Anti Hunting Article:
02-12-2002 | 01:36 AM
#1
Thread Starter
Joined: Feb 2003
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From: SE WI USA
Anti Hunting Article:
http://www.captimes.com/opinion/column/guest/9650.php
Joel McNally: Hunters take aim at ... you?
By Joel McNally
January 5, 2002
Wisconsin hunters, despite having the run of the state politically, always feel terribly put upon. Now their recreation is being threatened by yet another annoying obstacle to turning Wisconsin into a free-fire zone - the presence of other living, breathing human beings.
It seems as if nonhunters are becoming increasingly irritated at having their homes sprayed with gunfire and, in extreme cases, getting shot and killed by Wisconsin's most celebrated sportsmen.
This all came together in a rather graphic way on Dec. 1 when a 47-year-old Chippewa County mother was fatally shot in the head while walking her dogs near her home because she was wearing a white, knit cap that a hunter mistook for the tail of a deer.
The woman apparently thought it was safe to venture outside because the state's regular gun hunting season ended on Nov. 26.
What she had failed to take into account was that in recent years the Department of Natural Resources has been creating all sorts of special hunting seasons as a way to extend the fun.
The average citizen who is not consumed with gun lust has no way of knowing when and where this complex mish-mash of additional hunting seasons and special hunting areas will break out in their neighborhood.
The Chippewa County woman was unfortunate enough to be caught outdoors during a special muzzleloader hunting season. Most of us didn't even know there was a special season for hunters who want to use blunderbusses like Elmer Fudd. The local fire chief who responded to the fatality is a deer hunter and he didn't know about the special hunting season, either.
At about the same time that tragedy was taking place, an angry group of Ozaukee County residents was demanding that Grafton and town of Cedarburg officials restrict the gunfire of hunters near their homes along Cedar Creek. One resident had his kitchen window shot out while he was seated at the table.
One sign of the political power of hunters is that local officials turned down the hunting restrictions. Another is that the angry meeting received only a single paragraph in a sport column in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel even though the protesting residents included one of the media company's most prominent broadcast personalities.
Wayne Larrivee, WTMJ radio's voice of the Green Bay Packers, told town officials: "Before we can get you to take any action, we'll have to bring you a body."
You'll have to excuse Larrivee. Before he came to WTMJ to cover the Packers, he was one of the announcers for the Chicago Bears. Coming from the Chicago area, he probably still thinks shooting into houses is a bad thing. In Wisconsin, it's considered a wholesome outdoor sport. You never know when a deer might be hiding in somebody's breakfast nook.
To hunters and the DNR, the problem is not yahoos with deadly firearms discharging them into homes and yards where unsuspecting families live with their children and doggies and kitties.
It is this damned urban sprawl that has homes encroaching on lands that were previously ruled by armed deer hunters.
That is a unique way of looking at land use. There can be all sorts of arguments made against unrestricted development, which threatens to eventually replace all of our wild and natural lands with one big paved subdivision.
To environmentalists, to lose forever wild areas that provide habitat for our natural creatures has a deeply spiritual meaning. Whatever form of God they may believe in, environmentalists believe the natural world belongs to something bigger than themselves and man has no right to destroy it all.
But only in Wisconsin would beer-swilling deer hunters be considered one of the fragile endangered species threatened by such development. Hunters themselves have never been particularly opposed to rapacious development. Many are opposed to government regulation of any kind that prevents anyone from doing whatever they damn well please.
They oppose government restricting them from owning and discharging as many guns as they can carry in any direction they want. So they are not about to tell some high-rolling developer he can't build any soul-less suburban subdivision that will turn a profit.
But now they've got residents of those subdivisions belly-aching because their wives are getting blown away outside in the yard or they have to dodge bullets in their kitchens to get to the toaster.
Many of these new residents thought they were moving to the pastoral countryside, far from the fear of urban gunfire. Now they find themselves in the crossfire of rural gunfire. It turns out to be just as deadly.
For now, hunters have been able to fend off most restrictions. After all, they've controlled Wisconsin politics for a long time. But they probably can't shoot their suburban neighbors fast enough to stop the people who want to live gunfire-free from eventually gaining the upper hand.
Joel McNally is a Milwaukee writer.
Published: 9:21 AM 1/05/02
Write a letter to the editor.....About letters...
We welcome readers' opinions and try to print as many as possible in the newspaper. At this point, due to staff and technical limitations, we are not including letters in our online edition. We hope to add that feature at some point in the future.
We ask letter writers to sign their names. The names will be published. We also ask that you include an address and daytime phone number for verification purposes, but the address and phone number will not be published. In addition to e-mailing us a letter, you may fax it to (608)252-6445 or mail it to Voice of the People, The Capital Times, P.O. Box 8060, Madison, WI 53708-8060.
Joel McNally: Hunters take aim at ... you?
By Joel McNally
January 5, 2002
Wisconsin hunters, despite having the run of the state politically, always feel terribly put upon. Now their recreation is being threatened by yet another annoying obstacle to turning Wisconsin into a free-fire zone - the presence of other living, breathing human beings.
It seems as if nonhunters are becoming increasingly irritated at having their homes sprayed with gunfire and, in extreme cases, getting shot and killed by Wisconsin's most celebrated sportsmen.
This all came together in a rather graphic way on Dec. 1 when a 47-year-old Chippewa County mother was fatally shot in the head while walking her dogs near her home because she was wearing a white, knit cap that a hunter mistook for the tail of a deer.
The woman apparently thought it was safe to venture outside because the state's regular gun hunting season ended on Nov. 26.
What she had failed to take into account was that in recent years the Department of Natural Resources has been creating all sorts of special hunting seasons as a way to extend the fun.
The average citizen who is not consumed with gun lust has no way of knowing when and where this complex mish-mash of additional hunting seasons and special hunting areas will break out in their neighborhood.
The Chippewa County woman was unfortunate enough to be caught outdoors during a special muzzleloader hunting season. Most of us didn't even know there was a special season for hunters who want to use blunderbusses like Elmer Fudd. The local fire chief who responded to the fatality is a deer hunter and he didn't know about the special hunting season, either.
At about the same time that tragedy was taking place, an angry group of Ozaukee County residents was demanding that Grafton and town of Cedarburg officials restrict the gunfire of hunters near their homes along Cedar Creek. One resident had his kitchen window shot out while he was seated at the table.
One sign of the political power of hunters is that local officials turned down the hunting restrictions. Another is that the angry meeting received only a single paragraph in a sport column in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel even though the protesting residents included one of the media company's most prominent broadcast personalities.
Wayne Larrivee, WTMJ radio's voice of the Green Bay Packers, told town officials: "Before we can get you to take any action, we'll have to bring you a body."
You'll have to excuse Larrivee. Before he came to WTMJ to cover the Packers, he was one of the announcers for the Chicago Bears. Coming from the Chicago area, he probably still thinks shooting into houses is a bad thing. In Wisconsin, it's considered a wholesome outdoor sport. You never know when a deer might be hiding in somebody's breakfast nook.
To hunters and the DNR, the problem is not yahoos with deadly firearms discharging them into homes and yards where unsuspecting families live with their children and doggies and kitties.
It is this damned urban sprawl that has homes encroaching on lands that were previously ruled by armed deer hunters.
That is a unique way of looking at land use. There can be all sorts of arguments made against unrestricted development, which threatens to eventually replace all of our wild and natural lands with one big paved subdivision.
To environmentalists, to lose forever wild areas that provide habitat for our natural creatures has a deeply spiritual meaning. Whatever form of God they may believe in, environmentalists believe the natural world belongs to something bigger than themselves and man has no right to destroy it all.
But only in Wisconsin would beer-swilling deer hunters be considered one of the fragile endangered species threatened by such development. Hunters themselves have never been particularly opposed to rapacious development. Many are opposed to government regulation of any kind that prevents anyone from doing whatever they damn well please.
They oppose government restricting them from owning and discharging as many guns as they can carry in any direction they want. So they are not about to tell some high-rolling developer he can't build any soul-less suburban subdivision that will turn a profit.
But now they've got residents of those subdivisions belly-aching because their wives are getting blown away outside in the yard or they have to dodge bullets in their kitchens to get to the toaster.
Many of these new residents thought they were moving to the pastoral countryside, far from the fear of urban gunfire. Now they find themselves in the crossfire of rural gunfire. It turns out to be just as deadly.
For now, hunters have been able to fend off most restrictions. After all, they've controlled Wisconsin politics for a long time. But they probably can't shoot their suburban neighbors fast enough to stop the people who want to live gunfire-free from eventually gaining the upper hand.
Joel McNally is a Milwaukee writer.
Published: 9:21 AM 1/05/02
Write a letter to the editor.....About letters...
We welcome readers' opinions and try to print as many as possible in the newspaper. At this point, due to staff and technical limitations, we are not including letters in our online edition. We hope to add that feature at some point in the future.
We ask letter writers to sign their names. The names will be published. We also ask that you include an address and daytime phone number for verification purposes, but the address and phone number will not be published. In addition to e-mailing us a letter, you may fax it to (608)252-6445 or mail it to Voice of the People, The Capital Times, P.O. Box 8060, Madison, WI 53708-8060.
02-12-2002 | 08:07 AM
#2
Typical Buck
Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 847
Likes: 0
From: QDM Heaven
RE: Anti Hunting Article:
Don't generally see many bowhunters shoot a woman in the back of the head with an arrow.<img src=icon_smile_wink.gif border=0 align=middle> This guy is taking an isolated incident and using it for his own agenda.
Edited by - wolfen68 on 02/12/2002 09:36:58
Edited by - wolfen68 on 02/12/2002 09:36:58
02-12-2002 | 05:19 PM
#3
Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 456
Likes: 0
From: SE North Dakota
RE: Anti Hunting Article:
Well, this man seems like a loud-mouthed jerk, aimming his rant at a yuppie audience. I wish he had an email address, I think I could send him a thought-provoking message, but more than likely his intelligence level would prevent him from grasping my points. A truly sad individual.
"Playing under the table and dreaming"
"Playing under the table and dreaming"
02-24-2002 | 09:57 PM
#4
Nontypical Buck
Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 4,781
Likes: 0
From: Body in SE WI, mind in U.P.
RE: Anti Hunting Article:
It doesn't suprise me that Joel mcnally would write such a column. He IS a complete idiot with no brain, common sense, or love for our country. His stances are so leftist as to be absurd 100% of the time. A guy I work with brings this paper to work and reads the highlights of joels column at lunch for a good laugh. My friend also prays for joel's death on a regular basis.
03-23-2002 | 12:13 AM
#6
Nontypical Buck
Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 1,016
Likes: 0
From: Notheast IL
RE: Anti Hunting Article:
From what I heard the hunter didn't mistake her for a deer. She just happened to be in the wrong spot at the wrong time. Accidents during last year's season where down in the midwestern states. It is a shame that some hunter's that venture out in the woods don't have any common sense, but why should that reflect on the rest of us. Like most tragedies in this world it gives the horn blowers something to toot thier horn about how everything must change. That's more than I've said in awhile. Remember safety first....
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