What the feds or provinces say is of no sematic importance. These are the same pinheads who think an airgun is a firearm. They are just creating useful classification systems for their management purposes. Like the same sex mariages. They write whatever rules they want, their opinions are hardly primary.

Obviously crossbows are a form of archery. So would be truck sized arrow throwing siege engines that fire object the size of a person. It' s pointless to ignore that for good reasons or ill, there is a prejudice against crossbows. Just last night I was watching the Twin Towers (I guess it helps if you' ve read the books). Anyway, when the bad guys breech the gate the first thing they shove through are crossbows, nasty blighters. Of course all the blond good guys have " lonbows" . These prejudices seem to be class based (like Japanese noble' s concerns about firearms ruining all the good fun they were having with swords), and they have carried forward. Also somewhat cultural, Robin Hood vs WIlliam Tell

So let' s talk bowhunting. What is modern bowhunting, other than something defined by the feds and the provs? It' s american style industrial archery, largely. We all know who it goes back to and where it goes forward to. You can imagine you' re part of it if you use a crossbow, if you want, but your dilusional. The only breech in the wall was money. As various founders kicked the bucket, or sold out, their firms started to list crossbows. Welcome to bowhunting!

So run it down for me. How many pope and young listings can you get with a crossbow? Give me the top five big name crossbow hunters? Hum turns out to be a short list?

I like all things that go bang or twang. The legitimacy of the crossbow in regular bow hunting seasons is largely under question because of prejudice, and the fact that it isn' t self-held. I' m sure someone will say the same about a compound. But if you ask people who teach archery how many people can manage their 60-70 pound compounds with 80% letoff, the answer is probably about 5%. Why, because even above average, for the general population, strong people can' t hold at full draw for over 10 seconds without loosing mechanics. Go to a PSE shooter school if you don' t know this. And again why? Let' s say you shoot a recurve, you draw to 70 pounds, and release. We ain' t talking Olympic sight archery here, where you need to be seriously strong to hold at full draw. Compare that 70# recurve to a 70# compound/cam. The pull to full draw requires more energy on the compound, and you have to hold it there, it doesn' t mater that the holding weight is just 14+ pounds. You' re still working harder than the recurve. And the recurve also uses limb tip geometry to reduce holding weight at full draw. Feel the tradition.

This holding weight thing cuts two ways: In favour of crossbows, the vast majority of " real" archers can' t fully handle their bows. Against, the average crossbow is taking advantage of the bow locking at full draw, or should be.

The nock on crossbows right now is the idea their users don' t know much. The real issue, if in fact there is one, is that if skillfuly used they would be tacticaly quite a different animal, and capable of diferent things.

On safety, I haven' t seen anyone hurt with either type of bow, but... I' m less worried about the odd arrow discharged into the ceilling of a range, than bows that are always loaded, in the same sense as a gun. Those high flyers are part of the reason we have ranges, and stores; to let the punters make fools of themselves, and gradualy learn what they can really handle. I guarantee you that kind of stuff isn' t tolerated outdoors where the big folk play.