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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."

13 of 984 comments (clear)

  1. Wow by ZorbaTHut · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:Wow by Schlemphfer · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Ever heard of a respectable news site?

      Dude...don't you know what site you're visiting? But I have to say, it's refreshing to see a bias AGAINST cruelty on here for a change. Check out the majority of responses to this story for the typical Slashdot reader response: Beef is yummy. Let's eat meat. Screw PeTA. Etc.

      But this time, here's a clear-cut case of something grotesquely cruel. I mean, how could a decent person say that it's OK to artificially stock animals in small fenced areas, and then have a remotely fired gun so people can blast these creatures through the Internet? Sorry, that's just flat-out wrong, and even most hunters would say so.

      I thought I'd pass along a couple hunting-related links, taken from just the past couple of days. First, be sure to read Matthew Scully's superb article "Fear Factories," in this week's American Conservative. Animal rights is often incorrectly thought of as some fringe cause, only embraced by people on the left. Here, Scully writes brilliantly about why conservatives should hold animal agriculture in disdain. And he starts his article by mentioning this Internet hunting issue.

      I publish Vegan.com, and I have some commentary on Scully's article on my podcast from yesterday. You might want to listen to that as well.

      And, what the heck, here's another article taken just today from Fark. One hunter was in the woods making a turkey call. Another hunter came along, thought he was hearing a real bird, and shot the hunter. Because, after all, when you're packing a hunting rifle there's no reason to actually look to see if it's actually a turkey you're shooting.

      I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming: Meat tastes good. Animal rights people are losers. I'm going to go out and have a thick bloody juicy steak -- yum! Because, after all, if PeTA sometimes pisses people off and chooses stupid battles, that clearly means that everytime they oppose cruelty a sensible person should side against them.

      --
      I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
  2. Why does there need to be a law for everything? by linguae · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?

  3. Re:Wait... Logic Check... by sellin'papes · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I think the big difference is that when you are hunting you actually have TO GO to the animals environment and kill it. You have to crap in the bushes.

    so you're crapping in the bushes and a deer comes along and you shoot it with your high powered rifle, easy right? But on some level you now understand what its like to crap in the bushes like a deer. And for understanding this, the killing process becomes very real.

    over the internet it is no longer hunting. Its a video game where things actually die, there is no connect.

    --
    This is my last post.
    [6th Estate]
  4. Re:You're violating my rights! by nametaken · · Score: 4, Insightful

    whereas tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine."

    Wow, that wasn't inflammatory.

  5. Re:Priorities -- what can you say for it? by Morvandium · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
  6. Re:News... by ScentCone · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why is 'whereas tracking and killing innocent animals on foot is just fine' appended to the end of this story?

    Because an unbelievable number of people think like that. You know, people who wear nice leather shoes, eat some meat with their dinner, and who have a domestic cat that, despite eating three times a day in the kitchen, stalks and kills neighborhood songbirds just because it's fun. People are spectacularly hypocritical and uninformed about this stuff, and know nothing about the monumental amount of work and cash that hunters put into wildlife management programs and wilderness preservation.

    On tonight's dinner menu at my house: pheasant that my wife, my dog, and I laboriously hunted in South Dakota last October. During that outing we pumped a couple thousand dollars into the vapor-thin local economy, walked over miles and miles of farmland, always filling in the host farmers on what we saw in their cornrows and pastures. The "innocent animal" bit only makes sense if you also consider mosquitos innocent, the earthworms that get sliced up by farm equipment creating vegan meals to be innocent, and so on. Bah. This topic is so rife with nonsensical, contradictory emotional baggage and anthropomorphized Disney-esque pablum. Yeesh.

    --
    Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
  7. Innocent animals? by Malc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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).

  8. Re:You're violating my rights! by flyingsquid · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I don't enjoy killing animals- I find it disturbing, to be honest, to look something in the eyes and consciously end its life- but every once in a while I take up the invitation to go hunting and kill a deer or a snowshoe hare, because I just feel there's something hypocritical about being unwilling to kill animals, but being willing to have someone else do it for you and pick up the results at the supermarket. I figured I either had to be able to kill something myself, or become a vegetarian.

    That being said, what really pisses me off is hunting wolves from aircraft in Alaska. Where the hell is the sport in that, I want to know.

  9. Re:Hunting by YOU+LIKEWISE+FAIL+IT · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Wolves and other large predators. Read his comment, please!

    Wolves have been driven to near extinction in a great chunk of Asia, Europe and the Americas. Nobody likes living with large predators on their doorstep, and for that reason, they've been trapped and hunted to a shadow of original population levels.

    Yes, we caused the problem, but our options right now to fix it are as follows: reintroduce high end predators to areas now contested for use with humans ( I favour this approach, and some places like the Algonquin Park have a blanket ban of wolf hunting, but not all agree ) or manually cull deer, etc, numbers. It's really that simple.

    Of course, yes, the ecosystem will eventually rebalance to a new, diversity-poor, deer-heavy state if we do nothing - just as it has for 'so many millions of years' - but I like the ecosystem we have now, and I'd like to see steps to see it preserved.

    -- YLFI

    --
    One god, one market, one truth, one consumer.
  10. Sadistic people by glrotate · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  11. Re:You're violating my rights! by Chris+Carollo · · Score: 4, Insightful
    The amorality in the act of killing animals is in the waste factor.
    No, the amoraility in hunting is killing another living animal for fun, and claiming it's a "sport".
  12. A vegetarians perspective... by danro · · Score: 4, Insightful
    If you're not a vegetarian and you buy meat from a supermarket, there's only one response you deserve:
    Sit down and shut the fuck up.
    Having someone else kill your meat for you doesn't put you in any better ethical position than a hunter who kills his own meat.
    I am a vegetarian, and I agree completely.
    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."