If inlines bring more new hunters into the woods, then it can only be a good thing for EVERYONE because it ensures that our sport will live on for future generations.

Take bowhunting as an example. Before the compound bow was introduced and gained acceptance, there were relatively few, but admittedly very dedicated, traditional bowhunters in the woods. Now, with the current pressure from anti-hunting groups to ban bowhunting as unethical and cruel, do anyone honestly think that this tiny portion of the hunting community, without the huge ranks of compound-only bowhunters that exist today, would have been able to preserve their season? The honest answer is NO. If the states, at the behest of the bigoted traditionalists trying to hoard the season for their exclusive use, had outright banned the use of "modern, high-performance," compound bows, and these compound bows had waxed into obscurity, bowhunting would not exist today because their season would have been yanked right out from under them by the anti's looking to route any hunting season they think they can get away with.

We're going this same route with the anti-inline protectionists. They want "their" season returned for their exclusive use, and instead of seeing inline shooters as fellow hunters and preservers of the ML hunting heritage in a slightly updated form, they instead look down their noses at them, poo-poo their choice of weapon, and think of them unskilled bumbling slobs because they use a gun that shoots a little faster or handles a little better than their big-bore Brown Bess flinter. When the reality of it is that an inline, while "modern" in appearance (as, say, an K98 Mauser is also 'modern'), it still loads from the front one shot at a time and provides the hunter, unless very lucky, with one and ONLY one shot, whether the range is 20 or 200 yards.

So I will say that I am THANKFUL, as we all should be, that Tony Knight reignited the passion for muzzleloading among the masses with the reintroduction of the inline ML, not just because I enjoy and prefer the inline design, but also because I know that because of the inline, my daughter (if she so chooses) will be able to take her choice of a traditional Hawken flintlock, or "modern" inline into the woods when she's old enough and hunt deer despite the anti's best efforts at preventing her from having the right to do so.

Mike