I wouldn't want to see own guns. I don't think America is promoting the "right to bear arms" very well at all.
I would like to see balanced information rather than propoganda. The links I posted were purely news articles about people who have been injured or killed in recreation hunting via gunshot. Not embellished, not propoganda-ised, just cold stories of people.

[Pharaoh Cat]

To have two people die per year so that others can enjoy the sport of hunting, I'm not sure if that is acceptable collateral damage.

Do you deem the value of a single human life to be infinite?  Or finite but very high?  Based on what?

Two deaths per year, in a world where death is inevitable for everyone, somehow doesn't strike me as meeting the threshold at which I would ban guns.  Obviously if my daughters happened to be the two this year, I would be pissed, but not at guns or the gun industry or the institution of hunting.  I'd be pissed at the malice or negligence of whoever pulled the trigger, unless it turned out my daughters were the negligent ones.  If no culpability could be laid at my dead daughters' feet, then the person who pulled the trigger, if enough of a dick or bastard, might be in for a sudden, frightening experience, applauded only by the maggots or vultures who get a tasty meal, and a grieving father who doesn't subscribe to the constraints Christianity might place on retribution.

[Stevil]

Case in point, I don't think Pharoh Cat should have a gun.
... or a chainsaw for that matter.

Actually, a rusty pair of pliers could be lethal in PC's hands.

[Guardian85]

Yeah, I shouldn't have snapped Stevil. I am a hunter and a firearm enthusiast myself. Perhaps I view firearms in a different light than some. I view a firearm as an inanimate piece of steel that if used improperly can and will cause devastating harm, just like a car. I don't view the piece of steel as the scary part of the equation. It's the person holding the piece of steel.

In Norway a person can also get guns, but we are a bit more restrictive in terms of who can and may own a weapon. You need to be able to document a certain level of competence with firearms, have a clean record, not be a nutcase and have proper storage ability for the firearm in question.
Tat is the way to go. Only people with competence and who can lock it up to prevent theft or accidents get to own weapons.
I am an ex-military gun lover, and I wholehartedly support these rules.