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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."
It's my God given right as an American to be able to sit at home in my underwear and kill shit.
I had just wrote up an shell script to do all my hunting for me, and now this!
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.
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.
*sigh* PETA is just too extreme. And red meat is just too tasty.
-It' ok to eat fish because fish don't have any feelings. -KC
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
Does this mean no more playing punch the monkey?
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?
My bow and I would like you to come within 100 yards and say that ;-)
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]
I think the orginal poster is talking about tearing the heart from a 9 foot tall bear with your bare hands then holding it over your head on top of a hill shouting in sheer barbaric primal release.
In keeping with my roots, I do a similar thing when I buy a plastic and styrofoam refridgerated package of boneless, skinless chicken breast for $1.99/lb.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
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
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.
The main reason everyone is so upset/scared over internet hunting are the safety concerns.
Not really. The internet hunting takes place on private grounds nowhere near populated areas, so it's safe. The concern is really the morality of it.
Also hunting on foot is a lot more noble and is a tradition that has been carried out for thousands of years.
Indeed.
And I might add this: most countries where hunting has been a tradition for centuries couldn't afford not having hunters. What I mean is, the hunter is part of the ecological balance of whatever area they hunt in. Take them out of the picture, and suddenly certain species of game, previously hunted, see their numbers soar, destabilizing the ecological niches of numerous other species, and introducing diseases and malformations in their numbers, due to overpopulation.
In many countries, hunters regularly conduct what they call "cynegetic management", or "sanitary shootings", which is essentially the removing of weak and diseased surplus animals. Those sanitary kills can also preserve endangered species, by lightening the burden on their food sources and the predatory pressure on them. This game management is healthy for the environment, which is what most green anti-hunting folks fail to understand.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
What would be useful here is a new term that would permit the distinction between "hunters" and "dickwads with big guns." Currently we lump the two groups together and heap derision upon both for the sins of the latter (and some don't like the former, either).
... and thought myself lucky to have had an interesting day.
... the hunters, of course. It may be shallow to lump hunters together with dickwads with guns ... but the hunters would not suffer so much abuse if the dickwads with guns went away forever.
In my case, I *have* been deer hunting and goose hunting --- myself armed with a camera, and my companions with guns. I've had a bleeding deer carcase in my lap for 45 miles bouncing along in an open jeep in 25F weather,
I don't think I could pull the trigger, and there is that little issue that I'm a vegetarian. But I don't hate "hunters."
I do, however, hate dickwads with guns. In my day job, I put up scientific apparatus in remote places, and dickwads with guns use my antennas for target practice, chop up my coax, steal the guy lines, and generally remind us that the gene pool has a shallow end.
But if there is one group of people who should *really* loathe dickwads with guns, it is
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)
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).
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...
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.
Obviously you've never been hunting if you think it's just a matter of aiming at an animal and pulling the trigger. I hunt, with a camera, and oh how I wish it were as easy as just pushing an "I Win" button. There's a great deal of tracking, prediction, guesswork, and luck before you even get to the point of sighting the animal. That's the sporting element that's missing in a hunt-over-the-web setup. Without that element it's, as the aphorism goes, like shooting fish in a barrel.
Where do you get your chicken breast for $1.99/lb? It's around $6.50 here. I think I would probably hold it over my head shouting in sheer barbaric primal release too, if I found it for $1.99/lb...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I don't think this could be funnier if you tried.
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
Hey, there's an idea. I could set up a fly swatter with a web cam and let the world kill my bugs for me!
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.
Assuming evolution works, then the fact that our bodies don't make us good hunters should tell you something... like perhaps we shouldn't be hunting.
Ah, but our big brains and opposable thumbs make us very good hunters (us very good tool builders/users can use tools to overcome our lack of running speed, sharp claws and sharp teeth). The calorie density of meat is the only reason your distant (and your fairly recent) ancestors flourished and resulted in a population that included you.
Among primitive man, nobody who lived very long was a vegetarian, and nobody had the luxury of buying their meat already killed and cleanly presented in the supermarket. If they didn't kill the animal themselves, they knew who did.
If you're a strict vegetarian, congrats, I haven't got much criticism for you (though I do dislike a lot of the self-deceptive propaganda you read). 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. If anything, the hunter has some control over how much pain the animal feels as it dies. You'll need to be keeping a close watch on the slaughterhouse that supplies your butcher to claim the same ability. As someone who had an informal tour of an operating slaughterhouse, I know I can do better with a rifle. And after taking that tour, which showed me just how horrible the process is that puts cleanly wrapped cuts of meat on the supermarket shelf, I took up hunting again.
Regards,
Ross
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."
Among primitive man, nobody who lived very long was a vegetarian, and nobody had the luxury of buying their meat already killed and cleanly presented in the supermarket. If they didn't kill the animal themselves, they knew who did.
Indian culture is vegetarian (India indians, not native americans). As they are the second most populated country with around 800 million habitants (or almost a billion as americans call them) I would say that you can be vegetarian, live long and procriate.
On top of that mankind has another source of proteins that doesnt involve hunting. Man started domesticating animals thousands of years ago.
I'm trying to get modded "Interesting Flamebait Informative and Insightful Redundant Troll" *-* Please Help *-*
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.