One of the concerns I saw was poaching. Now I fully understand that its the person and the poor attitude that causes someone to be a poacher...BUT....certain weapons lend themselves to poaching. Enabling people to poach "easier" if you will. I would think a crossbow would be one of those weapons. Silent, easy to fire from a truck or car window, etc. Now I dont want to say ban them all, because, as mentioned, I really dont want to prevent people from pursuing this wonderful sport. But....in a way, they are bad because they are a silent weapon that can aid in poaching. Does anyone agree?

Of course silenced pistols would be another weapon to aid in poaching game, but I think they would be harder to get your hands on. Im not sure though....Im not into guns, so I dont know much about them. I guess each state would have different laws pertaining to handguns and silenced weapons. Maybe someone else can speak more knowledgeably on that topic.

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Mattiac

First off, when I was younger I knew people that poached. They didn't use a crossbow the used rifles and shotguns. Why? Because they wanted a quick, clean kill at longer distances. They knew that by the time someone called the game warden to report that they heard a shot they would already have the deer dressed out a long way from where they shot it.

Second

Suppressers (silencers) have been illegal since 1934 in the same legistlation that banned automatic weapons. They exception of course is the military, police, class III gun dealers, and those that want to pay $600 per suppressor and go through a background checks and approval by the ATF. Some states have additional restrictions. My brother in law was a class III dealer, had suppressed weapons, and even though we had access to them, we never used them on wildlife (illegal in AR).

Point is; whoever is going to break the law will do it anyway.