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Camera Gun Would Let Hunters Get Killer Wildlife Shots
Zothecula writes "Not too long ago, brothers Randy and Michael Gregg were out on a hunting expedition. It was the day after deer season had ended, yet they spied a handsome animal bedded down in the snow. Not wanting to pass up an opportunity, they silently crept up on their quarry, raised their rifle, lined the deer up in the crosshairs ... and then took a picture through the scope with a mobile phone. That photo provided all the proof they needed that they had successfully stalked their prey, without bringing home an illegally-obtained carcass. It also inspired them to create the Kill Shot — a replica hunting rifle, that takes pictures instead of firing bullets." The Kill Shot isn't just for hunters. Think of how great this would be at sporting events or family reunions!
My aunt and uncle are avid bird watchers in Canada. My uncle built up a spotting scope on a rifle stock that he uses up there all the time. He brought it down here to SoCal and was out at the edge of a lagoon looking at shore birds when all of a sudden a number of police cars showed up, lights flashing, and the officers jumped out and drew their service pistols. Seems a number of folks had reported a lunatic (I'm not dismissing that assessment) with a gun out in the lagoon. Luckily they didn't shoot my uncle, but instead had a bit of a chuckle about the whole thing with the ultimate suggestion that his selection of bird watching paraphernalia could be better ;-) Relatives!
Why not combine the best of both worlds? A rifle that first shoots a bullet and a photograph a split second later.
Part of the fun of hunting is physics in action. You have a possibly moving prey X meters away. You need to know the wind, hold the gun steady, lead the prey, and know the drop of a bullet. If you just take a picture, that could be a complete miss from bullet drop. If you just take a picture, you could have missed with a bullet because the prey was moving.
Regulated hunting is good because it keeps the animals from overtaking the environment and being pests as most of the natural predators are gone.
God spoke to me
Except for varmint shooters (I'm one). That's all for the kill. Gophers/Prairie dogs exploding in a ball of red mist is just amazing.
They make really heavy guns shooting small caliber bullets out of medium cartidges (.204 Ruger/.17 Fireball) for two things: Target (read paper) and Varmint (dead sploded things). The heavy guns let you see the target in scope as it blows up. Without the combination of lighter cartridge and heavy gun the recoil would not allow you to see the action.
The design of the varmint bullets is such that you have a bullet spinning at a couple hundred thousand RPMs that is highly frangible. This is what makes the things go *poof*. There is far more varmint type bullets from commercial manufacturers than there are target bullets in these calibers. That's what people want, and for good reason: it's fun.
Down south some of these critters actually get big enough to be a source of food. Where I live (up north) that's not the case. They are tiny little critters that just annoy ranchers and farmers. The annoyance is in the form of broken legs on cows/horses and crop damage. My fun actually helps things, but I do it for the fun, not out of helping a fellow human down the road.
I can't tell if this is a joke, but a gun that also takes a photograph just before it fires could have very serious uses. If all police, for example, were required to use such a gun, we could have a much better idea whether any shooting they're involved in was justified.