General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI talked to 11 hunters yesterday and none of them said they needed a semi-auto or even a third shot.
I had a family reunion and I have a lot of uncles and cousins who hunt and hunt together every year. I dropped out of hunting 20 years ago after I got 2 grouse with two shots and figured I'd quit while I had a perfect record of never missing.
But there are photos of my relatives with 30-40 birds piled on the front of their cars and a few of my cousins got their first deer before they learned to drive.
You would think given the NRA's portrayal of hunters that these men would all be gun nuts....
Well nothing could be further from the truth. NONE of the ten men or one youth are NRA members, even the four of them who served in the military.
Every single one of them said that for hunting birds there is no need for anything other than a double barrel shotgun, or if you can't afford one, a pump action shotgun. They also said that only ONCE did someone hit three birds with three shots and that was with a Double barrel shotgun and fast reloading skills, not a semi-auto. Of the ones who hunt deer they said that NEVER has a single one of them ever hit anything with the third shot ever and this is over a period of 45 years and involving at least a 60 different hunters over that time. Almost every one of the deer hunters used a single shot rifle, a pump slug gun, or a bow.
The fact is that any gun that fires more than three shots is for killing targets that don't run from the sound of gunfire.
In other words if you fire more than three shots you are wasting ammo, endangering people around you, polluting the soil against the next year's crop of game, and importantly you are scarring away any future game that day with the extra noise.
I still remember one of my uncles nearly crying and cursing himself, because he shot a pheasant when he thought it was a different bird. Even though pheasants were legal to shoot he explained to me that they were too rare around this area to kill even if the Gaming Commission didn't forbid it. He said, "I really wish we could just stun these birds with rubber shot or something. It's not like when i was a kid and our family needed the meat. Besides you are the only chef in the family good enough to make any of these birds taste better than a turkey from the store. i want you to take a good look at this dead pheasant because it will be the last one you ever see on this land living or otherwise."
I wonder if hunters like my family are the norm and are drowned out by all the NRA crap.I guess that is too bad because the hunters of my family are the kind of people other hunters should aspire to be.
slackmaster
(60,567 posts)Did any of them tell you about a 1,000 yard head shot on a 30-point buck?
slampoet
(5,032 posts)I haven't ever heard a single tall tale from any of them about hunting in my entire life. Many of these men served in Vietnam and have too much respect for life and meat to tell tall tails. Also one of them was a sniper, so we tend to be modest about such things out of respect.
Bragging is something the family kinda doesn't do unless you are young.
former-republican
(2,163 posts)slampoet
(5,032 posts)What is that like 150 feet? If that? yikes.
formercia
(18,479 posts)Lucky it wasn't a Moose. You have two choices if using a call: Shoot or give it up.
Response to slackmaster (Reply #1)
RetroLounge This message was self-deleted by its author.
slackmaster
(60,567 posts)But I am not an "NRA guy" nor did I call anyone a liar.
Lighten up and have a good holiday break. You're taking stuff way too seriously.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)Who care for the land too. The NRA used to...but then came a coup in the 1980s.
I wish the NRA went back to the past.
ProgressiveProfessor
(22,144 posts)You don't hear much about them since it is boring and lacks the salaciousness to attract eyeballs.
neverforget
(9,437 posts)of what the NRA has become: a lobbying group for gun manufacturers and Republicans.
ProgressiveProfessor
(22,144 posts)ileus
(15,396 posts)slampoet
(5,032 posts)ileus
(15,396 posts)or give them away. depending...
Varmints are a different story, but you knew that.
slampoet
(5,032 posts)Skittles
(153,375 posts)meow2u3
(24,781 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)Personally, when I've carried a gun as a civilian it was because of snakes and coyotes, which is a very different situation from stalking game (at least as far as I remember I've only used a pump-action shotgun for that, but I'm also not much of a hunter).
JohnnyBoots
(2,969 posts)With Second Amendment?
former-republican
(2,163 posts)slampoet
(5,032 posts)Even the three that live in Detroit.
It is attempting to prove the point you are trying to make. More restrictions don't affect responsible hunters in the least.
ProgressiveProfessor
(22,144 posts)Though I know many who use semi automatic shotguns of the 1100 family with a magazine block
ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)Shooting fish in a river can be very difficult, and a semi-automatic rifle really comes in handy.
Paladin
(28,293 posts)There is open scorn aimed at hunters by gun activists (including the insulting term "fudd" , along with repeated statements that the Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting. The sort of firearms which gun activists like---semi-auto pistols and military-styled semi-auto rifles---are not designed for sporting purposes, they're designed to kill human beings.
Sounds like you have a good family.
slampoet
(5,032 posts)jal777
(59 posts)I use a semi-auto .22lr, a 20ga Remington 11-87 semi-auto shotgun. These guns provide me with a quick follow up shot on game when needed. I stive for quick humane kills when I hunt.
Igel
(35,402 posts)There are a lot of rights I don't experience a need for. Doesn't matter if I need them, want them, or disregard them. I have them.
Never had a need to not have troops quartered in my house during peacetime. Situations never come up, to be honest. Perhaps it has for you or others. Still, that doesn't mean I don't have the right not to have them billet in my living room.
Berserker
(3,419 posts)portrayal of hunters that these men would all be gun nuts....
Nope that would be just the far left on DU not all Democrats.
OneTenthofOnePercent
(6,268 posts)qkvhj
(57 posts)The second amendment is not about hunting. Not one word of it is about hunting. Our courts have already decided that this is the right of the individual.
HeeBGBz
(7,361 posts)When he went hunting, he took one shell. If he didn't bag a deer with that one bullet, he didn't get his deer.
Response to slampoet (Original post)
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flvegan
(64,428 posts)Sweet, sweet irony.