In order to participate in the GunBroker Member forums, you must be logged in with your GunBroker.com account. Click the sign-in button at the top right of the forums page to get connected.

Hunting: Banned in Scotland

Josey1Josey1 Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
edited December 2004 in General Discussion
Hunting: BannedBy Wesley Stanton13/02/2002A centuries-old tradition is to be outlawed in Scotland, after the Scottish Parliament this evening voted to ban foxhunting. MSPs voted by 83 to 36 votes - with five abstentions - to pass the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Bill, effectively stopping fox hunting after the Bill gains Royal Assent in due course.The Countryside Alliance (CA) has roundly condemned the Scottish Parliament's action as a "shambles" - and has immediately said that it will challenge this "infringement of human freedoms".To add insult to a very grave injury, those who lose their jobs as a direct result of the ban will not receive one penny of compensation. Although it was expected that the compensation issue would feature heavily in the debate, amendments put forward to compensate those affected by the ban were not supported.The Bill makes it an offence to use dogs to hunt wild mammals, effectively ruling out mounted fox hunting and some other activities such as hare coursing. It carries a penalty of heavy fines or a six-month prison term."Today rural Scotland has been betrayed by the Scottish Parliament," said Allan Murray, Scottish Countryside Alliance Director, vowing to take the battle to retain hunting to court."This Bill`s sponsors long ago abandoned any pretence that it was about animal welfare," said CA CEO Richard Burge. "It is now revealed as a blatant attempt to seek to interfere with human thought and behaviour. Competent politicians should know better than to try to frame legislation that merely seeks to impose their own personal opinion on the community - and especially on cultural minorities. That is why this Bill was destined from the first to be an unworkable mess - and the lesson should not be lost on politicians beyond Scotland".Fears are widespread that the ban on hunting with hounds will have a knock-on effect on Scotland's wildlife and its ?100 million shooting industry. Gamekeepers, pest controllers, rough shooters and woodland deer stalkers are dismayed that much of their work will now have to be carried out while keeping one eye on the whole legislative muddle.BASC is furious that the Scottish Parliament has thrown out measures aimed at ensuring animals are killed humanely and safely. The exceptions - allowing the use of a dog to dispatch a wild mammal, if it would have been unsafe to use a firearm, or if the mammal was injured, have been removed. BASC believes that the Act will compromise animal welfare, rather than enhance it."The Rural Development Committee listened to a great deal of evidence on many aspects of pest control and management in Scotland's countryside," said Dr Colin Shedden, BASC's Scottish Director. "Their amendments to the Bill were based upon sound advice, and ultimately the welfare of the animals in question. Much of that good advice has been discarded by Parliament." http://www.leadshot.com/story.asp?id=450

Comments

  • whiteclouderwhiteclouder Member Posts: 10,574 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    If you haven't seen seven or eight hounds tear a fox to shreds you haven't lived. It's great! Some times the fox will try to run, completely missing it's hind quarters. Can you imagine that? Funny, I get a stitch just thinking about it. Mercifully, it's death is quick, usually no more than five minutes or so. Same with a hare but usually only three or four dogs, the rest normally don't catch up quick enough for the fun.And the bastards took that away from us, unconscionable.Clouder..
  • badboybobbadboybob Member Posts: 1,658 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Clouder be sure to remove tongue from cheek before biting
    PC=BS[This message has been edited by badboybob (edited 02-16-2002).]
  • .250Savage.250Savage Member Posts: 812 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Clouder, with friends like you, who needs enemies? Your PETA membership come in yet?
  • capecodcapecod Member Posts: 1,341 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I agree with Clouder - as an ex-hunter (because I'm now disabled) - its one thing to try to outwit your quarry on foot or in a stand and then shoot it accurately to kill it. Even if you wound it - shock sets in and its time for you to do some tracking.
    But to sit on your horse and watch a pack of dogs tear a fox or hare to pieces - is as far as I'm concerned - barbaric.
    Let these great hunters buy themselves a rifle or shotgun and a good hunting dog (if they wish) and get off their * and do some real hunting.
    John

    Vietnam - All Gave Some -Some Gave All

    Si vis pacem, para bellum
    If you wish peace, prepare for war!
  • SXSMANSXSMAN Member Posts: 2,616 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I must say that when I read the title my heart sank .

    I'd love to hunt grouse there someday . Rather a relief that's it's only fox hunting . Fox hunting rates up there with bull fighting .

    I understand tradition , still don't get the pleasure in either .

    SxS

    Have guns,will travel
  • Ray BRay B Member Posts: 11,822
    edited November -1
    Maybe y'all ought to watch how animals go from living to food in the natural state.
  • ZERODINZERODIN Member Posts: 6,338
    edited November -1
    quote:Originally posted by Ray B
    Maybe y'all ought to watch how animals go from living to food in the natural state.

    Agreed.
  • capecodcapecod Member Posts: 1,341 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I don't get out into the woods anymore as much as I wish I could - but in all the years that I was able to - I never saw a pedator use other animals to hunt down another animal and then sit back a watch it torn to pieces and then walk/ride away. I guess I must have missed that happening in my 40+ years of roaming and hunting - heck, I didn't even hear the bugle blowing or the predator yelling "Tally-Ho". I guess I wasn't very alert.
    I've shot 5 deer and 2 boar in my lifetime and none of those shots came easy. I didn't rely on a horse, a fancy costume and a pack of hounds to run the animals to ground. I hunted like most of us hunt -
    patiently and hopefully and I came home most of the time emptyhanded but happy - just for being able to spend some time close to God in the mountains and the peace it brings.
    John

    Vietnam - All Gave Some -Some Gave All

    Si vis pacem, para bellum
    If you wish peace, prepare for war!
  • tr foxtr fox Member Posts: 13,856
    edited November -1
    quote:Originally posted by Ray B
    Maybe y'all ought to watch how animals go from living to food in the natural state.


    What a short and truthful post. It is interresting about how some of the animal lovers/protectors only have sympathy for wild animals. At least that wild animal has lived a natural and free life and had somewhat of a chance at not being killed.

    As the wild animal lovers express contempt for some of the ways wild animals are killed, perhaps they should consider how that meat in the super market got there. Or the leather on their shoes and car seats, coats, etc. got there. Or how some of the medical treatments were researched and invented.

    After they consider all that, they might want to pick out just one particular calf. Follow that calf who is born into captivity, raised in captivity, sometimes in horrible and unnatural conditions, and then killed, without even the wiff of a chance, in captivity.

    And in the case of a milk calf cow, that cow spends it's life producing milk for our table. And when it gets too old to produce that milk, it's reward is to be sent to the slaughterhouse to be made into a hamburger for your table. All the while as a captive.

    Quote "Somehow government decided that the Constitutional Bill of Rights has become the Bill of "Suggested" Rights and are to be rationed to the citizens as the power elite sees fit"
  • timbromantimbroman Member Posts: 1,164
    edited November -1
    Once again GB posters disappoint me in their eagerness to endorse the limits on someone's freedoms because their ancient and time-honored methods of taking game do not agree with the PETA line. I guess it will be too late when we realize that our voluntary separation into cliques of shotgunners vs centerfire hunters vs blackpowder hunters vs archery hunters vs trappers vs fishers vs houndsmen vs pointer vs etc has made us easy pickings for the banners. Don't you get it at all? I've never held a hunting bow but as soon as I support a ban on them because of some perceived cruelty (as opposed to a heart-lung shot with a .30'06) I reduce my own stature in the hunting world. And do you know what, I deserve to have my preferred method of hunting banned if I behave so selfishly and short-sightedly.

    For all you phonies who claim to support personal freedom, the Bill of Rights, etc and are at the same time eager to make illegal another person's method of hunting thousands of miles away whose game is generally recognized world-wide as vermin and which are certainly not in short supply and which eagerly reproduce in captivity if the opportunity for reintroduction is ever desired, to you I say Shame On You! Shame On You!

    If for no other reason I find a poster like Hairy refreshingly consistent in his views - views I rarely share but am also rarely surprised by them. On the other hand, the cutesy-feely types who argue the relative human-stopping power of a .45 vs a .357 Mag, then get all squeamish about the demise of a fox, rabbit or bream are pathetic, misguided and uninformed. What a bunch of sissies.

    "If the zoo is closed, drop by the Senate. You'll get the
    same feeling and you won't have to pay." Bob Dole
  • tr foxtr fox Member Posts: 13,856
    edited November -1
    Whole lotta of truth in what you say there Timbroman, but I just have one small disagreement. You say:


    Posted by Timbroman

    On the other hand, the cutesy-feely types who argue the relative human-stopping power of a .45 vs a .357 Mag, then get all squeamish about the demise of a fox, rabbit or bream are pathetic, misguided and uninformed. What a bunch of sissies.

    The relative stopping power is supposed to be directed at some violent, criminal perp and therefore should not cause any feeling of needlessly killing/harming anyone/thing for the defender.

    JMHO

    Quote "Somehow government decided that the Constitutional Bill of Rights has become the Bill of "Suggested" Rights and are to be rationed to the citizens as the power elite sees fit"
  • timbromantimbroman Member Posts: 1,164
    edited November -1
    Roger that Fox, and of course you can either agree or disagree, but know that the .45 neither knows nor cares what it is defending or assaulting - whether it is a person, a home, a government or whose side God is on - and it cares not whether one views its effect as just or necessary. It is what it is and the maiming, suffering and death that it causes is either "good", "bad", "necessary", or whatever depending on the perspective of the participants.

    The point of my response to the original post is the inconsistency of anyone rationalizing their opposition to someone fox-hunting while claiming to be a sportsman supporting bird-shooting or a rang-shooter with a Colt or Bushmaster. If fox-hunting clubs are banned, the quail-hunter who said "Yes! Ban the blood sport - it is not to my liking" has no reason to expect much support from the whitetail deer hunter.

    Sadly, folks in the non-hunter range shooting/hand loading group have been pitted against the gun hunters. And lots of shotgunners have been swayed into damning the "assault rifle", hi-cap mags, .50 cal rifles, while that segment often seems eager to view a whitetail as Bambi and ridicule and defame folks who bring their sons up hunting rabbits and squirrels. It does not personally offend me when such pinheads from either PETA or GB do this kind of thing, but it does sadden me to see the one group that should know better (for their own self-preservation if nothing else) fall in line with the other group whose aim it is to make us all unarmed vegetarians.

    "If the zoo is closed, drop by the Senate. You'll get the
    same feeling and you won't have to pay." Bob Dole
  • tr foxtr fox Member Posts: 13,856
    edited November -1
    Yep [:)]

    Quote "Somehow government decided that the Constitutional Bill of Rights has become the Bill of "Suggested" Rights and are to be rationed to the citizens as the power elite sees fit"
Sign In or Register to comment.