RE: Crossbows are not archery!
<font color=red>"Lets keep the archery season for bow hunting and create a crossbow season outside of the archery time frame; that is what I propose."</font id=red>
Let's not.
First we give crossguns a season, thereby legitimizing them carte blanc? Now what we have is a larger user group and the manufacturers have more power to get them where they really want...in archery season. Sorry, but I'm not willing to give them so much as one more foot in the door.
You don't protect yourself by appeasing others. You don't uphold what's right by slowly passifying what's wrong. And you don't preserve archery seasons by slowly letting crossgun manufacturers get a foot-hold.
It's no different than the ARA's. First let's ban trapping, then baiting for bears, then we'll go after hunting with hounds for lions, then something else...on & on we go. Sounds like Sarah Brady and the assault weapons deal. As bowhunters, we should have learned this lesson long, LONG ago.
Can't happen? How do you think they became legal in IL for the handicapped? The crossgun folks wanted them across the board in the archery season, and the State threw them a bone.
Look at WI. First they're only for the handicapped. Then, they're for anyone over 65 years old. Give it a few years...they'll make another push.
Like I said; bowhunting has been bastardized enough in the last 10-20 years. A line needs to be drawn once and for all.
JRW