Orlando

[uwe]

Forgive me, Dave, silly me, this is a hunting gun and valiantly tries to look like one, I forgot.



You take one look at that thing and you know it's a hunting gun for rodent and carnivore control, yeah!

Shouldn't we build cars so they look like tanks too, way cool! I want my Volvo Kingtiger on the Autobahn. And all passenger planes in camouflage with fake bombs and rockets - why should that influence the pilots?

Us Europeans are certainly weird. My uncle hunts, I've seen his rifles, he's a very conservative man, but he would never get near a vulgar contraption such as the one pictured above. Might have to do with the fact that as a kid he lost an arm playing with WW II ammo he thought "looked cool". So did his two friends. One of them died, the other was permanently blinded by the shrapnel. My uncle always says: I pulled the lucky straw!

[Dave W]

So you think it should be banned b/c you think it looks vulgar? I guess that's better than that pussy reporter from the NY Post NY Daily News who fabricated a story about how he was traumatized by shooting one.

They are popular hunting rifles, no bigger than conventional looking rifles. They're accurate, easy to shoot, easy to take apart and clean, and modular for easier part replacement. They're no less safe than other rifles of the same caliber. One shot per trigger pull, like every other semi-auto on the planet. Why wouldn't they be used for hunting?

[lowend1]

Why wouldn't they be used for hunting?

Because in some states they won't let you - the AR-15 is deemed by some  to be too small for deer.

[Pilgrim]

I like the aesthetics of my pre-WWII Savage Model 99 better. The .300 Savage caliber doesn't have the range, the muzzle velocity or the capacity of the AR-15, but it holds 5 rounds in a rotary magazine.

You know what the old hunters say:  "One shot, one deer. Two shots, maybe one deer. Three shots, no deer."

Leaving two extra shots for lurking tin cans.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

Shooting groundhogs and coyotes with AR-15s? Very huntsmannish, I must say. Shows a strong bond with nature as you would expect. Kind of like gatling-gunning down bison herds, they were a pest that needed to be eradicated too. All the grass they stole from the domestic cattle.

You obviously don't understand the significance of the word "varmint." Look at page 18 of this.

I am NOT "hunting." It IS eradication as efficiently as possible. Groundhogs are in no danger of going extinct, (I regularly pass three or four beside the road sunning in the middle of metro Knoxville every day on my way to work) but because they are burrowing animals, an AR's ability to repeat fire and be extremely accurate means that it is more humane to dispatch one at the edge of a burrow with a quick follow-up shot rather than have the animal die slowly underground after being hit non-fatally. The .223 is perfect for a groundhog. Before I had the AR, I used a bolt action .243 and only aimed for head shots. That way if I missed, I missed completely. .223 means 223 thousands of an inch or 5.56 mm, a very SMALL round. The difference between it and the .22, considered a toy in power and fit only for squirrels and rabbits, is a relatively larger powder load.

Coyotes? The rifle itself rarely kills more of them than they do of each other after one is hit and they never leave bodies because they eat/tear each other apart and drag off the pieces and that should tell you exactly WHY they require such harsh measures. They are not indigenous to this area and only thrived after moving here 30-40 years ago from the west because wolves and panthers were eradicated 150 years ago. Most of them aren't even true coyotes, but half breed coy-dogs that have no natural fear of man and will eat a small child just as quickly as they will a calf, and it does happen. They also kill for its own sake and will often leave mauled carcasses to rot.

  Even though this area is overrun with whitetail deer, which had been wolf/panther prey, the coyotes ignore them and go after domestic animals, pets, and children first. They average three or four calves out of ten births every year.  That's a loss of over $3000, VERY conservatively. Beef cattle have high birth mortality anyway, but the coyotes effectively double it and they HAVE also killed or injured mothers to the point that euthanasia was required.

...and also, the "right to bear arms" isn't about hunting anyway. It's the US Constitution calling for its citizens to forcibly depose of tyranny. "Militia"gets bandied around without context:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

..and you know that legal distinction, even one as old as that one, is significant. While modern urbanism views it as archaic, outside of a few urban areas where the media is also concentrated, the gun is still very much the "law of the land," (like on my family farm) and that's why many Americans will never swallow the idea that human civilization has advanced beyond the need for weapons, because it hasn't.

[uwe]

I think the military look of some weapons implies a certain "image" of what they are to be used for. Military weapons are made to shoot and kill people, full stop, not animals. It should make everyone think why people would want to adorn themselves with that type of look. I also find it worrisome how hunters - along with their guns - have taken on a more and more military look (camouflaged uniform type garments) over the decades, these days they look like they go to war like some mercenary unit and not out to hunt.

Now I'm a WWII buff as much as anyone here - but that doesn't give me the inclination to keep a Kingtiger tank at home that can actually fire - or dress up in Waffen SS "Flecktarn" battle fatigues.

And I personally think coyotes are cool, they have better family values than most humans. Your argument that there are not enough mountain lions and wolves around to keep their numbers down is an interesting one, now how did the mountain lion and wolf numbers get so low, didn't that have something to do with cattle protection too? Whenever man feels the necessity to intervene with the population numbers of a certain species it is because of his own prior wrongdoing. And: The concept that coyotes might eradicate American cattle masses without human intervention is in ecological terms a laughable one. You just seem to hate them. More cattle gets run over by cars than eaten by coyotes - now don't get ideas with motorists please! - which you have conveniently stamped with every carnivore clichée imaginable ("kill with lust", "eat their own", "not racially pure", "not indigenous", even the "eat small children"-adage, we're getting firmly onto Brothers Grimm territory really ...).

Don't get me wrong, I don't have issues with a single dangerous coyote being taken out (wolves are thankfully returning to Germany and of course some of them will have to be killed if they become a concrete danger), but I'm wary of qualifying a whole species as dangerous, damaging and worthy of eradication. They mass-killed foxes here in Germany in the 50ies to 80ies because they were allegedly rabies carriers only to admit sheepishly in the 90ies that other species - squirrels among them - are much more prone carriers. And the rabbit and pheasant population neither rose during the fox mass killings nor has it now gone down. We would probably have to breed foxes to keep the overpopulation of pheasants and rabbits (both not indigenous, but introduced for hunting purposes) in check.

[westen44]

In general, I'm not very pro-hunting.  I realize it's necessary for some people and that's fine.  Usually, though, it's something I wouldn't want to have anything to do with.  I barely even eat any meat.  But I have to make the exception with coyotes.  They have a reputation in this area of sneaking into the city at night and killing cats, dogs, etc.  There is plenty of evidence to support that this is going on.  From what I've heard, trying to stop them isn't very effective here.  If someone is killing coyotes, though, he is doing a public service as far as I'm concerned.  I think to some extent coyotes have been given a reputation that's better than they deserve in popular culture.  My grandfather even had a painting of a coyote on the wall that I remember from my childhood.  But in real life coyotes are unwanted predators. 

[Dave W]

Because in some states they won't let you - the AR-15 is deemed by some  to be too small for deer.

That's not surprising. In some calibers they are too small for deer.

Gersh Kuntzmman (no, really) is the NY Daily News reporter who claimed that firing an AR-15 "felt like a bazooka and sounded like a cannon." 

Squeeze lightly on the trigger and the resulting explosion of firepower is humbling and deafening (even with ear protection). The recoil bruised my shoulder, which can happen if you don't know what you're doing. The brass shell casings disoriented me as they flew past my face. The smell of sulfur and destruction made me sick. The explosions — loud like a bomb — gave me a temporary form of PTSD. For at least an hour after firing the gun just a few times, I was anxious and irritable.

That's the kind of hysteria we're seeing.

Here's a clip from 5 years ago, retitled in response to his article. Terrifying!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc-hqiAlfQM&feature=youtu.be

[uwe]

Ok, Dave advocates taking 7-year-olds to shooting ranges firing wannabe-military look guns, his point being somewhat opaque other than that we should all be less hysteric (tell that to the parents of the Orlando victims). Maybe that little girl should take an AR-15 (in pink?) to school so she can fend off the coyotes trying to eat her on her way home.

I rest my (gun) case!

[the mojo hobo]

[the mojo hobo]

But for myself, I prefer the classic shape.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

I think the military look of some weapons implies a certain "image" of what they are to be used for. Military weapons are made to shoot and kill people, full stop, not animals. It should make everyone think why people would want to adorn themselves with that type of look. I also find it worrisome how hunters - along with their guns - have taken on a more and more military look (camouflaged uniform type garments) over the decades, these days they look like they go to war like some mercenary unit and not out to hunt.

The irony is that when the M-16, the military version of the AR-15 was introduced to the military in Vietnam, soldiers viewed it as a toy and disdained it. There were teething problems after bad cleaning recommendations and lower grade ammo which gave it a reputation for being unreliable, and the entire AR-family ("AR" stands for "Armalite Corporation," the company that Eugene Stoner worked for when he designed the rifle; there are other "AR" series rifles.) was maligned until it was proven in the first Gulf War. So among "killers," this 'scary looking' rifle was hardly regarded until 40 years after its introduction.

And I personally think coyotes are cool, they have better family values than most humans.

I invite you to witness what a rampaging pack of them can and will do to anything they come across. Again, MOST of the animals are not true coyotes and the cross breeding with dogs is what has made them so dangerous and also why they butcher each other at the least provocation.

Your argument that there are not enough mountain lions and wolves around to keep their numbers down is an interesting one, now how did the mountain lion and wolf numbers get so low, didn't that have something to do with cattle protection too?

Didn't have much cattle here then; wolves and panthers were killed off by fur traders mostly starting 150 years before (incidentally almost ALL of those hides went to European royalty). The geography of the area contained them. Farmers might have shot an occasional straggler, but there was no organized wholesale cull. Panthers STILL exist here; they've just learned to hide from people to survive. I have seen two in person in the wild along with a large lynx. Officially wildlife management denies their existence, but most folks who have lived here have seen otherwise. It's kind of hard to explain away a large three-foot feline tail cut off by a hay mower.

Whenever man feels the necessity to intervene with the population numbers of a certain species it is because of his own prior wrongdoing.

I agree in principle, but my personal reality is that "I" have to deal with the fallout of many, many other's people's negligence and I do not have the luxury of ignoring the problem that they do.

And: The concept that coyotes might eradicate American cattle masses without human intervention is in ecological terms a laughable one. You just seem to hate them. More cattle gets run over by cars than eaten by coyotes - now don't get ideas with motorists please!

The numbers I gave are the averages for MY farm; that's just one of thousands in this region. I don't care how laughable it seems to you; wait until you're digging an oversized grave with a front-end loader or agonizing over leaving a mauled scared animal whose offspring has been ripped to pieces and left in front of it in the middle of the night to get a vet to see if it can be helped.

- which you have conveniently stamped with every carnivore clichée imaginable ("kill with lust", "eat their own",

Coy-dogs, the animals which most often pack hunt and rampage have a super rigid social structure, and when one of them is injured, they turn on it brutally and will also kill any intra-pack defender or pack member even accidentally injured in the fracas. I am not repeating any sort of myth; I have SEEN it multiple times firsthand.

"not racially pure"

Full blooded coyotes don't group into packs, and for those who have to deal with them, including the official TWRA classification, the generic term "coyote" is understood to be a blanket generalization. "Legit" coyotes showed up as soon as wolves and panthers were deposed, but it wasn't until urban sprawl and the loss of family farms allowed for rampant interbreeding with dogs in the past few decades that they became the problem they are. The indigenous critically endangered red wolf, (which is unlike any idea of a wolf most folks have) which is VERY shy, has been almost wiped out by coyote competition. Red wolves share predatory (rabbits, squirrels, groundhogs, etc) habits and habitat here as true coyotes but were so shy that no one knew how decimated they had become until the late 1980's.

even the "eat small children"-adage, we're getting firmly onto Brothers Grimm territory really ...).

I tried to find some news stories but all the local publications are either subscription-only online and/or extremely limited in archives and national wire stories about the election dominate the active sections. The last time a child was killed that I can recall was two years ago, and offhand I can think of at least a dozen cases in the past few years.  Locals teach their children to be careful, and like I said about the media in general, they don't know shit about what happens outside of a concrete and asphalt-insulated existence, so there are no mass media appeals of teary-eyed mothers calling to kill every coyote.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have issues with a single dangerous coyote being taken out (wolves are thankfully returning to Germany and of course some of them will have to be killed if they become a concrete danger), but I'm wary of qualifying a whole species as dangerous, damaging and worthy of eradication.

I forget that you have no context to understand how I "hunt" coyotes. There is no stalking of or tracking process; I set up in the pasture field where they have been rampaging at dusk and pick them off as they run through in a pack. When one is hit, the others turn on it immediately, preferring to kill rather then even flee. Even with 30 rounds, five or six aimed shots is stretching things because, well, I'm in pasture field and those bullets go a VERY long way. Once you see them literally rip one other apart in seconds, any thoughts of "management" are deposed. These are NOT wild animals; they are dangerous hybrids.


That's the point about the whole issue of guns that those who think banning them will fix society's ills don't seem to understand and don't want to understand. You live in a different world, one that has a thick layer of civilization to insulate you from your environment, both legally and in terms of survival.  You quote abstracts and statistics; I'm in the field in the middle of the night. Seriously, you have NO idea what you are talking about to the point that it is insulting. All it would take to show you how wrong you are would be one encounter of a pack of these thing coming after YOU with no fear after having killed a helpless calf, loyal dog or yes, even a child.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

Gersh Kuntzmman (no, really) is the NY Daily News reporter who claimed that firing an AR-15 "felt like a bazooka and sounded like a cannon."

I imagine that firing my 30/30 or a double barreled shotgun would probably kill him. That that worthless hack got paid to write his fiction shows just how worthless the corporate media in this country truly is.  AR's have a recoil spring that absorbs MOST of the rifle's recoil; it's almost like firing a BB gun. The round is generally supersonic, so it's loud, but no more than a medium- volume snare drum. M-4 style carbines with subsonic ammo are quieter.

[uwe]

I don't doubt for a second that a coyote can kill a child - lots of animals are able to kill humans and sometimes do. Would I defend my or someone's else's child against one of them? Of course I would, even if it was the last unicorn! But do I believe that you have to deplete the species so that man can live utterly safe from a statistical point of view? No. I don't want a world without rattlesnakes you might step on or wolves and sharks that might go after you.

And while I lived in Black Africa for three years I was surrounded by poisonous snakes and encountered a few of them (they loved to sun-bake in half-built homes and in Africa there are a lot of those) - it never occurred to me that they should all be killed because of that danger. Neither did the local population, they were just careful where to step.

[lowend1]

One of my favorites...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIF3pW_kTuo&ab_channel=KuroiSerenity