No One Hunts With An Assault Rifle
BY Herschel Smith
11 years, 11 months ago
One fellow writes in simply indignant that there is such a thing as an assault rifle.
I grew up an avid hunter in the 1950s. At that time, federal law required using a shotgun with a plug limiting it to holding three shells … to hunt DUCKS.
That law still stands.
But today, we keep electing federal legislators who don’t even have the courage to limit assault rifles to holding fewer than 30 rounds … to hunt little 6- and 7-year-old CHILDREN.
I always like it when writers mention the fact that they are hunters, or former hunters from their childhood, or have served in the military – as if any of that is supposed to mean anything to me. It’s markedly special, too, when one of those writers uses words like clip to refer to magazine.
If the perpetrator of the shooting in Connecticut had been using a revolver he would have accomplished the same horror. He was unimpeded, and that is the problem that isn’t being addressed by any of the tyrannical laws being proposed.
The Governor of the State of New York is waxing know-it-all on hunting too.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called for tougher state bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines of ammunition as part of a progressive agenda in a sometimes fiery State of the State speech Wednesday.
“No one hunts with an assault rifle. No one needs 10 bullets to kill a deer,” Cuomo said. “End the madness now!
Okay. I’ll acquiesce. No one needs ten rounds to kill a deer. But apparently Mr. Bayezes needed 30 rounds from an AR to defeat his home invaders, and lot’s of guys hunt feral hogs with ARs, assuming that the bay dogs can bay up the hogs. We are losing the war on hogs, and need to kill as many as possible.
Finally, there is one other thing that we might find useful about an AR that Governor Cuomo hasn’t mentioned, i.e., suppressing tyrannical dictators like him. After all, that’s the point of the second amendment anyway.
Addressing the objection that “Gun advocates will be hard-pressed to explain why the average American citizen needs an assault weapon with a high-capacity magazine other than for recreational purposes,” Kevin Williamson writes “The answer to this question is straightforward: The purpose of having citizens armed with paramilitary weapons is to allow them to engage in paramilitary actions. The Second Amendment is not about Bambi and burglars — whatever a well-regulated militia is, it is not a hunting party or a sport-clays club. It is remarkable to me that any educated person — let alone a Harvard Law graduate — believes that the second item on the Bill of Rights is a constitutional guarantee of enjoying a recreational activity.
There is no legitimate exception to the Second Amendment for military-style weapons, because military-style weapons are precisely what the Second Amendment guarantees our right to keep and bear.”
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On January 10, 2013 at 11:56 pm, FredB said:
Actually, there are people who hunt with ARs. It works like this: You are a top level competitor in service rifle matches. You have an AR with a stainless steel match barrel and other enhancements. It has the same overall appearance relative to the M-16, our current service rifle, as a NASCAR stock car to a dealer’s showroom car.
Those barrels wear out in the throat just ahead of the chamber and lose accuracy. Rather than throw that fine barrel away the chamber is recut to clean up the throat and the barrel, now too short to be used in a service rifle, is built into a deer rifle. The hunting ammo is Federal 64 gr. Power Point.
How good are they? here is a story with no names. One of these hunters fired two shots at a deer only to watch it walk away unharmed. His wife walked through the area where the deer had been and found a two inch diameter sapling with two bullet holes in it. This deflected the bullets enough to cleanly miss the deer. This deer had successfully hidden behind a two inch sapling.
Sometimes you can be too good a shooter.
On January 11, 2013 at 12:02 am, Herschel Smith said:
Yea, I know a boy who regularly hunts deer with an AR, Remington pointed soft point ammunition. Whether this is an “ethical” kill notwithstanding, of course you can hunt with a modern sporting rifle.
On January 11, 2013 at 1:02 pm, Nick the Canuck said:
The last time I recall an attempt to ban a specific type of gun up here it was the Mini-14 of all things. I never did get a straight answer on why they singled it out and I know some AR owners who were as confused as I. Given it’s popularity for hunting small game and breaking the mold of actually resembling what the unfamiliar would think of as a Hunting Rifle it really drove home to me just how far gone many gun control advocates are.
As far as magazine capacity goes, I think it’s been well covered how asinine such bans are. Sadly in Canada we’re stuck with 5 rounds in a rifle and 10 in a handgun. I guess they just really wanted a way to ban that epitome of Assault Weapons, the Garand.
On January 13, 2013 at 8:38 pm, MarineOfficer said:
As Hershel has pointed out in the past, there are people who NEED put food on the table with hunting, and do so with AR’s. Shows about those living in Alaska have recently made that point absolutely clear.
But that is not the point here, and great job in pointing that out. All talk about hunting and such is a distraction to take us away from the real issue. The gun grabbers only have one aim, and that is to disarm us. There are many reasons for them to desire this goal, from misguided beliefs that it will make us safer, to a true devotion to statism.
But regardless as to how they get there, we must fight them at every turn. We must not fight them by getting into misguided arguments about hunting (although we can clearly win those arguments), but by remaining at the core of the true meaning and purpose of the 2nd Amendment.
If for some reason that argument ever fails us (such as constitutional amendment under Article V), we then fall back to our secondary position, that God provides for our independence and freedom from tyranny, and desires for us to be able to defend ourselves without help from a power that thinks to set itself equal to him.
Hunting currently is en vogue, with states passing constitutional amendments to enshrine it. People sometimes allow themselves a sense of security arising from this, saying that “well hunting is safe, so guns for hunting are safe.” Remember that state constitutions are not worth the paper they are printed on under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution (Article VI), federal STATUTE trumps ALL STATE LAWS, to include STATE CONSTITUTIONS. There are reams of case law on this. So if the federal government ever says through law “no hunting, anywhere” then the hunting game is over, and all the hunting guns with it.
There is no federal constitutional protection for hunting. There is for protection against tyranny. Fight against tyrants, not for shooting deer. At least that’s my 2 cents.
On January 13, 2013 at 9:38 pm, Herschel Smith said:
“There is no federal constitutional protection for hunting. There is for protection against tyranny.”
That, my friend, is a very clever and salient point. Good form.
On January 14, 2013 at 4:03 am, N1K2 "George" said:
“If the perpetrator of the shooting in Connecticut had been using a revolver he would have accomplished the same horror.”
Exactly right. Rio De Janeiro massacre last year had the killer use a .38 and a .32 revolver to fire 60 rounds, kill 12 kids. It was reported at the time he had upwards of 20 speed loaders.
http://gunfreezone.net/wordpress/index.php/2011/04/11/rio-massacre-staring-at-the-obvious-yet-ignoring-it-1/
On January 15, 2013 at 1:56 am, DonM said:
I have a revolver that loads using clips.
Odd isn’t it.
smith and wesson 625.
So is that high capacity enough?
On January 15, 2013 at 1:48 pm, N1K2 "George" said:
NY is passing law right now that all 10 round mags be turned in. All 8-10 round mags have to have a block to 7. In another 8 years, magazine capacity will be reduced to 4 rounds. Then after another school shooting, it will be reduced further to 1 round.
Do we see a pattern emerging?