As Miami's own Dave Barry says, I am not making this up.
More States Move To Ban Internet Hunting: A Texas businessman who wanted to allow computer users to hunt from the comfort of their homes has instead spawned dozens of state laws banning the practice. Texas lawmakers shut down San Antonio businessman John Lockwood's operation
in 2005 and two dozen other states have since banned Internet hunting. Connecticut lawmakers are now considering whether to follow suit and ban state residents from using a computer mouse to point, click, and kill penned animals herded before a Web-based camera.
On the one hand, this seems like a barbaric practice, and I'm perfectly happy to see it banned. On the other hand…is this our most pressing social problem?
(Just trying to provoke some thoughts here, not that I disagree with the premise.) Why is Internet hunting a barbaric practice compared to plain hunting? Would the same reasoning apply to Internet fishing? Boxing?
I’m lobbying to ban Internet haircuts, myself.
They are banning internet hunting not out of altruism but because it does not generate fishing and hunting license fees as actual in state hunting does. Most of the states don’t care that you hunt only that they get a piece.
I agree with the ban. If someone wants to kill a deer they should buy an expensive high powered rifle with a scope, dress in high tech camo doused in doe urine, drive to the property they lease in their 4×4 extended cab pickup with the XM radio package, ride the rest of the way to the hunting location on their ATV, climb up into their 14′ tubular steel hunting stand, wait for the deer feeder to go off and then blast away. You know, getting back to our roots.
Who cares if it is not “our most pressing problem?” Our government can, and should, handle more than one problem. By your logic, we should only be focusing on the War in Iraq and ignore all of our domestic woes. This “not our most pressing problem” argument has been used to undermine the women’s rights movement, civil rights movement, environmental protections, and a bunch of other worthly social causes. Just because it is not be the absolute most important thing (to you) does not mean that it shouldn’t be addressed.
Fair enough. Is it one of our top 300 problems?
Yes, I would imagine that it is in the top 300. Can you list 300 problems more worthly of addressing that have not been addressed already? In addition, it is big problem for the animals that are being shot and, if a kid were to wander on the shooting range, it would be a big problem for him as well.