From: "matthew.wright7", [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Stuart, while I can see your personal views and your personal choice to stay
at home the day of the March, I would counter some of the assertions in your
post. Firstly you tend to stereotype hunting and references to not wanting
to ride and falling off horses don't advance your case. Arguably the
majority of hunting is on foot and many forms of hunting will be affected by
this ban. Secondly I have been personally involved in most fieldsports and I
can say honestly that I cannot find any significant difference in welfare
terms between the different pursuits. They are just different methods and a
mixed set of methods are needed for different situations and terrain. The
kill is quick with hounds or the fox gets clean away. As for the chase this
is not as you suggest, often the fox ambles along and is often lost from
sight during the pursuit. I can't see that this is significantly more
stressful (whatever we mean by that) than other activities in other
fieldsports. Nor, as I've argued before, can we say its wrong to enjoy the
skills of the hunter as they are the same skills we enjoy in fishing and
shooting. It does matter that people find out about an activity (in this
case go hunting) before they try to ban it, just as people should not glibly
ban pistol shooting unless they actually understand the issues.
What is the difference between flying a hawk to a rabbit and working a
lurcher to a rabbit other than one flies through the air and the other runs
across the ground. Is this Govt happy to introduce clearly illogical,
inconsistent laws when it suits their prejudices? If thats the game what
else will they do when it suits them? The whole point is that there has to
be very good, objective reason for MP's to use the criminal law to impose
their personal morals on other people. When there are so many discrepancies
about this ban it does not stand this scrutiny nor does it pass the test of
good law as what is proposed is not proportionate, consistent and
enforceable. Stuart, you talk about "on balance" reducing cruelty and "net
benefits" but by illogically limiting the methods available for different
situations it means that the wrong methods will be used more often. This
will increase the risk of cruelty not reduce it and all to appease Labour
backbenchers who plainly did not read or intend to read the Burns report.
The Burns report does not give the grounds to ban hunting, just as the
Cullen report did not give sufficient grounds to ban pistol shooting. How
much do we want Govts to think they can get away with?
Most guns held are shotguns in rural areas and live quarry shooters in
particular will face all the same attacks and misinformation if hunting goes
down. Faced with this I believe shooting is even more vulnerable. Why?
Because in addition to being attacked on the emotive animal front, the antis
can also attack on the safety front. Also sabbing at a shoot, because guns
are present, would mean cessation of the shoot altogether. On your final
point about stopping the persecution of shooters I think the march will
cause the Govt to think twice and doing nothing is a sure way to make them
think they can get away with things. As long as we have a big diverse
fieldsports community it is harder to be attacked. What is key to
campaigning is critical mass and by mobilising that we can all lever some
gains. The factor that gives the Govts game away and illustrates our
potential strength is that we know the Govt want to divide us and have tried
this before.
Matthew
Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org
List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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