Defending and Protecting Bowhunting

[hawkeye]

I know I’m a dinkum bona-fide bowhunter now - and it’s not due to being able to tally off an accolade of trophies either.

Mum (heart’s in the right place (suburban mid/class), but still in self-denial that meat in butcher shops actually comes from animals etc) rings a couple hours back with…
“Darren, I just saw on the news, a cat with an arrow…”
and I interrupt (assuming some kid has put a stick in neighbour’s moggie and talk-back radio or TV got a hold of it) with “Mum, that’s appalling and people I associate with (eg ‘you’ guys) would be the first to be upset and angry over such an incident and would want the person responsible prosecuted, as things like that bring the whole sport of bowhunting into disrepute.”
“oh”…silent.
“be different if it was a feral cat out from Alice Springs running about with an arrow in it after getting away from a bowhunter, but idiots shooting peoples’ pets and doing the wrong thing with kangaroos and stuff make myself and true bowhunters absolutely cringe in disbelief/disgust more than anyone”.
“okay”.
Change of subject and re-assured (knowing her she was probably half expecting it to be me - hell, I was a feral hand-full when growing up (slightly civilized now though)).

I still have no idea about this specific cat being shot, but stuff like this makes the media from time to time and tarnishes all who brandish a bow – those with morals/ethics etc and those who don’t give a sh*t all tainted regardless.

Ya can’t be serious about bowhunting to risk having ya sport banned by doing stupid things like this can ya?? And I know only serious bowhunters frequent this forum.

Should there be more controls over who can purchase bows/arrows??

[brian]

I still have no idea about this specific cat being shot, but stuff like this makes the media from time to time and tarnishes all who brandish a bow – those with morals/ethics etc and those who don’t give a sh*t all tainted regardless.

i agree absolutely mate - i cringe every time i hear about this kind of incident which seems to happen far too often.

And I know only serious bowhunters frequent this forum.

just because they're lawbreakers doesnt mean they wont look up sites like this for info , and therefor i would venture that this assumption is most likely wrong. we get a lot of traffic on here from "guests" who for all we know could include the bastards that do this kind of thing. this is one of the main reasons why i think jasons suggestion of making the site only accessable to registered members (who've introduced themselves) is a great idea - so we all know who we are dealing with.

Should there be more controls over who can purchase bows/arrows??

hell no!!!
there should however be much heavier punishment/dissuasion for those who may do the above kind of thing, and poachers should go into the same boat. these people should be shunned by the general hunting/archery comunity and barred from clubs/game permits and forums like this IMHO.
i know of at leaste one (pretty well known) incident where the above didnt/hasnt happened. :x

just my opinion on the subject.

[Glenn]

I'm not in favour of controls on the purchase of bows, but the law needs to come down hard on these people.
These incidents happen all too often and they will probably always happen to some extent wether we have tight controls or not.
Don't know how we could ever stop it because all of the controls and education will never be enough to stop some people from committing these acts...Glenn...

[Zeeke]

Real hunters dont need a bow to knock off a moggy in the street.. we have 4wd's for that.. quicker too and most times your left with a neat little package you can fold up and put in the freezer till garbage day j/k

Dont agree with controls on bows.. would many of you get into archery/bowhunting if you were forced to go into your life details like a gun licence?

Tim

[Paul R]

I agree with you Glenn, no matter what we or the Law do there will always be idiots who shoot bows.
We have to continue to show the public that the majority of bowhunters/archers are responsible law abiding members of society who are just as disgusted by these acts as everybody else.

This begs a question, does the ABA have a media spoksperson and do they respond to these incidents? Does the media know they exist for comments?

[Rabbitz]

While the associations (ABA, AA, 3dAAA etc) all need to react to these incident through their PR people.

As individuals we also need to react. Contact your local state member of parliament & voice your displease about these incident & (politely) ask them what are they doing to catch these morons?

We need to start stepping up the pressure on the pollies, make sure they know we are here & that we are responsible, law abiding & that we are part of the process that gives them their jobs...

(geez second rant today & its only 8AM)

Rabz

[jindydiver]

More regulation on bow hunters? HELL NO…

As has been proven by the gun laws in this country, restrictions on access and use of an item do not mean that those items will not be misused. The gun laws get tightened every time the government feels it has to be seen to be doing something about the behaviour of people who have access to firearms, but we have seen that the restrictions placed on law abiding and responsible gun owners have done nothing to stop those that misuse firearms from just getting on with business as usual.

Based on that we can see that if we start down a road of restricting access to bows, because we think it will modify the behaviour of some that will misuse them, we will find ourselves being restricted more and more in our activities (because we like to obey the rules) while the rat bag element out there will just keep doing whatever they like and then the government will just react by restricting us further.

The only way to modify the behaviours of those that would bring disrepute to the law abiding bow hunter is to make the prospect of getting caught to much to risk. Make the penalties for idiotic behaviour so stiff that the idiots might think twice about what they are about to do and then we might get somewhere in trying to stop stupid incidents from making the news.

[hawkeye]

yeah, i'm not in favour of 'controls' either.

but i reckon (aka Sporting Shooters Assoc.) it'd be good to have some sorta rep.body to defend and dissassociate us from such idiots/incidents.

someone the media can approach for our point of view on such issues, so we get an opportunity to protect what we hold dear.

[Warlocke]

Mate, I would say a lot of these incidents are done by kids.

When an arrow from my bow hits a feral cat there is no arrow sticking out to say that it was shot by an archer.

Very similar to a bullet hole.