Another story caught my eye this week that falls into the ‘Only In America’ bracket. Here is the link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6173535.stm Basically the folks in Texas are trying to pass a bill to allow ‘blind’ people to go hunting with guns. At the moment the blind people of Texas feel they are being discriminated against since they don’t have the same chance of shooting a wild animal as their sighted friends. They want to ability to fit a laser sight to their weapon. Currently these are banned, as are torches and car headlights.
I read the article a few times and couldn’t quite grasp how a laser sight would help. If you are blind or partially sighted how would a tiny red dot help you hit anything? I asked a few of my American friends and they said the laser sight was for the ‘hunting buddy’ who would accompany the blind person. The new bill will insist that a blind person must have a sighted person with them when they go walking through the woods with a loaded gun.
So the way I see it, the pair of them will creep up on the deer, the blind person will raise his rifle and switch on the laser. The sighted guy will then give it the old, left a bit, right a bit, ready……aim……fire. Boom, the blind guy has fired a gun at something. I really can’t see the satisfaction. What’s to stop the sighted person congratulating his mate saying he has just made the perfect kill when all he really did is put a hole in a tree? It all seems a bit bizarre to me but then I don’t hunt wild animals so probably haven’t really grasped the whole concept. It occurred to me it was just another way to sell more hunting licenses and guns and bullets but I’m sure that not the motive.
When I asked my friends at work who I know own guns about this they didn’t really react. The blind being given license to hunt isn’t really that dramatic to an American gun owner. They take that sort of news in their stride. They told me about a service that was setup a few years back and I found this even more amazing. Apparently an area in a forest somewhere in Texas was roped off and a number of webcams were trained on it. They then allowed, for a small fee, a “hunter” to logon to a webpage that had access to these webcams. The hunter could then look around the area of forest and control a crosshair using a mouse. Now here is the bizarre bit. By moving the mouse the hunter was actually moving a real gun that was mounted in the forest. If they spotted a deer they could take aim and with the click of a mouse fire a round.
Now this really is bizarre to me. Surely part of the attraction of hunting is sitting out in the cold for hours on end, stalking your prey, outwitting it and then killing it. How would sitting in your living room with a cup of coffee and a biscuit be compared to that. You might as well buy an Xbox. I then wondered if this service included shipment of the dead animal to your house.
To all the non-American readers out there I’m sure you will agree this is all “Only In America” stuff and to all the Americans reading I really have to commend you on dreaming up ways to allow so many people to hunt that would normally be excluded.
I read the article a few times and couldn’t quite grasp how a laser sight would help. If you are blind or partially sighted how would a tiny red dot help you hit anything? I asked a few of my American friends and they said the laser sight was for the ‘hunting buddy’ who would accompany the blind person. The new bill will insist that a blind person must have a sighted person with them when they go walking through the woods with a loaded gun.
So the way I see it, the pair of them will creep up on the deer, the blind person will raise his rifle and switch on the laser. The sighted guy will then give it the old, left a bit, right a bit, ready……aim……fire. Boom, the blind guy has fired a gun at something. I really can’t see the satisfaction. What’s to stop the sighted person congratulating his mate saying he has just made the perfect kill when all he really did is put a hole in a tree? It all seems a bit bizarre to me but then I don’t hunt wild animals so probably haven’t really grasped the whole concept. It occurred to me it was just another way to sell more hunting licenses and guns and bullets but I’m sure that not the motive.
When I asked my friends at work who I know own guns about this they didn’t really react. The blind being given license to hunt isn’t really that dramatic to an American gun owner. They take that sort of news in their stride. They told me about a service that was setup a few years back and I found this even more amazing. Apparently an area in a forest somewhere in Texas was roped off and a number of webcams were trained on it. They then allowed, for a small fee, a “hunter” to logon to a webpage that had access to these webcams. The hunter could then look around the area of forest and control a crosshair using a mouse. Now here is the bizarre bit. By moving the mouse the hunter was actually moving a real gun that was mounted in the forest. If they spotted a deer they could take aim and with the click of a mouse fire a round.
Now this really is bizarre to me. Surely part of the attraction of hunting is sitting out in the cold for hours on end, stalking your prey, outwitting it and then killing it. How would sitting in your living room with a cup of coffee and a biscuit be compared to that. You might as well buy an Xbox. I then wondered if this service included shipment of the dead animal to your house.
To all the non-American readers out there I’m sure you will agree this is all “Only In America” stuff and to all the Americans reading I really have to commend you on dreaming up ways to allow so many people to hunt that would normally be excluded.
posted by alongwayfromhome at 6:51 AM
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