If you are trying to keep them out then you are taking something away from them. You are taking away their right to choose and you are potentially taking away their right to be in the woods with a bow.

Again you are characterising crossbow hunters as those that can't hack it anywhere else. Contrary to what you might think some people may prefer to shoot a crossbow though they are thoroughly efficient at both. Also, you're aren't taking into account women and children and the partially disabled. You can say, well if a woman wants to hunt bad enough then she'll keep practicing yadda yadda but have we really done this sport a service when we turn the would be members away because they can't pull as much weight as we can? It took my wife forever to be able to pull legal hunting weight. I can guarantee you she wouldn't have stuck with it if she hadn't been able to shoot a crossbow at first. She would have gotten bored because she hadn't had a taste of it yet. You don't miss something that you have never had so walking away wouldn't a have been a big deal. So what would the sport have benefitted from turning another advocate away? The same goes for kids and those with medical problems etc. You can say well a kid that's old enough to hunt should be able to pull legal hunting weight but that's like saying that an adult should be able to dunk a basketball. We don't have the same capabilites and we don't develep at the same levels. We are human and we're all different and you can't paint everyone with one broad stroke of the brush. There will always be those that aren't as big or as strong as others are. It's life. Should those people be punished and denied the right to hunt because they are small or frail? I don't think so. Someone else mentioned how they didn't think kids should hunt until they had done X, Y, and Z and well that's rediculous. Kids progress mentally and emotionally at different levels and it's not up to us to determine whether or not someone else's child is ready to bowhunt. It's the parent and the child's decision. Many of us including myself did start hunting at a very young age and just because you didn't or you weren't ready to at a young age doesn't mean that others may not be. Again, why do we set up rules that may keep them from ever joining our sport in the first place?

We actually cougie MaJay is the one that's said it was about the hunt not about the weapon so that's where I was coming from. However, since you brought it up crossbows shot an arrow that is identical to a compound with the exception of length. They do so with a string and cams and limbs. They have nearly identical specs in terms of speed, range, and KE. Can you say that about all of those other things that you mentioned? That's an easy argument to make. Well why don't we just allow anything....blah....blah....blah. As data says the reason is the same reason we don't have seperate season for rifle, shotgun, and pistol. Because they are all guns they're just different types of guns. If your reasoning is becasue it's a primitve weapons season then compounds don't belong in it either. Because in comparison to trad equipment there is nothing primitve about a compound.