Internet Hunting Banned in California
TheSync writes "California has banned Internet hunting. Emergency regulations will be put in place by the California Fish and Game Commission, and legislation (SB 1028) is in the works. West Virginia is considering legislation against it as well. Hunters consider hunting by robot and mouse click 'a digrace to the sport,' whereas tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine."
It's my God given right as an American to be able to sit at home in my underwear and kill shit.
ya
PETA likes this legislature. They pulled for it. They proclaim victory on their front page.
now supporting:
cmdrTaco for president '04
michael for oval office intern summer '05
I guess it's like playing FPS games, using aimbots is just not fair.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
The main reason everyone is so upset/scared over internet hunting are the safety concerns.
Also hunting on foot is a lot more noble and is a tradition that has been carried out for thousands of years.
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
Of all the things wrong with this wonderful state of mine. I'm proud to see the Government spending time outlawing this... err where do the sarcasm tags go?
-/bin/true successfully doing nothing day after day.
I had just wrote up an shell script to do all my hunting for me, and now this!
So hunting over the internet is "unsporting" but killing animals with high power, long range rifles isn't?
I am not supporting internet hunting but come on guys, can you REALLY call any modern day hunting a "real hunt", there is NO challenge.
I highly doubt the submitter's genes would be alive today, if not for the hunting of "innocent" animals, whatever the hell that means.
I agree, this is integral "Your Rights Online." I protest this grave infringement against my inherent right as a human to operate a deadly weapon using some Flash game on my desktop.
What's wrong with One-Click Hunting? Did Amazon patent this or something? I think it's a good idea. Your dinner comes walking by... click, and it's ready for pickup. This is significantly better than having to duck behind some bushes, trying to be all quiet, and then shooting your dinner. What if a fellow hunter is on the other side and you get shot? This way, nobody has to be present when bullets get fired... nobody, that is, except your dinner. :-)
Oh yeah, we dont want to increase the number of fat Americans.. let them move their ass.. or someone might write a program to do that clicking thing.. and then hunting would melt down to.. "those were the days when there were guns.. now we have.. freeze or I might click!"
Obviously the problem is the poor critters have no way to fight back - now, if we could electrify a few keyboards ....
dang, I was up to 60
We raise our slide-rules high.
Way to make an unbiased and factual news post, Timothy!
Yeah yeah "but timothy didn't say it thesync did" ever heard of being an editor? Ever heard of a respectable news site?
The funny part is that the first quote *is* a quote (minus the blatant spelling error, of course - congratulations again!) while the second part is complete and total fabrication.
You know what? Stuff like this doesn't help *anyone*. If you need to put words in people's mouths to make your point, your point has failed.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
This actually makes sense as making hunting as easy
as sitting at your computer and clicking away
desensitises one to the actual action of killing
a living creature. Desensitisation of this sort is _never_ a good thing.
whereas tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine.
Nice troll. I still continue to be amazed such nonsense makes it into the article summaries. Animals are not "innocent", and in many cases hunting acts as part of the ecosystem, preventing animal overpopulation. It you're going to troll Timothy, try to at least sound intelligent.
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
Why is a firearm not a disgrace to the sport? Shouldn't one use a spear? And no atlatls either!
The entire article summary is a troll. Dumbass Timothy!
Yay! Another fine way to limit the handicapped!
Way to go!
is it the internet bit that's banned in California, or the hunting bit on the other end?
If it's the internet bit, I suggest VNC'ing into a friends computer in the next state. I do however think it's nuts that you can order food over the net and have it delivered to your door, but you can't kill it over the net. That's just plain daft, and I don't even hunt.
An "innocent" deer killed my friend's grandfather. They are a menace and must be stopped.
WTF. They're food. Mind your own damn business. There's no law requiring you to hunt them, so what're you even complaining about?
One state has 1.5 million deer. You have to kill half of those every year or the population will increase. If it increases enough, people won't be able to keep them out of their gardens and disease will spread, tossing the wildlife into a dangerous spot. What the fuck do you propose? Are you honestly suggesting that people stop hunting them? Are you suggesting that taxpayer money be used to kill 750,000 deer per year, then just throw away the meat because ``meat is murder''? You'd probably ban guns, too, so that the only recourse is to poison the animals, which is imprecise and ultimately far more damaging. When all the Earth is soaked in Roundup and animal poison, what do you think you're going to eat?
In short, you are a moron. You don't know enough about the situation to speak intelligently about it, and the ``situation'' here is nature and the food supply. I suggest shutting the hell up unless you want to risk undermining your credibility on every subject.
"Hunters consider hunting by robot and mouse click 'a digrace to the sport,' whereas tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine."
This comment proves the vast left wing slashdot conspiracy. The truth: we don't oppose the killing as long as it is on our terms. It ain't that hard to understand is it? Let me help you "sciency" guys out a little:
Abortion=BAD
Death Penalty=GOOD
See???
(set humor=1)
Ban internet hunting! We must all do our part to preserve the endangered internets!
(set humor=0)
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Damn those inbred internet hicks... Damn them to hell.
http://www.UnFiction.com http://www.ARGN.com http://www.ImmersionUnlimited.com http://www.Linux-SP.com
There is a cattle ranch behind my house and I was thinking of arming my ER1 with a 12-gauge.
This way to the egress...
Why not tie the system into a selection of security cameras in Florida shopping malls and make it law there that anyone wishing to partake in mass emailing has to wear a bright coloured jacket with a target printed on the back in public - then we could solve two problems in one go!?
Maybe I get your spam, maybe I don't - maybe you die, maybe you don't; it seems like a fair trade-off.
AT&ROFLMAO
At least they have a sporting chance with robots. After all if they're running windows if they don't get the BSoD first it'll be infested with so much spyware that they won't even be able to see their target through the hail of pop-ups.
Thank god in America we can have human hunting robots for the military but god forbid we shoot something that would strip fields down to the soil with anything other than our nightscope equiped, low yield, laser-guided "hunting rifles".
that this is what the Safari browser was originally developed for.
Why does there need to be a law for everything? How can the banning of Internet hunting be regulated, anyhow? What is the state going to do; get ISPs to look at the logs of everybody who are signed up at Internet hunting sites? Doesn't California have better and more important things to focus on, such as balancing the budget?
Tracking and killing innocent animals is NECESSARY idiot.
Go to eastern Iowa or other parts of the united states (and probably worldwide with other species) and look at the some of the whitetail deer there. Because of taking over more and more land, cutting down more and more trees the population is dying of starvation and disease. Thinning the population is the HUMANE thing to do.
*DrugCheese rants*
"whereas tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine"
Come on, tell us your true feelings...
Tcl my Pico! There are 10 kinds of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.
It's about time that they outlawed Deer Hunter. That game ruined my life! Now I'll have time to watch "The Dukes Of Hazard" DVDs.
Why do people still use the life force of other
creatures for survival!
Enlightend Products is proud to offer you:
The photonic powered hydrocarbon constructor.
Buy one today - and live guilt free.
Non life harmful electron credit transfers
accepted only.
Yeah, sure it is a sport... Now, being a meat eater, I have no moral objections to hunting... But calling it a sport is silly. You kill an 8 point buck with a bowie knife and nothing else, I will call you a sportsman. You use a high powered rifle or a composite bow? That's hunting... Sport... heh...
Styrofoam IS biodegradable, you're just impatient!
Finally someone has come up with a real FPS! Next, an FPS on the streets of New York City with a remote-controlled robot! NICE!!!!! ====== Second ammendment does not belong in the constitution. ======
-Palal
Why stop there? Why not play golf without a golf club? Pool without a stick? Hurdling without the hurdles?
This guy is way out there
Of course most likely you'd not be really killing real animals, any more than you're talking to an innocent teen when you dial 0900-VIRGIINS. Instead you'd pay your $50 or whatever and the whole shooting would be mocked up, probably from Discovery channel footage. That way a few thousand cyberhunters get to "shoot" the same bambi and nobody really gets hurt except a few credit cards.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Let's only call it the sport of computing if you are using an 8086. Using an Athlon or Pentium 4 is just too easy.
Well, deer are giant rats with antlers. There are too many of them, and their population needs to be controlled. I have no problem with shooting deer. Even if the meat is just going to be thrown out. I'm generally against hunting, but deer are a problem.
HOWEVER, rounding up deer and putting them in a pen so people can kill them remotely is just...weird and stupid. So I have to say I'm against it. Should it be illegal? Probably not.
That this bill was passed in a state run by someone who can act about as well as a webcam taped to a gun...
I think that hunting by remote control is ridiculous and reflects poor character. Yet what I dislike even more is the attempt by the whiners in our culture to make the world all pink and fluffy, safe and non-threatening. This is the type of weepy hand-wringing that is willing to forbid any type of behaviour for the feeling of comfort and security. The bandana-wearing Madame Dufarge refugees from the 70's have wrought a little bit more of their damage upon the country.
Internets are an endangered species. If we carry on hunting them, they'll become extinct!
I no longer own guns or hunt. I do hike wilderness areas with a camera and nothing but a K-bar for defense and utillity. What is missing from hunting is the incredible experience of facing large predators, (cougars, wolves, bears in my experience) and letting oneanother pass with respect and knowledge. Facing a 200 lb cat and walking away to leave it to it's ecosystem is an experience that diminishes hunting to a coward's game.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
...whereas tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine...
:)
What do you expect them to do, only hunt down the guilty animals? Perhaps just the carnivores and omnivores?
People
Eating
Tasty
Animals
Meat, ummmmm. Yummy. One of the best "roasts" I ever had was elk but my brother-in-law didn't "shoot" it by clicking a mouse. Ditto for some deer jerky one of the folks I used to work with brought in.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
I dont see a difference between killing an animal for food or sport, even if the sport is done on the web.
This sounds like passing a law for PR, nothing else. We dont need feel good, nanny laws created. This is law is purely about ones feeling about hunting, nothing more.
People need to stop passing more laws for behavior and freedoms of the people, and deal with voilent crimes, polution or robbery. They need to stay out of peoples lives and hobbies.
If they said "No Church Online" you bet there would be more people talking about this law.
Serriously, do you need to be told what you can watch, what you can eat, who you can marry, whats proper in your own home? Damn if you people dont see this is a fluff law you are a sheep.
"whereas tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine."
I'm assuming you don't like steak.
The greatest experience we can have is the mysterious.
- Albert Einstein
As opposed to buying them from some conglomeration that keeps them in overcrowded facilities, or at best, buying them from some place that still offs them in ways no less repugnant that blowing their brains out. Is it more moral to slit a throat or shoot the animal through the heart?
Even worse are people like my neighbor's son's girlfriend. She's vegan and won't let him kill the slugs that are eating their food. I have to wonder what she does when she gets a cold. Moreover, since she is nowhere near self-sustaining in her crops she is supporting other people to kill the pests for her food out of her sight. It's more moral if you pay other people to do it out of your sight, I suppose.
Pretty much anything that is alive feeds off the dead in some way. Assigning things with eyes or blood or less restricted movement more importance than other forms of life is arbitrary. We must be responsible in how and why we kill but it's ignorant to bitch about someone for the act of hunting an animal. Many, if not most, hunters use the animal's remains responsibly - from skin and flesh to bones and blood, it all gets harvested. Moreover, they help keep populations in check. Would it be better for the deer to die slow deaths from diseases like spongiform? Populations always come into check from a predator of some type, so if it's not human it will be a disease or another beast.
I will admit I get some enjoyment from those occasional stories of a hunter being injured or killed by a wild animal. It says that there is at least some small semblance of the power wild animals left in our world. But still, to the original poster, I must give a hearty "Fuck you, you ignorant son of a bitch."
Why is
whereas tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine
appended to the end of this story? I really don't have an opinion about hunting, but trolling the front page (to get more ad impressions from comment posters?) isn't cool.
whereas tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine.
yeah! outlaw all hunting, even by other animals. How could anyone or anything ever hunt and kill an innocent dear, or bunny! We should all become communist, vegan, and move into the wilderness.
Why can't we moderate the index page?
Cali cannot ban internet hunting. A state cannot impose a law that infringes on interstate commerce. If I have a server in Nevada and I'm charging people to hunt, then Cali lawmakers can get bent.
If they try and stop their residents from connecting to my server, Nevada (or I) could sue at the federal level and have the law declared unconstitutional.
Right?
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
"whereas tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine."
In the post-apocalyptic world that will soon be upon us, don't you come whining to my cave about not knowing how to hunt because you can't make your own damn tofu, you insensitive clod!
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
- thank heavens! i've got my virtual pier all set up, with the rods baited and the tide coming in!
- want to fish? browse to:
http://www.peta.org/
(betcha they didn't think of Internet fishing, right?)
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
I be surprised one bit if the government buys this this technology for sentry guns. Look for a beta version in the sequel to America's Army.
wiction.org
The slashdot writer is completely right. We need more killing of guilty animals. ;o
How many of you criticising this legislation are actually hunters? As someone who is both a techie and an avid outdoorsman, I don't see any problem with this legislation. High powered rifles do not ensure a perfect hunt. I personally am against confined game farms where a hunters prey is pretty much domesticated, and I have a problem with doing it over a computer. Hunting can and should still be a challenge. I don't see something like internet hunting promoting, for example, an intimate parent/child bond as there's hours or days spent away from other distractions. I mean, seriously, if you're out hunting, you're off in the woods or the field, and there isn't an instant messenger or e-mail to pop up -- hell, damned cell phones are enough of a problem in the outdoors. It comes down to that Jurrasic Park conundrum: just because you can doesn't mean you should. Hunting over the internet is not a right. I can understand the advantage for disabled individuals, but then again, I hunt with people who are "handicapped" under my state's laws, and you know what -- there are already special accomadations for them, such as allowing the use of ATVs while hunting, or allowing the use of crossbows. And yes, fat, lazy Americans should get up off their asses to actually go hunt, if that's what they want to do. Sorry to say it, but every group of Americans could use some Darwinistic thinning -- if you want to go hunt, you should have to figure out how to use a gun, walk through the wilds, etc. Those who can't figure this out, and, say, accidentally shoot themselves, or die in the wilderness... well, go population control. And, I can see where PETA would call this a triumph on their part. I find it kind of odd to agree with PETA on something, because I'm usually against what they have to say. I mean, think about it this way ... what real arguments can anyone make for allowing this? What convincing situations and reasonings can someone present?
"If God's on our side, he'll stop the next war." -- Bob Dylan
http://www.live-shot.com/ After viewing some of the links from that site I ran outside to make sure that my car was not up on cinder blocks.
There's room for all God's creatures.. right next to the mashed potatoes.
He who laughs last is at 300 baud.
Or maybe some spelling/grammar technology integrated with slashdot.
wiction.org
Someone please explain. I like the idea of internet hunting, if only because the site of a starving deer is a sad one....
Open Source Sushi
You kill an 8 point buck with a bowie knife and nothing else, I will call you a sportsman.
Nice sport. Can't we just have deer wrestling or something? First three-second pin wins?
Personally, I'd much rather die due to a high-powered rifle bullet to the head than being stabbed to death with a knife. More than likely, a headshot critter won't have time to realize it's dead. OTOH, I'd rather not die by drowning in my own blood due to being lung-shot.
Real hunters keep their armament in excellent working order, and their sights true. One shot, one (instant) kill - that's the way to do things.
As for the "Internet hunting", well, that's just plain wrong. Not wrong as in horribly murderously wrong, but wrong as in a fat guy who can't get our of his current room because he can't fit through the doorframe. Should it be illegal, though? I don't think so, but that's the PRC for you. Still not a "sport".
Slashdot away!
"in many cases hunting acts as part of the ecosystem, preventing animal overpopulation."
That must be why other nations not so obsessed with shooting shit are so overrun by wildlife.
Yes sir, I can't even get to my fridge in the morning without tripping over several feral Kangaroos that have found their way into my house.
wrestle a dear?!
jesus... they won't even let you toss a dwarf.
If I can't smoke and swear I'm fucked.
Why should the California Fish and Game Commission care? It seems there job is to make sure that California's Fish and game is handled properly. But in this case, what's being shot is Texas's game. I don't see the need for an emergency law.
i'm completely for this legislation. California is once again at the forefront of quality legislation.
Killing animals via remote control is absurd. I can understand how and why the military does this, via predator, etc...and that's okay with me.
Why ? Because when the military kills, it has a chain of command that can be held accountable for error. They are following their orders.
To compare this horrid hillbilly killing over the internet to military action or something like that is ludicrous. There are hick kids near where I live that kill animals for fun...not sport or food...just so they can giggle and watch 'em die. their parents are a-holes too, so i can see where it comes from.
I imnagine the only people who seriously support this kind of crap are the same libertarian extemists who want to be able to sell body parts or live ammo and weaponry on ebay. there is such a thing as community standards and living within the rule or law.
it you really want to roll back standards and the rule of law, well, you might as well let civilization collapse, because the baddest mofo in the area will be coming for your wife, daughter, and in particular your head...so he can stick it on a pike.
it's fine if your the baddest mofo on your block...today...but there is most always someone bigger and badder that's gonna come for you tomorrow.
I assume, of course, that everyone here who is objecting to hunting in general is also vegitarian, right?
If so, while I disagree with you, I can respect your feelings.
But if not, you're a grocery store hunter and a fucking hypocrite.
I don't hunt. I do eat meat. And I'm smart enough to know that, regardless of method used at the slaughter house, it ain't "sporting", and an animal died for that nice t-bone steak I'm having for dinner tonight.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Be careful, the rights of people disabled by morbid obesity to hunt is protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act!
What are you talking about. There are no deer in Agincourt....
A thought occurs.
Its not so much they object to shooting animals over
the internet its that they're afraid someone will
take it the next logical step and start shooting
politicians. Vermin are vermin after all.
I want that one.....he didn't put up much of a fight......how about that one.......ummmmm, no, that one.........and I want a glass of milk from that one.
It is too hard to get right. When will someone die because of (anonymous?) access to a public Internet weapon interface? I can't imagine the day isn't coming, whether or not there are laws. Will it be intentional or accidental? I don't want to write that app.
This law needs a loophole, for those who might be doing something useful, like hunting spammers remotely over the Internet.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
-cp-
Alaska bear-mauling victim survives rare second attack
it's open season on Kalifornians!
Funny how Kalifornians think it's okay to violate whatever laws they choose (S.F. okaying gay marriage, ignoring illegal aliens, not executing prisoners on death row, etc..), but want to crack down on things that are perfectly legal (smoking, hunting, fishing, logging, BBQing outdoors, mowing your lawn, making a profit, etc..)
I for one am sick of having to rid myself of casino adverts and pop ups with adaware, aswell as declining access to parts of my browser cache to keep the clever stuff out.
Lets hope that in less than a decade, malware and spyware is banned too, this is just one small step in the right direction.
It scares me that your post was modded "Insightful" rather than "Funny". Seriously, I'm scared.
-- No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
...whereas tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine...
There's something I don't get with people like the person who wrote that story. I mean, the human body is constructed and designed to eat flesh. Nearly every (thinking) living beeing is designed to eat flesh. You don't like it when hunters kill animals, you don't like it when a factory kills 1000 heads per day...
WTF DO you like?
Every animal must hunt its own food and so it the human. Eat vegetables if you don't like how it is. But it will allways be this way and it is the nature's way.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not for killing animals for fun or anything like that. But it pissed me off when I hear the so-called animal lovers saying we shouldn't eat flesh, because we kill animals by it. Like what the hell... If you believe in god then go give him shit not us, because he made it this way. Or answer me this; do you feel the same way when you watch tigers eating through a live zebra? I mean, it's like saying don't exhale, because you are killing air.
In Soviet Russia, Internet hunts YOU!
whereas tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine.
You obviously don't get the same kind of deer we do in South Carolina. Imagine rats with really long legs. Throw into that the two people in my county killed by impalement just for walking across the wrong field at the wrong time.
Direct away from face when opening.
Proven beyond reasonable doubt in a court of law of guilt of being tasty, that is!
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
But on some level you now understand what its like to crap in the bushes like a deer.
Or piss on one.
My dad and I were hunting years back on a tree farm. About 20 minutes before sunrise (can't shoot here till then) he went off to take a leak. A minute later I hear some loud rustling and he yelled astring of curses.
He had walked up to a clump of tall grasses and was relieving himself when a buck jumped up from within the grass, where it was sleeping, and ran off. My dad had pissed on it and woke it up.
He said "imagine being that buck's wife and trying to explain who's scent that is!"
R(k)
If its anything like the online cams, can you imagine thousands of online people clicking LEFT LEFT UP UP RESET FIRE FIRE all at the same time its any wonder it works at all :D
I wonder if it will get past Governor/Terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger. Consider how much money he made in the Terminator movies.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
Killing animals over the internet is not hunting, it's just slaughtering animals for your own jollies.
I am a hunter. When I hunt animals, I am out in the woods with them. Sometimes I find game and sometimes I do not...it all depends on how quiet I am, if I'm tracking correctly, and how well I know the behavior of the critter I'm looking for. It is NOT a sport.
I am out out there to get meat to put on the table. If I can't eat it, I won't kill it. If I kill it, I eat it. It's as simple as that.
Any yahoo who would take part in in such an abomination as this deserves jail time.
That's right, they do. And so do I.
When a wolf tracks down a deer and kills it, I presume TheSync has no problem with that. It's just nature in action, right? Well, why should it be okay for a wolf but not okay for a human? Aren't humans part of nature?
And by the way, humans have already messed up the balance of nature. It used to be that there were plenty of wolves around to eat all the deer. Thanks to humans, there aren't that many wolves around anymore. But deer are a prey species. If SOMETHING (or SOMEONE) doesn't hunt deer, the deer population will explode; and after it explodes the deer will overeat their environment and there will be a big die-off. Which is better, leaving a deer to die from hunger, or shooting it?
The government regulates hunting, you know. Hunters don't just walk around randomly shooting stuff. Experts evaluate the wildlife situation and figure out what the appropriate level of hunting is, and regulate from there. With careful choices of what can be hunted, the ecosystem can be STRENGTHENED, not hurt.
And I hope that TheSync is a hard-core vegetarian, or else he/she has an inconsistent value system. If you are willing to eat meat, you should be willing to allow others to hunt animals.
Anyone who wants to discuss hunting should read this:
http://www.logicsouth.com/~lcoble/dir9/deer.txt
Sorry I couldn't find a copy formatted a bit better than that one. Anyway, here is a quote from that:
Hunters consider hunting by robot and mouse click 'a digrace to the sport,' whereas tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine.
Need a band-aid for that bleeding heart? This story has NOTHING to do with news for nerds nor stuff that matters.
I am a hunter. I don't believe that it's sporting to hunt via an internet connection, but I don't like any sort of bans on the sport.
I would prefer that true hunters protest and boycott the place and drive them out of business.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
In golf, pool or hurdling your opponent too has the same equipment as you do. Not so in hunting.
Ah. Vlad the Impaler is alive and well in South Carolina, and working his extreme form of justice there. I wonder if the victims were guilty of having indoor furniture on the lawn.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I'm sure I'm not the only one asking this question, but what exactly IS internet hunting?
You do understand that you do not need a license to operate a firearm, don't you?
I live in California - a state with some of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation - and I do not need a license to operate a firearm.
There's a little card you have to get to legally buy a handgun, but if that expires, you don't need to renew it unless you'd like to buy another.
Or were you referring to a hunting license?
(Note that this is not an argument for hunting over the internet.)
Code or be coded.
What is this innocent animals statement? Is the writer trying cast aspirations about hunters?
My brother-in-law is hunter in SW Ontario. We all enjoy the spoils of his "sport" Not much of the animal is wasted. Let me tell you, fresh Ontario Bambi steak off the charcoal BBQ is to die for. I have vension steaks and gound/minced vension for chilli in my freezer too, and will be a far healthier for me than N. American beef that has been pumped full of anti-biotics and growth hormone, fed things that aren't part of its normal diet and has more chance of giving me nvCJD than anything from the UK. And yes, I am aware that there is an epidemic in parts of N. America where elk and deer are dying of a disease similar to BSE.
For all those meat eaters out there who make anti-hunting comments: are you prepared to kill you own animals, gut them, and prepare them? Or will only accept it in the sterilised format from the supermarket? Think about it. Some people have good reasons, some are just hypocrits.
Finally, I do realise there is some basis for the author's statement. I do realise that there are "hunters" out there who are just in it for the guns and killing. I don't have much respect for them either. Maybe there is a cultural difference between the US and Canada too (somebody please enlighten me) - muzzle-loading season for deer around here lasts one week, the rest of the time my brother-in-law has to hunt with a bow and arrow (crossbow in recent years actually).
Why do I get the feeling that most of these posts are driven by some sort of homophobia that exists in USA?
espo
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
There wouldn't be a problem, except that the predators that would normally keep deer in check are largely absent. No one wants cougars or packs of wolves living near their town. But without these top predators, deer populations have nothing to keep their numbers down -- except hunting.
Therefore, interestingly enough, conservation demands that we hunt more deer.
It's not unlike the paradox of the principal-of-least-harm. In order to minimize the number of animals that die on account of your diet, it's best to eat nothing but large free-range ruminants. A vegetarian diet results in enormous numbers of rodents and insects being killed by threshers and harvesting machinery.
I guess I'm a little off-topic now...
It's okay to kill Iraqis remotely, just not animals.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"innocent animals" is a preposterous and naive term. One look in their beady little eyes and any true man knows that *all* animals are guilty of something.
The trick, of course, is to scare them into admitting it. Personally, I like to use armed, semi-autonomous robots. It's important to be firm in these situations.
I mean, come on, robots are people, too. They have to eat. Better some stupid animals than you or me or our families!
whereas tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine.
Aren't you always supposed to have "hard working" and "innocent" together? And something about "paying the bills" and "supporting a family" (oh, and make sure never to say raising a family, doesn't sound innocent enough. Supporting a family ties right in with the "hard working victim" motif...).
So, your sentence should have had whereas tracking and killing innocent, hard-working animals who are just paying the bills, and trying to support their families, is just fine.
Newsflash: Huting on foot doesn't make you "elite" or more of a man either.
What I want to know is this: why do people who belong to PETA generally have these beliefs (note, generally. I'm sure there are exceptions):
1. It's wrong to kill animals
2. It's wrong to kill criminals
3. It's fine to abort human babies.
Seems like a gigantic inconsistency.
Personally, I say kill everything.
As a sidenote, dickwads with anything are a problem. Is there really any tool you would trust a dickwad with? Guns are just a particularly extreme example.
In short, the story is about a gentleman who used to be an avid hunter but is now paralyzed from the neck down. The story talks about the adrenaline rush the man experienced and how, for a moment, it gave him a sense of freedom and his old life back. The article also speaks about the mechanics of internet hunting - the 'hunt' isn't so much like a video game as someone is sitting there with the gun talking to the internet hunter.
I heard of ONE site that does this... like 2 years ago... a search on Google for "online deer hunting" or "online hunting" brings up nothing.. is it REALLY this big of a problem?!?!
You clearly don't have to live with the greater North American antler-rat.
Let see, you sit in one part of the world and one click later, wow, you've killed a wild animal and proven yourself to be a mighty hunter! Only... How do you know you've really killed anything at all? You saw it on the screen? Right. Given today's graphic tech, a decent programmer could easily put together a virtual hunt engine that would be identical in all respects to the real thing, from the point of view of the "hunter." Hmm... That would keep everyone happy, wouldn't it? The hunters will feel that they've hunted, and yet the operators of the virtual safari will know that in reality no animal was injured. Maybe it's a good idea after all.
How about instead of hunting animals using a fairly immobile remote rifle, we manufacture millions of battle droids and have users control them from home computers, in an arena. We could put some captured deer in there, or better yet, just have the droids battle each other. Then maybe we could take it a step further and just use virtual robots and animals. We wouldn't even need a physical location; it could all be done in a virtual arena. Yeah, we could make programs in which fictitious characters go around shooting other fictitious characters. It would be loads of fun and wouldn't cause injury to people, animals, or machines. We could respawn the characters as needed without incurring great cost or loss of life. Maybe one day my idea will catch on. And if you're hungry while you're playing, you can call your local butcher and order some steak. You could even make a donation in the form of food or money to a local shelter or food depository instead. Seriously, could someone explain to me why virtually killing a real creature is any more fun or satisfying than virtually killing a virtual creature, provided that the computer user is not some sort of sadist? I used to live on a farm, and i have hunted, but i'm not sure i could derive pleasure from doing it over the net, potentially at great cost, in view of the myriad games already available. I don't think that it's like internet gambling, because there's no real opportunity for monetary gain. I guess there's a lower chance of being shot whilst behind a computer screen at home.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: That averages about 660,000,000 of each kind.
Yes sir, I can't even get to my fridge in the morning without tripping over several feral Kangaroos that have found their way into my house.
You joke, but in Australia, qualified hunters are paid to cull herds of kangaroo to prevent overpopulation. My ex-wife's father made his living doing just that for some time. I seem to recall that some locales had to do something similar to prevent the feral cat population from going out of control.
Karma: Excellent, but still won't get you laid.
Some people consider thwacking a small white ball with a large metallic or wooden stick, a crooked stick mind you, a sport. Sport is a very BROAD word. That has become a synonym with "activity". Swimming is aparently a sport. Now, is swimming the distance of an American Football field in under a minute a testimate to a person's ability? I'd say sure, that son of a bitch is a great swimmer. Is it a sport? I'd say no, unless they did it because crocodiles were chasing them down while they did it.
Learn something new.
But... but... I can still MILF hunt on the internet, right?
Sorry guys, there is this nasty interstate commerce clause that may render this one unconstitutional. Perhaps CA can ban internet hunting within CA, but the way I read the case law, this one is a ban on interstate commerce and so is doa.
Personally, I don't think robo hunting is something that should be permitted, but this ban runs afoul of the constitution.
The reason I am opposed to hunting is not that I explicitly think it's wrong, it's because I see no reasonable justification is right. I think the burden is on hunters to defend their own actions, and not for us to condemn them. Here are the reasons I have heard for hunting:
1) Fun
If this is your reason for hunting, then your having fun is contigent on the needless pain and suffering you inflict on animals. Whether or not you think animals suffer is a matter of personal belief, but from what I've seen, pain is a necessary component of ensuring survival in an animal. Plus, if animals didn't feel pain, they wouldn't back down from a fight.
2) It happens in nature all the time.
Seeing how far removed from nature we are, it's ridiculous to use nature to justify our actions. Animals go around naked, so why shouldn't we? Animals use physical violence to assert dominance over individuals, so why shouldn't we? (I mean in general day to day life, excluding wars and such). My dog sometimes humps the sofa, so why shouldn't we? I could go on and on.
3) For Food
Really, has food gotten so scarce and times so desparate that you have to hunt for sustinence? Is the nutritional value of venison so great that it justifies hunting? Is there nothing else to eat? We're not caveman; you don't have to hunt for food. It is not necessary.
I realize that most of these arguments can extend to all killing of animals. I in fact have done so. I'm a vegan, the only reason I didn't mention this earlier is because I was afraid I would be dismissed as some nutcase.
I'm not the type of person who values animal life over human. I'm only angry because most of the suffering we inflict on aniamls is so easily avoided, unlike many of the problems that don't involve animals. I still know what's more important.
A guy walks into a bar... well, I forgot the joke, but the punchline is that he's an alcoholic.
I don't see this as being much different than some of those farms/butcher shops where you get to pick out the animal you want slaughtered.
I haven't been able to find the website where one can do this, but it is probably just a marketing gimmic. You use the internet to find the animal you want and then pretend to shoot it.
Someone else then would kill (probably not even shoot since it is on a farm), slaughter, and ship your meat to you.
Companies like this allow those who want to eat venison, wild board, and such to do so without having to kill and clean the anminal.
That must be why other nations not so obsessed with shooting shit are so overrun by wildlife.
Yes sir, I can't even get to my fridge in the morning without tripping over several feral Kangaroos that have found their way into my house.
BBC: Kangaroo cull targets millions
CNN: Koalas overcrowded down under
Comment removed based on user account deletion
No doubt from one that has never been hunting and frozen his balls off or gone one-on-one with a wild pig.
Still, I guess there could be some useful things to do with internet hunting. In many places there are various pest species. iHunters could help shoot 'em up and also help pay for pest elimination. For instance, here in New Zealand we have possums introduced from Australia http://www.invasive-animals.org.nz/possum/ I kill about 50 of these a year and still they come... I would not mind a couple of ihunters setting up camp at my place so long as they don't shoot the kids and sheep.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Well, now with Internet Hunting, and Wardriving illegal, I guess all that's left of the "geek sports" to outlaw is Porn Surfing.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
...if the animals are innocent, how much more innocent are heads of lettuce and little cute soy-beans? They were alive once too, you know.
Think of the poor heads of lettuce that were killed, the next time you're eating your tofu salad.
(i actually once made a hard-core vegan idiot cry, when i told here that lettuce was alive too (which, it is, of course), and that it screams when you kill it, just not as loud... i imagine she's starved to death by now)
(ac cuz i already moderated)
.
On the other hand, raising "innocent animals" for slaughter and mass consumption is just fine, right? Or don't you eat meat or wear leather?
Oh, liberals are never innocent, but yes, they are animals...
KILL 'EM
BUT killing "INNOCENT" animals on foot is still legal! FUckINg ameriKKKan PIGS I"11 FUCK your JESUS up the ASS! hail my PETA!!!
hunting, together with fishing and other killing activities - when not directly serving the survival of you, or your family should be banned alltogether ...
....
...... but in no way i would consider shooting at living things (except people wearing protective gear a,d with paint) in case no one directly threatens my survival ....
yes some might think differently, but what kind of a sport is it to go with high-tech sniper rifles against innocent animals ????
want a shooting sport? go play paintball or airsoft, there you can show if you can outrun a gun, hide and seek and play one-on one or be part of a commando
i am facinated by killing tools, just from the tech standpoint... i am interested in guns and paintball/airsoft guns or bows or blowguns.... damn even knives or swords
hunting is not a sport, it is a sick way of entertainment....
internet hunting ? go play quake or doom or cs or halo or whatever you morons!
Seeing as how guilt, good and evil are all human inventions. Therefore that word is redundant. I would suggest another. Perhaps "delicious"?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Ahhh man and I just got that code that tracks the target to work right.
Oh sure sure it only targets burrocrats however I had to have a basis for the simulations and burrocrats are dumbest most predictable animal so a simulation was simple.
I don't actually exist.
Maybe they just want to make sure that hunters are wearing pants when they kill.
Occasionally in flipping through the TV channels, I've come across hunting shows where some guy in a tree ambushes a deer. And some of those guys get really worked up and excited untill the climax of the kill.
Maybe the opponents of internet hunting want do discourage people from engaging in unseemly behavior in their basements.
So, killing innocent cows and sheep for meat, glue and leather at point blank distance while captive is somehow OK, but hunting isn't? We got to live, we are omnivores and eat meat - life isn't fair - get over it.
Oh well, what the hell...
He'd still be in the trees eating leaves like a 3 toed sloth... what a fag... how many innocent bacteria has he killed trying to spoon feed shit to the slashdot crowd?
Except the guy in Texas that was proposing it had sending you the pelt and meat as part of the service.
Also, it wouldn't be on public land, it would be using essentially 'farm' animals on private property.
Still werd and a bit sick, but not something that I would feel that a new law needs to be made for. I would tend to think that animal cruelty laws would cover just fine.
Of course, I view any new law with extreme suspicion. I feel that all the laws of the land should be able to fit into something the size of a dictionary. In the same or larger font.
I don't read AC A human right
..how am I going to get my Free iPod, now?
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
with internet hunting is that it makes the experience less personal and lowers people's inhibitions to shoot irresponsibly in places that would cause more suffering to the deer. You cannot see/hear the animal suffering over the internet as clearly and certainly that would make people less squeamish over essentially torturing the animal.
Yes yes, we won't kill the "innocent" liberal animals... just the nasty GUILTY ones that kill other animals, and destroy the environment by removing foliage.
WHat a fucking TARD... TIMMAY! TIMMAY! RUUHHHHH!
There is no such thing as "innocent animals", they are all guilty of the high crime of "being made from meat". Punishable by death by grilling.
L053R
pathetic...
1. While not currently a hunter, it's mostly because, at this point in time I do not have the resources available to properly utilize any game I take. I'm not going to spend $200 for the privilage of hunting a deer that I'd end up donating 90% of the meat because I can't use it.
1a. If I'm going to go after game, I'm not going to do it on my computer.
2. I would not consider internet hunting a big deal at this time. Most likely it's a fad. Look at the popularity of bow and black powder hunting. These guys aren't going to use the internet.
3. California, from all reports, is going through a number of crisises, including many financial.
4. Books of Law are already bigger than Encylopedias and harder to read than medical texts. Do we really need a law this specific? Do we need another law?
I don't read AC A human right
Please excuse my overly liberal use of the word "everyone". I just mean "lots of people" -- enough people that large predators have been virtually wiped out. Even if it were just a minority of people are doing the complaining, that can be enough constitute "everyone" in a political sense; look at how much power the 20% of Americans who are fundamentalist-Christian exert over the other 80%.
They managed because of top predators. Most of the top predators are gone now though, thanks to us. Wolves are rare, cougars practically wiped out, and bears have seriously declined. North America now has a serious lack of predators, other than the pink two-legged kind.
I don't think this could be funnier if you tried.
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
If you want to weigh in on the bill, you can e-mail the current committee through this link: http://www.aroundthecapitol.com/Bills/SB_1028
*innocent animals* boo hoo..... The animal kingdom is not innocent. They don't call it the law of the jungle for nothing. Go play with an innocent grizzly bear / wolf / etc. if you don't belive me.... No moral framework in nature => no innocence or guilt. That said, internet hunting is retarded. A good hunter always eats what he kills.
For me there is a sportsmanship issue here that even goes beyond the absurdity of hunting from a computer. When a hunter shoots an animal and the animal runs off the obligation is on the hunter to track the animal rather than have it suffer a slow death. Every hunter I know follows this, even when it costs them a good deal of time to do so. I'm sure there are those who don't, but there's exceptions to everything. Will the guy running the site be sitting there during a person's paid session so that if an animal is simply wounded he will track it down? Perhaps, but I'm not thinking so.
I love my sig.
Many have said it so far, that most of the arguments against, especially those about fairness of the hunt, are pretty much moot.
But it is clear by the reaction here that many seem to have a problem with this. I count myself among them. Maybe I'm partially against hunting already and this just seems to push laziness to the next level. Or maybe this creates a level of detachment from the action of killing that disturbs my subconscious.
But I'm curious if anyone, those for or against, can give me a good explanation why so many people seem to feel there is something wrong about shooting animals from your computer? I just can't put my finger on exactly what about it bothers me.
innocent animals?
Trust me, if deer had high speed Internet in the forrest and a valid credit card, they'd be hunting you online. I consider this self defense.
The Internet is generally stupid
What simple-minded zealots modded this unbelievably stupid straw-man "argument" as insightful? This is why it's so hard to be liberal these days. I don't want to be on the same side as these assholes.
That's why I love to kill'em.
RETURN without GOSUB in line 1050
Supporters have suggested the remote hunting could be beneficial for hunters with disabilities and questioned why Californians should be barred from patronizing a legitimate Texas business.
h ah ahahahahahahahahahahaha
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ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
However, gee, don't we have a lot of other things going on in California to worry about? Like healthcare, education, the budget, the environment, things like that? There are people dying every day (including today!) for lack of adequate healthcare, there are students who don't have adequate schools, AIDS patients who are dying because they don't have AIDS drugs etc. These are real problems affecting real people right now. Why aren't our legislators drafting some emergency legislation on those issues, instead of addressing this mostly-hypothetical concern? There's one company in Texas attempting to do this. Do they have any actual users yet? Has anyone in California done this? How many people would use it, even if it were widely available?
Sometimes I am disgusted by what are the CA legislature's priorities. I agree with the idea, but it seems to diminish the stature of the entire legislature when they get involved in things like this.
Hunting can and should still be a challenge.
What if you could hunt HUNTERS over the computer? That would make it more challenging for both parties!
paintball
he/she really didn't say or imply that n00b.
You're assuming that all vegetarians have the same goal: kill the least number of animals. The truth is there are lots of reasons for people to be vegetarians.
For some it's that they don't like killing animals, period, in which case your point is valid.
For others, it's that they don't like the way animals which are bred for slaughter (or to produce dairy products) are kept - it's the QUALITY of the life, not the taking of the life, that the object to, in which case killing many free-roaming wild mice is preferable to raising an animal in a pen not big enough for the animal to turn around.
And for yet others, it's because they work behind a counter at a coffee shop and "not slaughtering innocent animals" is the only way they have to feel like they're special.
I can't count the number of people I've met who are vegetarians primarily as a mechanism for being different than their parents.
paintball
However, I think that the stance in this post:
shows some fuzzy thinking.
Like most /.-ers, I'm an omnivore. I'm known to eat the occassional burger, ham sandwhich, carnitas burrito, etc.
I consider it far more moral, as a consumer of animal protein, to harvest animals that have lived full natural lives outdoors, than it is to outsource the process, and delegate to others the raising, handling, and slaughter of animals in factory farms ("there are vast fields, Neo, where...").
The more I think about it, the more I think that I should start hunting, and should ONLY eat meat that comes from creatures that got to live outside.
You claim that "most" hunters violate Colorado state law requiring all edible meat from game animals be prepared for human consumption (see Article XI section 020.D.1). That is insulating to all license holders in this state.
"In a sport, both sides know they're playing!" -- Paul Rodriguez, on 'Politically Incorrect'
I don't think there needs to be a law for everything, but to me this is a case where hunters are saying that they don't want hunting to become inundated with people who are not hunters.
Hunting isn't just about taking out your high-powered rifle and wasting an animal. You have to be out in the environment. You have to be where the animal is in order to kill it. While the technology for finding and killing animals has become more advanced, there is a connection between the hunter and the prey . I'm not a hunter, but every hunter I've ever talked to takes this seriously.
It seems to me that one of the primary reasons people go out early in the morning and spend long hours in the woods looking for animals to kill, then doing the dirty work of dispatching the animals and hauling their dead bodies is that they want to be closer to the life and death struggle of nature. They want to feel less removed from it, not more removed from it.
In that sense, a ban on Internet hunting is a way of saying that they want to preserve this aspect of hunting, so that it is not overwhelmed by people who have no sense of what hunting is all about, and think of it as merely a video game featuring live animals. While I don't hunt because I don't see the need to kill animals in order to feel closer to nature, or in order to prove my dominance over other creatures, I can understand why hunters would want to keep hunting from becoming an exercise that requires no interaction with the natural world.
As a side note, California does have to focus on balancing the budget, but I hardly think it's a question of balancing the budget or passing a law banning Internet hunting.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
The ethics arguments are merely a smokescreen. The Department of Homeland Security doesn't want a non-governmental market to develop in teleoperated and autonomous weapons. The 4th amendment is disposed of if citizens have bolt action rifles, and DHS has ED-209's.
MI6?
It's called a food chain, buddy. There's no innocence and guilt in the food chain -- only survival or the stoppage of your gene propagation.
Berto
Legislation pending against Yahoo! Pool; "disgrace to the sport", says BCA
Did I say overlords? I meant protectors.
Yes, it would be much better for animals to have their population controlled by Chronic Wasting Disease induced by overpopulation and destruction (by humans) of their habitat, rather than controlling the population through conservation techniques such as licensed and regulated hunting, which not only controls the population but also funds the conservation efforts and studies.
Yes, death by overpopulation, malnourishment, and disease is much better for the "innocent" animals than feeding my family after I spend months developing an effective load to cleanly kill them, years target practicing, and weeks tracking the animals in the outdoors to get the perfect shot.
They should think "out of state hunting licen$e$" and encourage it!
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
"...what real arguments can anyone make for allowing this? What convincing situations and reasonings can someone present? "
Not that I'm in favor of it, but I'm sure the argument is that WHO THE HELL ARE YOU TO ALLOW OR DISALLOW THINGS THAT ARE 'RIGHTS'?
Really, the reason we have a Bill of Rights is to prevent the government from trying to make arbitrary limits on... oh, never mind...
Human beings, at least the male ones, are hunters. Our bodies are evolved to chase down herbivores until they can't run anymore, and then slay them with hand to hand weaponry. For most of human history, it was either do that or starve. The men who brought the meat and skins to the tribe (at high risk of personal injury to themselves) were rightly treated with honor and gratitude.
Today, that just isn't the case anymore. We domesticate animals and farm crops for food. People still get an atavistic sense of honor and strength from killing animals for essentially no purpose whatsoever -- neither to eat, nor turn into clothes, nor anything else.
Hunting still has one purpose, which is to maintain populations of herbivores when the natural predators have been driven away or rendered extinct. That should be a JOB, not something that people do for thrills. If you want thrills, make a spear out of a stick and a piece of flint and hunt with that the way our ancestors did. Doing it with a rifle from a hundred yards isn't hunting, it's execution.
I've hiked a lot and seen plenty of deer. All they want to do is eat foliage and make baby deer. I despise the enjoyment that people -- who eat very well by other means -- gain from shooting them. This 'internet hunting' takes it one step further into pure sadism divorced from purpose or reality.
"The advanced societies of the future will be driven by competing systems of psychopathology." -JG Ballard
Therefore, interestingly enough, conservation demands that we hunt more deer.
Actually, it just demands that more animals die by whatever means. In the case of California, it would never do to allow the citizens to hunt deer themselves. People might have a good time doing that, and besides, it wouldn't cost the state anything. No, if more deer have to die, California will take the opportunity to put deer euthanizers (and deer euthanizer supervisors, deer trappers, deer cremators, deer euthanizer auditors, etc.) on the payroll. More government employees, more unionized workers, bigger budgets, and best of all, no crazed, Bambi-murdering private citizens to enjoy themselves and to eat what they bring down.
Parent poster doesn't seem to realize that large ruminants eat corn in some form, whose harvesting kills the same rodents. So eating large ruminants is not going to kill fewer rodents.
I agree with that. I happen to enjoy taking old hard drives out to the forest and shooting them up, but I don't shoot stuff that is obviously serving some scientific purpose.
Back when I worked for a weather forecasting company in Chico, CA, one of the remote weather stations was reporting back really odd data. It decided that it was 613f outside and the winds were blowing at 1,247mph. Really bizarre stuff like that. A couple of the techs went out and got the unit, and it was still working, but riddled with bullet holes. Some idiots ignored the "please don't disturb this box" stickers and shot the thing full of holes.
Blowing up your own stuff is entertaining, but blowing up other peoples stuff is just vandalism.
Be sure to read my new book entitled, "Internet Hunting For Sociopaths." Never has killing humans been so easy or relaxing!
"They're Coming Right For Us!" *BLAM*
Well, people sure do seem to hate hunting around here.
But let me tell you what they just banned - tele-operated MECHS. Now how do you feel? Not so smug, eh?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Oops thanks ;) I missed that one when I proof read.
...that I can think of to oppose this legislation is that it puts a gun into unknown hands.
That's it. It doesn't matter that they're killing animals. It doesn't matter that the weapon is connected to a machine instead of physically held by the person shooting it. It doesn't matter that the command to pull the trigger is transmitted from miles away.
Since when is something illegal just because it's disgraceful? (Especially when it comes to the internet?) You can order Omaha steaks online - surely that translates to an animal's death, and you're contributing with the click of a mouse button. Hell, if I put a "pick your own lobster" webcam up, would there be this kind of uproar? And would there be any justification for a law to prevent it?
The only difference I can see here is that whoever provides this online hunting service is handing over a gun to someone whose identity is unknown. They could, technically, be allowing a convicted felon to pull the trigger - but that's about the only reason I could possibly see for shutting down the service. (I'm not even sure that that's enough.)
There are plenty of distasteful and disgraceful yet legal uses of the internet. You need a better argument if you think it merits government involvement.
Did I say overlords? I meant protectors.
If by 'tracking', you mean parking your pickup truck on the side of the road and releasing some dogs to flush deer into the open while down a case of Shlitz...yeah, thats tracking.
Fuck that shit, gimme a web interface for a robot in iraq so I can kill insurgents.. just make sure they're clearly identified with bright clothing or something, otherwise I'll be forced to enlist to satisfy my neanderthalic desires!
Wolves and other large predators. Read his comment, please! Hey wolves! Stop reading slashdot and start eating some deers, stupidheads!
I'm not sure you could bred a toy poodle with a wolf for example
My sister's friend has a... German Shepherd/Daschund mix. I'm not kidding.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I'm sure there's an Americans With Disabilities act lawsuit that is sure to follow...
MOD PARENT +5 INSIGHTFUL!!!
...because in CA you can't have shit.
In fact, we're eagerly awaiting a November vote on a San Francisco city measure that will, if successful, make it illegal for civilians to posess a firearm with barrel length less than ten inches (at which point you'll need to be surrendering your firearms for state-sanctioned disposal.)
This is easily more than 99% of all handguns.
CA regularly and routinely regulates the shit out of anything that looks dangerous, regardless of its specifications or ballistic potential.
Sorry, back to topic: I love my home state very much, but on matters gun: fuck California's law, lawmakers, and aggressively unclued voters; thanks to these fine, fine people, not only are my firearms-ownership rights second-class to those enjoyed in other states, but now my worldwide web-use rights are, too.
-- often wrong; never in doubt
I don't believe in animals rights, and I know god wanted us to eat them otherwise he wouldn't have made them taste so good. However, people who kill animals for entertainment have mental issues. Any psychologist will tell you that children who kill animals for fun are prime candidates to become serial killers.
If you want to go out in the woods playing super predator, tracking and stalking, have fun. When you catch your prey why not shoot it with a paintball gun and call it a day? I don't get the thrill out of killing animals.
I love it, slashdot's morality police are out in full force to tell everyone how wrong hunting is.
If you can order a side of beef on-line what is the big deal about ordering a side of deer? So what if you mouse click to kill it. Is it hunting if you order a side of beef an use a mouse click to select the cow??
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
You mention crossbows...This is slightly offtopic, but I am not sure why exactly crossbows (and in some areas composite bows, but what sane person hunts with one) are illegal in as many areas as they are. I can't imagine any danger element a crossbow would introduce that a gun wouldn't introduce as well. 'Course, a law against crossbows doesn't stop certain aquaintences of mine from going out and shooting squirrels for dinner with an 80 pound crossbow...(mm, squirrel stew! I am not joking.)
That said I agree with the notion behind this legislation but I can't say it doesn't worry me a bit. But I also can't understand what would possess a person to use a service like point-and-click deer hunting in the first place, so perhaps my judgement here is clouded. What's next, remote automated fishing (heh)? Perhaps the opportunity to literally shoot fish in a barrel.
"He does look a bit Oompa like, even if his Loompa is a bit off-kilter."
Take it up a notch, combine a remote gun placement and free municipal WiFi. Shoot at anything from the convenience of just about anywhere in the world.
What "critisism of apple"? What are you implying? You're lucky I don't have mod points!!!
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
I can think of that some people do not eat meat. Here we go
1) Health. Some people feel that eating meat is unhealthy for you.
2) To get laid. But then guys will do anything for that,so I suppose that is a reason for anything.
3) They really hate plants.
I had a friend who would only eat animals that ate their own young. Basically, if it is good enough for the animal it is good enough for us.
I mod everyone down who says "I'll get modded down for this." I hate to disappoint.
First off, I am not a hunter. However, my father is. I consider my dad a pretty good parent and some of the best times of my childhood with him were hunting. It wasn't about killing the animal. (or dragging its heavy corpse back through the snow to our campsite) It was about the time we spent together. Him teaching me about all sorts of wildnerss things - knots, tree and plant identification, tracking, constellation observations, etc.
My family did a ton of stuff outside - but few of them were as peaceful and quiet as the 99% of the time your hunting. We didn't get much (in game) but we did talk to each other alot and spend some very quality time together.
If you didn't experience it with your dad you really can't knock it because, frankly, you have know idea what your talking about.
Whereas tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine?
You're damn right it is. God forbid all you liberal weenies ever have to rough it living outdoors on your own, you'd never make it trying to subsist on berries. By the way, didn't you ever stop to consider how the berries feel about it? Welcome to Nature, we kill things to eat them here. Cheetahs use their speed; spiders use their venom; humans use their brains to build whatever implements they might need.
11*43+456^2
re-introduction of which into it's former range would help a great deal with deer population.
Internet hunting might be ok, AFAIC, IF some means is employed to track down wounded deer. No self-respecting hunter would leave a legshot or belly shot deer to die a long slow painful death, right? Right?
Here in California, we're getting alot more cougars near towns, partly due to increased deer pop. (and to be fair due to decreased ML hunting).
But wolves would be preferable as natural predators to lions IMO, since they don't attack joggers, bikers, and small children.
Nor do they take wild drunken potshots at anything that moves, which far to many hunters in the remaining wilds of s. california do. (At least with iHunting presumably it would be done a good ways away from habitation and in defined well marked areas).
I read in some Nature Magazine(it was in a waiting room so I forgot the name) that Bobcats have even been known to kill deer. This is amazing considering a Bobcat is only twice the size of a housecat. The bobcat pounces on the deer's neck, sinks its teeth in, the deer panics into a run and the bobcat uses its four class to thrash the larger deer to death.
I would like to see a government program that breeds bobcats that are three times the size of a housecat to take out the excess dears. I can defend myself against such a bobcat, but a pack of wolves or a cougar is more dangerous to humans.
Ummm. Since we have killed off almost all of the major and minor predators in the US, or limited them to a tiny percentage of the landmass, there is a problem with overpopulation of prey animals.
Deer for example breed like rabbits. They rapidly overpopulated even the smallest patch of land. I've seen over 50 deer in a single 5 acre wooded lot in the middle of town before (850K population urban area). These had to be exterminated by fish and wildlife officers.
I don't hunt. Don't have the time or the heart to do it, but it is a very very necessary function. Either depopulate humans and repopulate predators or allow for controlled human predators. There is actually no choice on this.
"My dad had pissed on it and woke it up."
Now that's real hunting, a direct hit with only his bare...uh...actually, that's a mental picture I don't want.
Blank until
I propose setting up slashdot-poster-controlled robots to hunt down and exterminate Timothy. Posters consider editing by insertion of political messages 'a disgrace to slashdot'.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
"C'mon son, you're gonna be three pretty soon. It's about time we go in the forest to kill a few animals and bond."
Nothing says I love you like killing an animal.
Don't you know how dangerous rabbits can be? Didn't you ever see Monty Python and the Holy Grail?
Fact is that humans have been eating and killing animals for thousands of years.
Yes, it is fine. It is why we survived as a species.
One thing that's important here, whether it's private land or not, is that if your fat ass is going hunting, that means your fat ass tracks, aims, kills, and then carries and eats the remains, not letting it rot in the woods, or risking some 15 year old farm hand to scoop it up, skin it and mail it to you. I'm sorry, but my family who are hunters have always told me that if you kill it, you skin it, and you eat it. Can't agree more.
This is just like when the white man used to shoot the buffalo from the railroad cars for sport and leave them for dead.
Also, regarding deer populations, I think we all should make sure we have accurate information. I've read several conflicting statistics on whether hunting them actually makes a positive difference on deer or overall populations.
What are people saying that the disabled hunters rights are at stake? Can American's accept 'no' for an answer or do they feel entitled to everything? You know, sometimes you just can't do something anymore after an accident. Sometimes you have to accept that you don't have the money, the time, the limbs for something, and let the attachment go. Geez, no wonder we're all in debt, lazy and fat.
...::----::...
I am in no way affiliated with this sig.
To Fags who run this place:
Cat got your tongue? (something important seems to be missing from your comment
Although bringing those two concepts together has real potential for a porno site...
Last time I checked we didn't have antlers, fangs, or claws. Correct me if I'm wrong.
This guy is way out there
...if you're going to think that way, then the military needs to immediately stop all work on UCAV's, since I would expect humans to hold a bit more worth than animals (even though I wonder sometimes).
It takes just a moment and an action to destroy. It takes some time and thought to create.
Presumeably, nobody forced you to go hunting and freeze your balls off.
:-P
Without the people that actually partake in the aforementioned, you'd never eat a good seafood or rare-meat meal again.
Whatever it was you killed lost its life. I feel more sorry for it than your balls.
No argument there
Again, presumeably, nobody forced you to go one-on-one with a wild pig. You therefore did it voluntarily for "sport" whereas the pig was simply trying to stay alive.
Now, what about the people that have gone one-on-one with a wild animal trying to stay alive even though he/she never intended to harm it, let alone kill it? As a man with scars from wild animals acting instinctually without provocation; that statement actually pisses me off. Wild-pig or not, going one on one with it is not a funny or forcefull thing. If anybody is going melee with a hog, trust me when I say it was definitely unintentional.
If you used a gun (or even a knife), I'd say that it wasn't exactly a fair fight.
Get ONE thing straight: animals always have the advantage of strength and lethality. Would you take a lion without a weapon? No matter what the situation? How about a pheasant? I'm telling you that even the pheasant could KILL you. Fair fight? Tell you what, go take on a mountain lion bare-handed and tell me it was a fair fight.
You're living in a techno-world, my friend. People who actually chose to be able to be able to survive in a world otherwise are not cretins or cheaters. They're geniuses. There will once come a day where a man like that will save your life, and you'll change your mind. A man who decides to take on a moose with a 30-30 is not only suicidal, if he wins he's a frickin assasin. Realize this for the benefit of your long and prosperous life: Nature is always one-up, the trick is to surprise her. Whether it be by gun, knife or spear, you're winning a big battle
Of all the Universal Constants, here's one I know: Nice guys finish last
Well, at least it keeps them warm... (imagining the Tauntan scene from Empire Strikes Back)
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I'm a web developer in Seattle but my family is from the Cascade Mountains just a couple hours northeast of here. When I was young my mom took up hunting as a way to provide food for her family and be able to make ends meet. It's been a tradition in my family for generations so it seemed like a natural solution to high grocery bills.
It provided my single mother and my sister and I with organic, all-natural meat for a year every time she went elk hunting. Though it was part of the experience, she never hunted purely for sport. When we kids graduated and moved out she stopped hunting because she didn't financially have to.
This is a form of hunting that has ancient traditions. It's respectful to the animals because we hunt with gratitude for the well-being of prey and take measures to make sure they are sustained and protected by legislation. When they are threatened, those who depend on them are threatened.
Internet hunting is a sport for those who have made no investment in the animals they hunt. It sickens me that hunters who do it for the rush of the kill would associate themselves with the human tradition of depending on animals for our food. There's nothing in common between the two.
World Changing - News for Humans, Stuff about our planet
I don't understand why time was devoted to such a law. The only things I can see are:
A. Acountablility for faulty and potentially dangerous equipment. Which could hurt a human if the equipment fails and does a variety of dangerous things. Granted it is computer run but someone has to provide maintainence and run the place. So there will be a human presence. Or...
B. Someone really wants to kiss some PETA butt or even win a couple votes.
The hunting of deer or other assorted animals from your computer has its place in the market. I am sure there are a variety of crippled individuals who can no longer participate in the sport. Or even people who can't actually get out into the forests of america to hunt for any of a number of reasons. (Allergies, asthma, fear of the dark, work, etc...)
I am sure there is a percentage of these people who would love to kill their first deer or continue their legacy of hunting.
Is it the same as getting in the thick of it and actually hunting the creature? No way. But it suits a means to and end. There is a certain feel to actually tracking your prey down. Primal for sure, but it is something you just can't experience in day to day life. Unless you are a bar brawler which I am sure is a similar feeling.
So why even bother with such a law. Other than the potential danger to humans who might wander near by or work at the ranch from potentially faulty equipment. It doesn't hurt any citizen in California other than the feelings of animal rights activists. Hunting will continue to be around for hundreds of years.
It just doesn't make sense to me. Thats all really.
there is no such a thing as 'innocent'. we are all born in sin. that little bunny Foofoo didn't accept Jesus as its savior, so it has deserved to be mercilessly hunted and killed.
Newsflash: Huting on foot doesn't make you "elite" or more of a man either.
However it does give you a clue about the sport, it does make you more likely to finance conservation efforts, unlike the clueless urban newb who reads a website and gets all "political". Here's reality: I lived in a part of the country where deer are abundant, overly abundant, as in there is only enough food to get the population half way through winter. Most will starve. Deer are a prey species, nature intends them to be subject to predation. Modern hunters fill the ecological niche formerly filled by predatory species. Hunting helps the herd survive the coming winter. Humans aren't as talented as a wolves so we need rifles. Then again, a rifle can be far more humane. A wolf pack will cause its prey to attempt to escape. One member will attack the real quarter of the fleeing animal to inflict a gaping wound or to at least start severe bleeding. When the animal falls another animal will bite down on its muzzle to secure it. Another will then tear open its throat. That's how nature worked before our intervention.
whereas tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine
I lived in a part of the country where deer are abundant, overly abundant, as in sometimes there is only enough food to get the population half way through winter. Most will starve unless herds are thinned. Deer are a prey species, nature intends them to be subject to predation. Modern hunters fill the ecological niche formerly filled by predatory species. Hunting helps the herd survive the coming winter. Humans aren't as talented as a wolves so we need rifles. Then again, a rifle can be far more humane than a wolf pack.
It's so much more humane to blow the brains out of your food than to ruthlessly rip it out of the ground. Plants have no chance. They have no fight or flight mechanisms.
People can exists with cougars and wolfs just fine with the proper precautions.
Not really, at least with cougars. Unless you consider not letting kids freely ride bikes on trails, play in backyards, etc. to be a "proper precaution". Seems extreme to me. The fact that you toss out cougars and wolves together like that suggests you don't really know what you are talking about. While attacks by healthy wolves are virtually non-existent attacks by healthy mountain lions are far more common. We have a 100+ years of good documentation on that. Now that it not a predictor of future events. As wolves breed with feral dogs and are subject to greater exposure to people as they grow up that may change. But that change will be for the worse.
Yeah, but don't assume that all vegetarians are trying to "minimize the number of animals that die on account of their diet", rather than (say) protesting the cruelty/consumerism of the meat industry, or avoiding flesh for nutritional/health reasons, or siding against the prevaling Judaeo-Christian ideology towards animals, or making some other political point; or even just avoiding meat for purely personal, subjective reasons that they may not even advertise.
Besides, the death of the animal you're eating is something you have direct control over. The deaths of rodents/insects/etc due to industrialized agriculture, that you're referring to, are a secondary effect. Arguably this is a separate issue that could be separately addressed, e.g. by eating organic food or joining a co-op where you have more control over where your veggies come from.
Not that I'm accusing you of this specifically, but it does always surprise me how many omnivores assume they know exactly why all vegetarians choose the diet they do. Often, they start attacking your reasons for it based entirely on their prejudices. It can be pretty funny actually (on a good day).
Anyway, you're right that this is somewhat off-topic for the hunting discussion. To be honest I don't see much to discuss there. While hunting may well be a useful form of culling, hunting with remote-control robot guns is clearly lame, sick and pathetic. It distances people from nature, and encourages the view that people can use technology to lord it over animals however they please. I have absolutely no problem with government restricting this kind of activity. Same goes for hunting with packs of dogs and upper-class twits (but that's a different story for the UK crowd...)
IT'S COMING STRAIGHT AT US!!!
.. it *needs* to be shouted!!)
(blablabla lameness filter
No sir, no bias at all. "Innocent animals", yep, innocent until proven guilty. "Ooo, icky, meat; I feel all squemish; you must be a bad man".
Bet you consider wolves taking down a deer part of nature's cycle, hmm??
Or perhaps you feel we should feed wolves on special vegetarian pellets that taste like meat but aren't because everyone knows meat is murder, even if wolves do it, right?
Either way, people aren't part of nature, right? And animals have feelings, right?
And you are denigrating that which you know not of, right?
First off, I'm a gun owner, I'm the NRA, and I support the rights of all sane able-bodied individuals to keep and bear arms.
I do not hunt. I do not fish. I choose not to, and I don't like the taste of fish. BUt I have lots of friends who DO hunt and fish. They EAT what they catch. What they don't eat, they donate to the homeless shelters (deer mostly).
They enjoy getting up early, traisping around in the mud and high grass and tracking a critter... I prefer to sleep in, then hop on the Net and see what's up...
But I digress -- as much as I support the rights of people to have guns and hunt, I found the idea of hunting over the internet to be offensive - and almost nothing offends me. BAck in the caveman day, it was a decent fight - sticks v. critter... As we improved our technology, it's become a bit more (ok, a lot more) slighted in our favor, but hey - with limits on how much game one can take, and what 'accessories' one can use to enhance the effectiveness of one's weapons, it wasn't too morally out there for me to deal with...
But sitting on your ass, blasting some creature to death while click on your mouse is just too much. It's not FUCKING DOOM3 people, it's actually killing something real (dare I say in meat-space?)!!! There's a certain amount of soul-searching that every hunter endures when they take a life so that they can eat, and I doubt that happens when some nitwit sitting on his ass clicks the mouse over bambi...
eHunting or iHunting or whatever - Hunting over the Net - never should have been, and being as morally reprehensible as it is, I hope it goes away forever...although information does want to be free so I sure that it will survive somewhere...
Being a long time target and skeet shooter I find it odd to be saying this, but here goes: We need a new gun law.
We should just outlaw remotely operated guns, assuming it is not outlawed already. It is not a technology they we need developed and marketed towards civilians. Going after this one application of the technology does not make sense, except that it will get legislators good PR.
Now those of you in a bunker in Montana don't get all preachy on me. I am well aware of what a poor track record politicians have writing legislation relating to technology, especially gun technology. Perhaps this is one of those rare occasions where they could get it right. Have the NRA help draft the legislation, the NRA helped with gun legislation in the past. For those of you shaking your head I believe the original incarnation of the "cop killer" bullet ban was so poorly worded it would have outlawed nearly all rifle ammunition. The NRA provided the technical expertise so that the legislation only addressed the ammunition it intended to address. There were similar problems with legislation to outlaw "plastic" guns. Again, the NRA helped.
...who's gonna go out there (in front of the internet-controlled gun) to pick up the deer after its been shot? Not me!
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Clear communication is never off-topic. Sometimes I despair of the slashdot readership - I thought nerds were *supposed* to be pedantically exact?
It's official. Most of you are morons.
gets my vote.
Don't think it's illegal too =)
For a law against internet hunting? My argument against that is that it is not the job of the government to teach ethics and morality.
If you actually think internet hunting is bad then talk to your friends and neighbors about it. Participate in protest marches. Pass out flyers on the street corner. Even make posts on slashdot if you have to. If you make a convincing enough argument I will agree with you. But please please do not go to the government and use the government for force me to agree with you. That is not what the government is there for.
1. Find the location where the gun/camera thing is. 2. Figure out what it's coordinates are. 3. Get somebody to go geocaching in this location. 4. Shoot them!
It's easy to prevent yourself from being traced to a specific location, and payment is also easy to fake.
sig.
You can't eat pictures...
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
> And while we're at it, how about we introduce a predator that could keep the human population in check?
well yes, that's what vampires are for, but the point is re-introducing top predators and keeping accidents to a minimum.
This always confuses me. I've yet to find a human who wasn't guilty of something, and I see no reason to assume that animals are inherently more law-abiding.
I guess today is a passable day to die.
If anything, I have a lot more respect for someone that hunts his own meat (as long as he/she is a good shot and knows his limitations), than for someone who buys it neatly packaged at a supermarket.
But, people, if you are going to hunt, be responsible and learn to fcking shoot!.
People willing to take a shot at an animal, but not willing to put in the time to be good enough to make a clean kill (or track down a wounded animal whatever it takes) makes me sick.
They're not any better than "internet hunters".
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
The point isn't really that it's remote-controlled, the point is that it's canned. You do realise it's canned, right?
Seriously, some of the posters here seem to believe that these people are forking out bazillions to build highly advanced armed robots that roam the countryside in pursuit of free-range game. What planet do you live on?
In reality, what you're controlling by remote is a swivelling apparatus in a pen, and what you're shooting at are fenced-in animals which were probably reared by humans on a farm. Which is about as sporting as going to a farm and shooting some cows and sheep. Ooh, the adrenalin rush.
If you're going to compare this to non-remote-controlled hunting, then compare it to canned hunting in person. Comparing it to tracking animals through the forest is just ridiculous.
As pathetic as this system is I don't think it should be banned. It needs to be regulated tho - someone has to be fully legally responsible for whatever happens (is it the owner or the user?) and obviously the gun should be on your property (clearly fenced and marked with warning signs like military ranges) and mounted to some standard (fixed arc of rotation etc) so that where ever it fires its guaranteed not to endanger anyone outside. Apart from that this whole law seems pointless, more deaths will occur each year from stupid idiots with loaded un-safe guns in their pockets - most of them under 18. The whole idea is going to raise a generation of fat lazy c^Hhunters but its probably safer because the idiot won't be able to have an accident.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Assuming you have one, and if you're a PETArd, you're incapable of making one that any reasonable person should spend time on.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Reintroducing predators isn't always practical. They are difficult to breed in captivity, and lots of people don't want predators living near their homes. Cougars, wolves, and bears are all quite willing to kill people's pets and livestock. Cougars in particular are quite willing to attack children. If food is scarce they'll even attack full-grown humans.
The theory behind hunting in more wilderness areas is that you hunt to put food in the freezer. Also, hunting regs in Alaska say that it has to be a fair chase and hunt. For example, flying and hunting the same day are illegal. I am of the mind that you shouldn't hunt if you aren't going to use what you get. Same for fishing.
Party at O'zorgnax's Pub! Buy me a Slurmtini aye?
Actually, at least one online hunting service (I believe the first one mentioned on Slashdot, one down in Texas) allows for the hunter to have his game packaged and shipped to him.
Don't blame me -- I voted for Roslin.
As an aside, I believe slashdot moderation is making me stupider. I now strive to spell things wrong and verbally stroke OSS projects in pursuit of a post rated +5. I have abandoned reasoned arguments and humor in favor of cliched puns and predictable one liners. For example, the above post is extremely stupid, but it should be just bewildering enough to avoid being labeled as a troll.
Sometimes at night I imagine the darkness is filled with horrible things with too many teeth, like Julia Roberts.
Shooting rabbits? Sniping deer? There's no experience points for killing grey stuff anyway!
Funny, I feel the same way about Americans.
End of story.
Thank god I mostly eat meat from the grocery store - there they only kill the guilty animals! "whereas tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine." Oh, and I here they only pluck guilty vegitables as well. Don't want to kill the innocent type.
TODO: create/find/steal funny sig.
This aired on NPR a while ago: "A Texas game ranch that offers real-time hunting via the Internet is drawing criticism. Hunters such as Dale Hagberg, an Indiana man paralyzed from the neck down, can shoot animals with a rifle controlled by computer mouse."
The audio archive is here.
(I hope the Web UI follows accesibility standards...)
-- Religion is not an exact science
You make a very good argument, and I agree with you on most points but, I might disagree on some details.
Although I agree with you on the role of evolution, I disagree with using it as justification. Primitive man also killed his competition for a better chance of propagation. As for our biological requirements, you are completely right.
As for having someone else (butcher) kill an animal vs killing it yourself, I believe that killing the animal yourself is more ethical. Look at how much meat is thrown away in this country. People who kill their own animals tend to have much more respect for the creature and do not waste them. Where I disagree with you is in the making a sport out of killing the creature. I have butcherd a few animals (goats, sheep, and pig) for BBQ's. However, I try to make it quick, simple, and as painless as possible.
Now, I do understand the desire for the sport, hell, we've got millions of years of evolution that make it desireable. There's the inrush of all kinds of hormones and nuerochemicals to make it a desireable activity. But, as a thinking being I find it distasteful to make sport out of killing.
Just my $0.02
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
slashdot - hunting ethics...gimme a break.
whereas tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine.
Innocent animals. Anyone that even remotely thinks this has never been out in the woods camping and ran across a bear, or even yes a deer can be quite aggresive. I don't agree with the whole sit on your butt and shoot from a computer, but hey, if you wanna do it have a private club or something on private land then its your choice of what you do in my opinion. But don't call animals innocent.. if you do it's obvious that the only animals you have seen are either domesticated or in zoos (or the discovery channel.. weeeee.. actually they do a pretty good portrayal of animals for the most part).. this is grizzly adams, signing off..
The Technomancer
"Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active."-
I would score that as a kill. In fact you should patent it as a sport for PETA types.
What makes a more even match for a set of antlers, a knife or a high-powered rifle?
I am trolling
That was 20 years ago and the deer population still hasn't fully recovered to normal levels, though it's getting there through nice, sustainable, controlled growth, encouraged by more aggressive wildlife management policies (more hunting).
Don't you see some error in your way of thinking? How is KILLING more deer to allow RECOVER the original population? Or you mean the population is STILL TOO HIGH (despite the mass dying because of the harsh winter) and you intend to help recover its original, lower number?
Truth is, the population WOULD have regulated itself. 75% of the population - the weakest would die. Next year the "boom" would be smaller. Then possibly there would be more food over winter, and so, in some time the population would ballance itself, equal number dying over winter as being born as "surplus" over normal population.
But no, hunters couldn't stand seeing so much good meat, so much game going to waste. Feed them now, shot them later, the preferred way. Of course let the weak survive so we could shot the best ones and still have the numbers matching.
The problem with hunters is that they justify their actions by short-term problems ("if we don't kill enough deers, they will destroy trees this winter") while their long-term tactics is directed at maximizing their own interest - first kill off all the predators (remove the competition) then maximize the population, while maximizing hunting - more born, more killed, more meat. The ballance could be kept - some predators, some herbivores and just several shots a year to keep the ballance wherever it gets out of hand. But no, you prefer to turn forests into game factory, where you MUST kill A LOT of wild animals to keep the area from ecological disaster. It's not "population control". It's "meat harvest."
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
Hunting is a primal sport and should be treated as such.
Also note that anyone who opposes hunting damn well better be a vegetarian.
I think TheSync is run by a bunch of fucking liberals.
Anyone who runs is V.C. Anyone who stands still is well-disciplined V.C.
Door Gunner, Full Metal Jacket
http://bash.org.pl/192
Translation:
<karp> I was doing this on fotka.pl [amateur photo portal. Girls post their photo sand get rated 1-10 by visitors]
<karp> I had a script to check fotka.pl every day and look at the notes.
<karp> If any was rated above 7
<karp> it was sending an email
<karp> If the girl wrote back, it was sending another one, nicer.
<karp> I got laid twice this way.
<karp> Only the third mail was written "manually",
<karp> the two first, sent by the script.
<karp> Efficiency better than 1 in 100.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
Biased much? Try thinking from an alternate viewpoint for just a milisecond. It may hurt, but it may be worth it.
Hunting is a NORMAL part of human life. Remember evolution? We're carnivorous Timmy. We have carnivore teeth. Animals are attractive because they are food. Only dumbass urban dwelling, Smartcar driving bunny huggers think deer are cute, mostly because they've never seen deer except in the zoo.
So Timmy, you ignorant city slicker, how cute is it when Bambi and her mummy step out in front of your car at dusk on the highway and freeze in the headlights? You're doing 70 mph in your environmentally friendly Smartcar, and Bambi is coming right in there to share the front seat with your animal loving self plus whoever else is in the car. Wife, kids, girlfriend... Happens every single friggin' day on the highways around New York City. Because why? Because no hunting therefore too many deer, that's why.
Or how cute is it when you see Bambi and her mother and brothers, sisters, cousins, second cousins twice removed and a whole passle of others standing in the middle of a denuded forest where there's nothing green less than seven feet off the ground. The deer are nothing but skin and bone, they have putrescent sores, and they smell like an uncleaned hamster cage. That cute? Happening right now in the Pennsylvania woods around Philly. Because why? No hunting, that's why.
How about Lyme disease? Cute eh? Explosion of deer ticks EVERYWHERE in the Northeast to match the deer explosion, you can't wear shorts in your own backyard. Because why? Because guys like Timmy insist on gassing off about "innocent animals" and smearing the morals of hunters. You can't hunt or even target shoot in the urban Northeast without being a social pariah.
Now think about the legions of Canada Geese on ever goddamn lawn in the USA. And goose poo. And West Nile virus. Be brave Timmy, you can think it. Yes! Congratulations Timmy you have got it in one. No hunters = bad things happen.
Timmy, your religious views are getting people killed in car wrecks, ruining the environment and spreading disease. Actions have consequences, you should maybe think about that a bit.
And yes, web hunting is unsportsmanlike. Get out and look it in the eye when you shoot it. And eat what you shoot.
The reason most places don't allow you to use a crossbow is because it's to close to a gun. With a compound or recurve bow you have to draw back and work to hold the strings until you are ready to release. However, with a crossbow all you have to do is cock it and it's sitting there ready to shoot until you need it with no work on your side. In Illinois you can apply for a handicap tag that allows you to bow hunt with a crossbow and off of a 4 wheeler.
I agree, this is integral "Your Rights Online." I protest this grave infringement against my inherent right as a human to operate a deadly weapon using some Flash game on my desktop.
How long before a real-life hunter walks into the frame, and some jackass takes a potshot, killing a human being by clicking their mouse? Will it really matter all that much (aside from lawyer wrangling in the court) whether the murderer-by-click is a snot-nosed prepubescent who figured he'd never get caught and it would be "cool to draw real blood," or a self-righteous anti-hunting zealot who thinks offing a hunter would "serve the cause?" Frankly, to the victim and their family, probably not.
I have no problem with hunting for meat. I like meat, and I love venison (though to be fair, I don't much care for hunting. Sweaty, dirty work and not very entertaining for me, but then, I'm not much of an outdoorsman. That, however, is a question of personal taste) and frankly, the better the herds of deer are culled, the better off the entire eco-system is. But allowing anyone with a computer and an internet link to operate a deadly weapon is criminally stupid. Eventually it will be used to kill a real human being, by some amoral fuck (and the Internet is full of those) who thinks, for whatever reason, it would be real cool to click on that link and ice the guy in the orange vest who happened to walk across the video feed.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
"whereas tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine." Unless your a veegan you don't have much right to talk about killing innocent animals. becuase I bet that the deer that gets shot buy some hunter had a lot better life than the cow that you just ate in your Big Mac. I have no problem with hunting animals as long as you eat what you kill. Thats why I don't aggree with catch and realease fishing, you harm/terrifiy the poor fish just for sport.
' tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine...'
You ment to type:
"Sitting your ass up in a treestand
sucking back a six pack and eating sandwiches
until some stupid deer walks into view..."
Skynet was thwarted before it even got off the ground.
geez, just when the kids are getting out of school for the summer...
...the Pentagon has announced a new exit strategy for Iraq, replacing "boots on the ground" with internet hunters...hmmm...just might work...
http://www.pnflashgames.com/modules/pnFlashGames/g ames/duckhunt.swf
How fucking biased an article can you allow to be posted? Why not have the article contributor come and drive in my part of the country, where if tehre were no hunting, we'd see all sorts of traffic fatalities due to deer collisions.
Flaming liberalism does not a tech site make, it makes for idiocy. This site has enough of that in its article replies without need to pander to it in the article postings themselves.
And yes, when you moderate, just remember, this post is incensed, not idiotic.
The issue of killing and torturing animals made so common in the popular media during the trial of Jeffrey Dahmer has been grossly oversimplified.
Almost every child goes through a phase where they "torture" insects at the very least; just last night I watched two small neighbor boys "maim" a dozen carpenter ants. At very young ages they're intellect and emotional intelligence isn't developed enough to project thier own emotions and understand those of other people and to the extent they have them, of animals.
Watch very young toddlers in a nursery -- you *have* to watch them -- as they have no barrier preventing them from hitting, poking, pulling or harming other children, especially smaller ones. My own son will pull my hair, ears, rip my glasses off my face and make a run at mom's earrings. After a couple of hair/ear pullings, the dog won't even get close.
It's only when children are older, in their adolescent years, that they have a developed sense of self and an understanding of others feelings that animal torture becomes an issue. And it's not even the killing aspect -- it's the prolonged torture and post-death experience that really demonstrates sociopathy and lack of empathy, not the actual killing itself.
My dad lived in the Ozarks in the 1940s, when it was quite rural. As a teenager, he used to shoot water moccasins and turtles all the time. The turtles would eat his trout lines, and the snakes were a dangerous pest. He never went on to be a sociopath.
we could have. But we also like the taste of venison, duck, quail, goose, rabbit, etc.
the food was just a nice side effect of the time we spent together.
However, it seems you just prefer to ignore purpose of my reply and instead focus on an activity you are obviously opposed to.
What are they innocent of, exactly?
Is there a presumption of guilt for beef cattle, ro si this just some stupid hippy snipe at omnivores?
Carpe Deez
Guilty of being delicious, that is.
I'm all for the ethical treatment of everyone, but let's not get all sentimental about animals. They eat eachother, some animals even eat their own kind. There isn't anything unnatural about eating a healthy proportion of meat in one's diet and it's far healthier to get that meat from unprocessed foods like those one would get from hunting.
On the flip side, eat your goddamn vegetables! You'll feel and look better for it and you'll probably live longer too. Beyond that, vegetables are quite delicious themselves.
Our greatest enemy is neither a single man, nor is it a nation, it is, as it has always been, our own greed.
I hate those goddamn things - flying bags of poop! Every morning, the parking lot at my office (in fort washington) is a damn minefield, except you can't see the field for the mines. Every morning, I have the opportunity to run over legions of the goddamn things, but I have to steer my car in a seemingly random path around the parking lot to find a space because it's illegal to even harass them, let alone kill the goddamn things. I can't understand how the hell those things could possibly be considered endangered or threatened.
... it's like eating a shoe - even when cooked rare. They're destroying all of the national and state parks around here - valley forge, peace valley, evansburg... all stripped of low-lying vegetation (habitat for god knows how many species), everything covered in deer scat..
I know what you mean about deer... no vegetation near ground, skinny starving deer.. they're not even good to eat because what meat they do have has no fat
Something needs to be done, of course, as long as we don't harm the poor defenseless deer...
*sigh*
Hunters consider hunting by robot and mouse click 'a digrace to the sport,' whereas tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine." Why the mention of "innocent animals." This is a tech site, not some strange animal "rights" site...
Almost every Harvard student was High School Valedictorian- After a year of college, half are in the bottom of the class
So if you had antlers, fangs and claws, you would take on a guy standing in a distance holding a high-powered rifle? If you ever do so, please make a video of it and send it to a TV channel. I'll have a good laugh.
That's the great thing about the US -- virtually every single bit of forest left is near either agricultural land or suburbs. Farmers don't want predators eating their livestock, and suburbanites don't want predators eating their pets and children.
Innocence is a characteristic only assignable
to humans. It's a concept that springs forth
from morality, which animals aren't subject to.
Animals do things, like kill people, but they
cannot bear guilt.
There are people that slaughter animals with
no regard to the waste of it all. They hunt
only for the antlers, for instance. There are
those, like me, that hunt then consume the
flesh. Still others hunt for trophies and make
every effort to insure the meat doesn't go
to waste.
Internet hunting from a practical standpoint
is dangerous. Latency alone insures that what
you see on the screen is not realtime. You can't
know what the real picture is when you click the
trigger. If an animal in a herd is the target,
you will very likely wound a different animal
when you click. It's as risky as so called
"sound" shots. A person that has been through
firearms training, and had the lessons stick,
will recognize the danger.
The stated application for this system is for disabled hunters, such as Dale Hagberg, a 38-year-old quadriplegic who "worked a computer mouse with his mouth and tongue on Saturday, April 9, to shoot at an antelope on a game reserve near Boeme, Texas, while lying in bed in Ligonier, a town in northeastern Indiana."
Everyone keeps heaping scorn and ridicule on "lazy hunters who can't drag their ass of the sofa to go hunting in the woods." But what about paralyzed people who couldn't drag their asses anywhere if they tried? As both this Washington Post article and the referenced L.A. Times article note, the hunt on April 9th did have the traditional elements of a "normal" hunt--Hagberg had to wait for the antelope to come into the clear, just as an "abled" hunter would do in a blind. He came away "empty-handed" as his computer wasn't fast enough to maneuver the rifle in time to get a good shot off (damn lag!)
"Lockwood, the site's creator, points to the failure of Hagberg's hunt as proof that it is truly a 'hunt,' complete with hours of idle waiting for prey and ample opportunity for it to escape. 'It's not about killing something,' he said. 'It's about experiencing the thrill of the hunt, the boredom, everything that goes with it.'"
Restricted to disabled hunters, I see nothing wrong with this website that is not also a problem with "traditional" hunting (PETA concerns, etc.) But to be solvent, I'm sure they would have to throw open the doors to Joe Lazy-Ass as well, which is less compelling.
But I would argue that, just like in Sony Betamax vs. Universal, the problem is not with the technology, but with the way the consumer utilizes it. Hagberg shows a "legitimate use" of this technology, and to ban it outright through special legistation reeks of misunderstanding and shortsightedness. I mean, Joe Lazy-Ass is also out in the woods flushing game with dynamite and using AK-47s to mow down yearlings, and we don't ban all hunting to stop him there. We should allow the proper hunting technology to the proper people, and not throw out baby with bathwater.
Who cares? How did that animal die that gave its life for those shoes you're wearing? Or your belt? Or your food? Personally I'd rather an animal died from one shot by a high powered rifle then stabbed to death like your fantasy.
This guy is way out there
Campers the lot of them. The only time they ever peek out of the bushes is to distract you while the rest of the team bombs the site and it' "wildlife wins" soon after thet.
800 million? For one thing, you're way off. Check out http://www.cia.gov/ and they
state India has over a billion people now. And while we're at it,
most of those folks are vegetarian because they have no
choice. I'll probably be modded down because of political correctness,
since everyone's afraid to criticize someone else's culture
unless it's American, but India simply has bred too much. They need to controlt their population.
If they suddenly went atheist and started eating meat, you would have widespread famine. Vegetarianism simply takes less land per capita than
grazing, which takes less land per capita than hunting/gathering.
"...whereas tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine"
I am not a hunter, but, I know quite a few that are and I intend to take my children hunting with some of them in a couple of years.
Most people (yes, there are a few wackos) that hunt have a respect for animals and life in general that metrosexuals, such as yourself, could only dream of possessing. Kids that are trained properly and hunt KNOW what a gun can do and are much less likely to find a pistol and play with it resulting in one of their friends having their brains blown all over the place. They also learn to respect animals and you won't find many hunter kids out torturing animals and loading squirrels full of BBs. In rural areas, you'll find one wacko kid that likes to put M-80s in a cat's butt. Everyone knows who this kid is and he will be ostracized. In urban areas, you'll find whole gangs of wacko kids that enjoy this sort of thing. After being caught killing a cat and being charged more seriously than most human murderers, these urban sickos become animal rights activists and join PETA and try to force everyone to eat lettuce. Hunting is to be enjoyed for the sport, but only as a backdrop to filling one's stomach.
In fact, the hunter is far more respectful of animals than those of you living in Asphaltville buying beef off the shelf. Yet, this is a product of our civilization's growth. Everyone certainly cannot be supported by individual hunting. Therefore, those horrendous places where chickens and cows are raised (rather than on a nice farm) are an evil necessity.
I am a carnivore. My genetics dictate such and my tastebuds and health require it. Isn't it funny that you who so fully support the genetic theory of homosexuality reject your carnivourous nature? In fact, this almost feels like a hate crime.
(Humans are actually a cross between herbivores and carnivores...both are required. Bad things happen if you only eat one or the other. Show me a 90 year old that has ate nothing but veggies all of her life, or, show me a 90 year old that has ate nothing but bacon.)
KeS
(Browning A-Bolt II Stainless Stalker in .30-06 for me, thanks.)
True. It's a term I use so I don't confuse the idiots on /. with talk of calibers. Me, I prefer my 22-250 Model 70 or my beloved 6.5 Swedish Mauser.
This guy is way out there
I am the lazy hunter
The question we're discussing is whether or not it's a sport.
I am trolling
No, they fire them slower. Sure there's a spectrum, but there are definitely guns which are more powerful than others.
I am trolling
You must be one of those liberal metrosexuals who lives in an asphalt forest devoid of any intelligent life (besides rats) and rides the bus everywhere.
I have to drive 25 miles to work (dumb rural guy wasting valuable resources--many rural people make up for this by not using the home or work A/C until the temp hits 95F--I am not one of them), at least 20 miles to get to a grocery store, at least 20 miles to get take out food, and 40 miles to get to a mall or other such "real" store. All told, we put about 300 miles a week on Betty. (We don't actually call her Betty, but my Mom always called her cars Betty--come on Betty!! Start!! Start damn it!!! You Bitch!!! Come on back in the house kids, we aren't going.) Only time I ever heard Mom cuss.
I know I get going to much...always do, I can't help it. Everyone around here is to concerned about corn, rain, and whether the powers going to stay on to have semi-intelligent (or psychotic depending who you talk to) discussions with. Anyway, on that gas thing...I drive a big Dodge Intrepid. It only gets 20 MPG (24 in the warm months). I like this big, gas sucking car. It has plenty of room for the family; it is comfortable to drive 300 miles a week in or 300 miles a day. I love everything about the car. But, most importantly, it is BIG. Did I mention that? And the windshield is sloped at an extreme deer diverting angle. I am confident that our family will survive meeting a deer with this vehicle. Your little wind-up hybrid cars are death traps in rural/interstate driving. They have a place...should be great for short city hops (if your battery doesn't die while stuck in traffic blasting Hip Hop at distortion levels.) I see this guy driving a Prius every once in awhile. For some reason, he always gets on the LONG interstate entrance ramp right in front of me. I do all sorts of crazy shit to pass this dumbass while still on the ramp. I then watch in my mirror as he nearly gets pummeled by a semi traveling 40 MPH faster than him everytime he merges. And please, a baby doe would likely kill ya, perhaps even some of the possum around here would result in the nead for breaking out the jaws of life.
Fortuneately, the wife and I work a block apart so two cars are not required most of the time.
I'd say the biggest cause of accidents around here are:
1) Deer
2) Drinking (usually leads to one car accidents with telephone polls or trees around here.) Most of these happen around 4 A.M. I make a point of not driving anywhere between midnight and 8 A.M. on Saturday and Sunday. I also do not walk anywhere near telephone poles nor trees during these hours.
3) Dumbasses that don't understand what a STOP sign is.
Where I live, I have four fears while driving:
1) Deer
2) The driver in the oncoming lanes reaction to seeing a deer.
3) Wondering, while driving down a highway, whether or not the dumbass, 300 feet from the highway on a side road and traveling at 80 MPH, is going to stop before he gets to the highway. Some of this can be blamed on rural dumbasses, but, in reality this situation is the worst when meterosexuals from Chicago come down for some summer fun.
4) During deer season, I worry if any dumb city slickers are around trying to hunt deer with a Desert Eagle pistol or M82 Barrett sniper rifle. Makes me wish for an armored car.
5) At night, I fear that the local dumbass town marshall (damn, some myths are true) may be speeding around without ANY lights on trying to sneakily pursue someone (we have seen a couple of awesome wrecks as a result of this obnoxious behaviour--luckily, both involved the cop and his pursuee.)
6) If a stoplight loses power, immediately pull off the side of the road (a safe distance from the intersection) and get your camera out. Guaranteed drama will quickly occur. The tiny town I live in rarely loses power, but, I think Baghdad has a better record for maintaining power than the city I work in. I nearly crapped myself when I checked the uptime o
Are you a "good" parent?
Please, enlighten us instead of spewing diarrhea from your mouth like a typical liberal.
Let me answer for you:
Ways a "Good" Parent Bonds with their Kids
1) Meeting with the family shrink weekly.
2) Smoking pot together in your new watercraft purchased with funds you won after suing the grocery store where your son slipped and busted his ass while attempting to evade store security due to the stolen PayDay candy bar in his pocket.
3) Discussing the merits of fisting over abstinance while watching Boy Meets Boy at the dinner table.
4) Take the kids to the Swinger's Club with the wife every other weekend.
5) Bonding by your show of support for your son while waiting to meet with the principal to inform him that you will be suing the school if Ms. Dawson continues to make your son stand in the corner with a dunce cap when he yells "Bitch!" and shoots a spit wad in her ear.
6) Excellent bonding occurs when you buy your screaming kids Ben and Jerry's ice cream along with your other $300 worth of "grocery" purchases using food stamps at your local Village Pantry/7-11.
7) Bond with your 13 year old daughter while assisting her with the murder of her first child. She will love this! HUGE bond! My Mom and Dad are COOL. THEY took me for my first baby murder! Poor, Sue Ellen, her parents are conservative. She had to get a liberal Judge to allow PP (Baby Killers-R-Us) to drive her across state lines for her murder without her parents knowledge. She was soooo afraid of being grounded for a year and getting slapped. I am so happy that I can be a little slut without consequences! I love you Mom and Dad! Say, can you put me on the pill Mommy so that I don't get preggers when me and Slick, Dick, and Shifty go out Thursday night?
Your kids scream and throw tantrums until you give them what they want off the store shelf.
Your kids cut through peoples flower gardens on the way home from school.
Your kids throw rocks at the neighbors new car (lawsuits, lottery, dope, welfare). The neighbor doesn't have to worry about his car, right?!?!? First new car he has ever owned, he's 45, worked his ass off, and paid cash for it.
Your kids see a nice new stereo system at his friends house and break-in later that night and steal it.
in the San Bernadino hills during hunting season, when folks lose goats, dogs, horses, and the locals are afraid to go out in the woods during the season.
While golf is much more a local danger and doctors, well the population they practice on is much more likely to die from any causes even if they get perfect care (being generally sick) than the average person.
But see I like internet hunting as it would make it easier to keep the guns in one place, which could be well marked. Put out a big bait pile and blast away, I say, we've got more than enough deer, and they do make a mess of a perfectly nice bumper.
Hunting isn't just about taking out your high-powered rifle and wasting an animal. You have to be out in the environment. You have to be where the animal is in order to kill it. While the technology for finding and killing animals has become more advanced, there is a connection between the hunter and the prey .
I'm not anti-hunting, but I have noticed that most people (not just hunters) aren't very empathetic to the plight of their "prey". I doubt very much that the prey feels any sort of "connection" the way the hunter does. In fact, I think it would mostly be sensations of horror, mind-numbing fear, and infinite pain unto death.
The hunter probably feels his "connection" because, in a somewhat fair contest, he needs to understand the environment, the habits of his prey, and even the individual personality of the unique animal he's trying to kill. The disconnection from reality occurs when you consider the fact that it's not really fair, since the hunter's life isn't at stake, and the prey would rather that you had no "connection" or understanding of it's personality.
Now, if the hunter were only hunting for a photograph, and the prey received royalties from the deal, then I suspect the prey would feel a lot better about the hunter's deep understanding and "connection".
Of course, that's ridiculous, most animals just want to be left alone, or at least not frightened, injured, or killed.
Hmm, I've said everything I wanted to say, but one more thought needs to be recorded here. All this talk about "connections" with victims I've heard in other places too: from assassins, murderers, spies, thieves, snipers, and rapists.
Don't take that too harshly, since I don't think hunting is quite the same as those things are, but please, whenever a hunter talks about some kind of compassionate "connection" with his prey, please ground him into reality for me, and explain that his prey is going to die, and the hunter is the one going to do the killing. Nothing more, and nothing less.
Perhaps I speak for others as well when I ask, just WTF is Internet Hunting?
Yes I know I can look it up, but that's not my point...
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
I understand what you're saying, but I also think that one of the fundamental differences of opinion between hunters and people who don't believe in killing animals is that hunters feel that killing is natural, while animal rights advocates feel that killing isn't natural. This is a complicated debate, but I'm curious about how you feel about the issue of killing animals for food.
Several of my friends are vegetarians, but they all have slightly different reasons for it. For example, one of them feels that if he couldn't bring himself to kill a creature, he shouldn't eat one that someone else killed for him. Another thinks that humans were never supposed to be meat eaters. A third believes that humans have essentially elevated ourselves out of the day to day struggle of life and death that other animals inhabit, so for us to intrude is wrong.
Personally I feel that if a hunter eats the animal he kills, he is not acting in an immoral fashion. To me, life is precious, but not all life has the same value. If I tread on a flower, or kill a fly, it's not the same as if I had snared a rabbit or shot a deer, and it's not even remotely close to killing another human being. Whether the hunter's life is at stake or not is immaterial in my view, because other predators frequently take in food they do not need (cats, for example).
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this, not because I want to bash on you, but because I get the feeling you've put a lot of thought into your opinions about hunting.
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