Duck Hunting With Bullets
BY Herschel Smith
11 years, 10 months ago
Sometimes I feel inadequate to be a gun blogger. For instance, there is a new category of weapon with which I lack familiarity.
For years I have ruminated on what it is about (some) Americans that make gun ownership such a “third rail” issue. I have never heard any person say we should remove weapons from hunters or and sports shooters. One of my grandsons shot his first with a bow and arrow.
I have never heard anyone state that people should not be allowed to own a weapon for home defense.
The following question is never answered by the NRA: “What would justify a regular American citizen having super-assault weapons and massive ammo magazines?” I ask again: Why is this question never answered?
I don’t know what a “super-assault weapon” is, but if you can tell me, I’ll tell you if I need it. I do know this. I want one.
On to other things though.
Rep. Mike Thompson, the California Democrat charged with crafting gun safety policies in the House of Representatives, keeps talking about ducks.
More specifically, duck hunting.
“Federal law prohibits me from having more than three shells in my shotgun when I’m duck hunting. So federal law provides more protection for the ducks than it does for citizens,” Thompson said earlier this month during a panel discussion on gun violence at the liberal Center for American Progress.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, also on the panel, was delighted by the line. “That’s a very powerful point,” Emanuel said. “My instinct is we’re gonna hear more of this line going forward.”
[ … ]
“My point is, when people say, ‘How dare you talk about putting limits on how many shells I can have in my gun?’ — that somehow this is unconstitutional, it’s an affront to, you know, God, country and apple pie — I think it’s important to point out that this isn’t something that’s new,” Thompson told TPM last week. “This is something that we already do and it’s something that we’ve done in the past.”
Brad Bortner, chief of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s’ Migratory Bird Program, told TPM hunters have generally been “supportive of the regulations” because they preserve waterfowl populations that they care about.
You don’t say? You mean to tell me that states restrict the kinds and capacities of firearms in order to protect the population of game animals and thus their revenue? Pretty good idea, huh? Nothing to do with the second amendment, but a good idea nonetheless. But now on to the learning experience.
And the duck-hunting line does appear to be catching on among Democrats. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) used it at the same news conference where Durbin spoke.
“These are good law-abiding citizens,” McCarthy said. “They want to hunt. They want to go duck hunting. And the guns they use, duck hunting, you’re only allowed three bullets.”
There you have it. Duck hunting with bullets.
UPDATE: Thanks David.
Prior:
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On January 31, 2013 at 8:43 am, Harold said:
Of course the obvious reply question is why do these people want to protect criminal populations like we protect ducks? Shouldn’t they be forming a Criminals Unlimited?
Note this isn’t entirely facetious. There’s a political system we can see at work in the rural areas of the U.K. and D.C. (prior to Heller, sort of, which has resulted in little change on the ground) and Chicago called anarchotyranny. It’s a variation of the old pattern of the upper and lower classes combining against the middle, with the lower class being replaced with criminals.
Tony Blair was quite explicit about his intention of destroying the U.K.’s rural culture, and withdrew a large fraction of the police protecting those areas and others that were class enemies of New Labour. Combined with judicial (’50s) and statutory (1967) outlawing of effective self-defense and ever more gun prohibition … well, life in those areas has gotten quite nasty.
Thankfully policing is a local function in the US, but in cities like D.C. and Chicago, an area that doesn’t vote “correctly” can be punished by reducing police protection, as I heard was done in D.C. while I was living outside of it for a dozen years.
On January 31, 2013 at 9:22 am, Bill said:
I can always count on my, gag, representative to make the tough to stomach calls.
Bullets. Is she a half bunch of bananas or what?
I wonder if we’d see the same accuracy from her if we were to quiz her on the Bill of Rights alone.
On January 31, 2013 at 2:37 pm, Harold said:
Bill, didn’t you know that rifles are more accurate than AR-15s, at least for women?
On January 31, 2013 at 3:02 pm, Bill said:
I had not before sir, but thanks to the information provided to me by the expert, nay, battlemaster McCarthy, I can rest peaceably knowing that my wife can’t shoot me with those misloaded buckshot shells. She needs bullets. HAH!
And next I’m going to tell her we need to replace the headlight fluid.
Then it’s off the the emergency room where they can try to re-attach my john thomas!
(I played the turkey tracks in the snow as belonging to an elusive group called snipe early in our courtship. She has not forgiven me in a timely manner.)
On January 31, 2013 at 3:08 pm, Herschel Smith said:
Bill, that whole response is hillarious! Good afternoon humor.