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Texas Lawmaker Wants To Let the Blind Hunt
IHC Navistar writes with a story from Reuters Oddly Enough. A Texas lawmaker has introduced a measure that would allow blind people to hunt any game that sighted people can currently pursue. The article notes that the bill may have clear sailing in the hunting-besotted state of Texas. An education outreach person from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department explained it this way: "A blind person can shoot a rifle by mounting an offset pistol scope on the side of the rifle instead of on top. This allows their companion behind them to peer over their shoulder and help them sight it, but the blind person can pull the trigger."
It's not that big of a surprise. With Chuck Norris prowling the area, they figure that everyone has a right to take their chances.
Look on the bright side. They'll never see it coming! (The roundhouse kick to the face, that is...)
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I am a Texan, and I seriously do object to the characterization of my state as "hunting-besotted". Note: this post is not intended to be humorous. I am aware that most (at least I hope) people will recognize this characterization as hyperbole, but from many other things that I have read and heard, there remain a significant number of people who will not. Therefore, while I am certainly not demanding that nobody ever say this about Texas, I do wish to speak up and be heard when I assert that this is, in fact, hyperbole. Hyperbole has its place in satire and parody (and other forms of mockery), but it should be countered (as opposed to censored or removed) unless it is known that everyone recognizes it as satire and parody. Texas is not "hunting-besotted".
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
It's not a Texas thing. It is legal for the blind to hunt in most (if not all) states. The only thing new is that Texas wants to let them be aided with lasers.
15 other states allow the blind to use lasers to help them hunt.
How is this an "Only in Texas" thing?
-- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
I don't think what people are making fun of here are blind people. What they're making fun of is Texas lawmakers who are so extreme on "gun rights" that they're willing to legalize such an obviously dangerous and stupid idea. You don't see them letting blind people get drivers licenses, but with guns, it's OK. I don't have a problem with what your brother did for his friend, but there are folks out there who seem to think there should be no regulations on guns, period. The only rational response to such people is to make fun of them, which they make very easy to do.
Grocery shopping and walking down the sidewalk are required for participation in society. Hunting is not. Also, the set of circumstances where a blind person shopping could result in someone getting seriously injured are a lot harder to believe than for a blind hunter.
We don't allow blind people to drive cars, either, but no one thinks this is prejudiced or an erosion of human rights.
Help I'm a rock.
Among hunters, hunting is a lot more than pulling a trigger and killing something. It's more about the very primal action of pursuing an animal for food. (Most hunters I know do in fact eat what they kill). It takes a lot of skill, and years to learn: where and when the animals gather, how to sit quietly and patiently, how to observe. All of those are skills you once had to develop if you wanted to eat.
The ultimate kill with a rifle is only the very end of the process. It's kinder than the older methods, such as a bow and arrow, which often wound an animal without killing it, and you have to track it to put it out of its misery. A rifle can drop an animal immediately.
If you eat meat, you can hardly claim that having somebody else kill your dinner puts you on a higher moral plane, especially if you've seen the way animals are treated in our factory-farms. Hunting puts you directly in touch with what you're eating, guts and blood and all.
So it sounds silly at first blush, but the blind can be active participants in a hunt. They still have ears and even noses; they can still be outside; they still eat what they kill; they still have the camaraderie of a hunting party. If the technology lets them participate even more fully in the process, why not?
There are, by the way, an awful lot of hunters who hunt for other reasons. Some will use a lot of high-tech to make it practically shooting fish in a barrel; they seem to care more about the kill than the hunt. I know they exist, but that does not describe most hunters in my experience.
I myself do not hunt, but I limit my animal products when I can to ones I believed were raised and slaughtered humanely.
I know for a fact that my friend who is wheelchair bound would laugh his ass off if he heard, for example, that the Olympics would allow people like him to compete by, say, strapping a wheelchair to a legged individual. For him and for me, part of the way we deal with the challenges he faces is by the ability to see the humor that presents itself.
"What's so random about flipping a coin? Ever heard of the I Ching?"
Or more to the point ...
"Bob, did I hit anything? Bob? Bob?"
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Hunters blind you!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
"Texas wants to let them be aided with lasers"
Why?, is it so they can blind the sighted hunters as well?!?
There are 10 kinds of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.
Not making fun of anyone-- I grew up around firearms, and hunting is a way of life in much of the country, esp. where I come from. Not my personal choice, but I have no issue w/ it. The one thing that was drilled into my head, over and over and over again, is that when you pull the trigger of a firearm, you are personally responsible for whatever happens. You are personally and individually responsible for examining everything between you and the target, and everything you can see downrange of the target, to make sure that if you choose to pull that trigger, you are not going to hit anything you didn't mean to hit. Being told by someone else, "nope, nothing downrange, fire away" DOES NOT CUT IT. And I'm sorry for anyone who wants to hunt but can't, but if you can't see downrange, there is no way you should ever pull that trigger. What if what your buddy thinks is an old tree behind your target and a little to the left, is actually another hunter. And then you shoot, and miss high and to the left, and punch a hole in the guy's chest. Are you gonna feel o.k. for the rest of your life knowing that it's really your buddy's fault, he should have seen it?
Nobody dies from walking around the store w/ a guide dog, or using a cane. When you pick up a firearm you're making life and death decisions for other people, and you have an ethical responsibility to personally know what that gun is pointed at.
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
While I'm not a hunter myself, I have to agree with this statement. While hunters certainly enjoy hunting (otherwise, why bother), most people out there aren't just shooting animals for the heck of it. It isn't like the slaughter of American Bison during the expansion into the West, which truly was senseless. Most stores don't carry venison, so if you want to eat it, your best option is to hunt deer, or find a friend that does so. Sure, if someone snags a big buck, they're probably going to mount the head or rack or something, but they're also going to eat the meat, and possibly find a use for the deerskin, etc. If they don't use it themselves, there is likely to be a buyer. There may be a few bad apples out there who really are just out to shoot stuff and get drunk, but if we're lucky the getting drunk part means they most shoot themselves.
Also, in many areas, certain animals are overpopulated, mostly because their natural predators were hunted out long ago. For example, while whitetail deer were once very low in population about 75 years ago, conservation efforts have brought their numbers way up. In Wisconsin there are estimated to be 1.4-1.5 million deer. While wolves have been reintroduced to Wisconsin in recent years, they are still considered threatened, and their numbers aren't quite high enough to manage the deer herd on their own. We have also had problems with CWD (Chronic Wasting Disease - similar to Mad Cow disease) appearing in the local deer population, so the hunt allows the DNR to see where it is, where it is spreading too, and if necessary, order additional hunts to cull the herd in areas where it is rampant to prevent further spread.
Without the hunt, the deer population could eventually get large enough where they are starving themselves or damaging crops or causing more auto accidents.
A blind person can absolutely do that by having someone assist them is sighting the gun.
I completely disagree. Unless you can see the target, the range, and downrange yourself, you cannot be sure of your target. The way I was taught, that means you don't take the shot. Having someone else tell you "range is clear, fire away" is NOT a substitute.
Choosing to pull that trigger means you are personally responsible for whatever happens after. If your assistant screws up and misses some kid screwing around in the woods downrange and you plug the kid, you're still going to have to deal with the guilt of that the rest of your life.
Yes, I grew up around firearms and hunting. Still like to shoot, not much of a hunter anymore but 100% support those who choose to hunt. When I was a kid, a friend of our family ( a hunter himself) was mistaken for a deer and died one season in the woods. The person who shot him was an experienced hunter, and a perfectly nice person, who made a one second lapse in judgment about his target and had to live the rest of his life knowing he killed my friend's father. If you're blind, are you really going to let someone else judge your target for you? If so, you better be prepared for the consequences.
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
Shh! Not so loud! Some Texas lawyer might get another bright idea.
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blind people. with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!