The End of Hunting, Scarier Than 3D and Questions After Aurora – TTAG Daily Digest

1. Yup hunting is dying around here (pun intended).

   Might be because all the drunk fudds mess up the place so bad that being associated with hunting carry’s too much stigma for the next generation to stomach.

   • Long as private property and guns exist, so will hunting.

     Although I would like to see wolf and coyote hunting brought under tight control. Deer are way overpopulated out here and I’m hearing fewer and fewer coyote packs because assholes keep shooting at them for the shits and giggles.

     • Private property is part of the problem here in Texas. If you don’t own land or know someone who does, there is no where to shoot without going to a gun range. Same is true for hunting. You have to purchase a hunting lease, and I read an article once that was talking about how hunting in texas has taken a steep nose dive. Seems the same people purchase the majority hunting leases every year and prevent new people from getting started. Can’t comment beyond what the other article said. I’ve never tried to go hunting myself.

       • Can always hit up those canned hunt places if you just want quality meat. The legal minimum is 13 acres to hunt on private property in Texas, typical homestead / small farm size. Not a cheap investment at around $4000-5000/acre. 13 Acres isn’t that big either, but if you have good neighbors, you can probably combine several back yards like my neighbors do.

         Technically several different people own parts of the land but people with permission have free run over the whole lot of it, provided they don’t shoot any of the cows.

   • I think ol’ Igor makes a good case for believing the purchase of hunting licenses is decreasing. Beyond that, not so much.

     • EAT MORE VENISON!….

2. Of course the leftest statist want hunting to die out here. Self reliance skill sets are road blocks in the path of having the population ever more dependent on the system.

   As for the 9ths ruling on CA flagrant violation of human and civil rights. Did you expect less? This is why we voted for the orange haired wonder and not the heartless harpy.

   • Leftists like to talk up the idea that guns are only for hunting and nobody needs weapons of war for hunting. If they had their way, and banned everything except deer rifles and duck guns, they would them argue that nobody needs to hunt – we have supermarkets. They abhor the practice. Fudds don’t get that.

3. As for case stamping…what happens when they replace or modify the firing pin?
   Or maybe they will switch to revolvers…or develop case-catchers for pistols…
   or the older guns will become more and more valuable as time goes on…

   • Micro-stamping will do nothing to hinder the criminals, but that’s not the purpose of the law. First, it prohibits newer (and presumably improved) models to be sold to Californians. Second, if the micro-stamping becomes viable, it will help them prosecute law abiding citizens for defending themselves.

     One of the seldom mentioned advantages to a revolver, probably out of political correctness, is that in certain jurisdictions it’s exceptionally wise to not scatter your spent cases all over the DGU scene.

     • And as has been noted here many times, smart perps will shoot with a revolver but dump micro stamped scavenged range brass at the scene to sow confusion. Criminals have been outsmarting the authorities for thousands of years. It’s not going to stop any time soon.

       • Most of the criminals are using stolen g uns anyway. Very, very few have a 4473 that can be traced to them.

         The revolver is a good choice for legal(ish) carry in jurisdictions where it’s popular for DAs to teach people who believe in the right to keep and bear arms a lesson when they have to put that right to use.

     • Can you just imagine the gun buying craze if micro stamping was going to be the law of the land in six months yet all current guns would be grandfathered.

       I would buy one of everything I ever thought about wanting.

       • This is essentially the case as it is in CA. Only new mo dels require micro-stamping. Of course, since micro-stamping hasn’t been invented yet, it just means no new mod els can be sold in CA. If the law read that all weapons sold in the state had to have micro-stamping even the nutty ninth would have struck it down.

       • Yep, our gun roster is slowly dwindling as manufacturers stop making old models (heck, not even the model, effectively NOTHING is allowed to change or they can’t sell it). I got here after the doors closed, and I hope Kavinaugh et. al. strike this down, it’s so moronic it makes my brain hurt. And angers me that I’m limited to whatever’s left on our registry.

   • Don’t be naive….. this has nothing to do with logic, saving lives, technical issues, or common sense in the way we understand common sense. In the circles these judges keep, the “sense” common to their group of associates (sheep) is to make everybody harmless. If everybody is harmless or less harmful, then that benefits everybody!!! Yay!!! Since 99% of violent crime is committed by 1% of the population, you can reduce potential harmfulness 98% and have a 0% effect on violent crime (statistics show it actually raises violent crime) …. But a sheep only sees that they did “98% nothing” rather than “0% something”…. In a state full of sheep this makes perfect sense…. so the 9th Circus will continue to do things that make sense to sheep. Don’t try to make sense of it. It won’t make sense to someone who isn’t a blind, frightened, little lamb.

   • Seriously, how many times in a LEPs career will he see a filed off serial number on a gun? Probably never. All that does is tell the police who owned the gun before it was stolen, which benefits nobody. I mean, the owner may get it back, but if used in a crime, it is evidence. Most police in blue states wont give it back to the owner unless by court order. Serial numbers are great for tracking the gun in a gun stores inventory. I just don’t see it being a deterrence to criminals. In the same vein, bullet stamping will be equally ineffective and a pure waste of money.

     • Exactly. Put all the tricky crap you wish on a gun, it will NEVER indicate who pulled the trigger, therefore is *useless*.

4. I am a 7th and 8th grade teacher (computer principles and robotics). I teach in a Kansas rural district and I can say that only about 5% of the students have ever taken part in any hunting activities. It just isn’t as popular as it was in Northern California.

   I think a big part of it is that in Northern California it is easy to get to forest service public lands. In Kansas it seems to be a lot harder to get to places to hunt.

   • You nailed it sir. The biggest reason that people say that they are not hunting is lack of available access. That is why I’m a BHA, TRCP member and support the concept of public lands. Without them we will lose hunting all together.

   • Yep. I live in the bay area and can be on decent hunting lands in a couple of hours. Not perfect lands, but decent. And in a state of 35 million people only about 250,000 are licensed hunters.

     It’s very rare for me to have a hunt and not have a chance for a shot. I sometimes do not take the shot or I sometimes miss. But the chance was there for me.

   • kids are staying home and doing their hunting [killing?] vicariously through video games..

5. Real hunting is becoming a problem/hassle in most placed because true family farms are almost all a thing of the past now. When I was a kid you could knock on almost any farm house door and gain permission to hunt. Pretty much a corporate business now, same with “hunting”. I’m so blessed to still have connections here in IA and MN to do some real bird and deer hunting, rabbit, turkey and squirrel as well.

   • About the only hunting IA is good for is road ditch hunting pheasants.

     • Gov, you need to drive a few counties South and West to find some of the finest deer hunting in the state. Story County, not so much.

       • Ha! I’m a Boonie now! Too damn expensive in Ames. Probably better in Boone Co. than Story, but I grew up in Iowa Falls (Hardin Co) and that’s where I’ve got most of my hunting experience.

         First, you’ve got to know somebody or pay through the nose to get onto decent land. Public land is a joke. I heard once that Iowa had the least amount (percentage?) of public land of any state, and you can tell by the orange vest at the base of every damn tree. Second, people around here think it’s a big deal that they can use a .45-70 instead of a shotgun. In most of the surrounding states I could use my .308 or .260. At least let me use my .30-30! Then, of course, it’s usually pretty damn cold in December around here and getting up at 3:30am to climb up a tree and sit motionless for hours on end when it’s 5 fricking degrees out is just not my idea of a good time.

         If I ever go deer hunting here again, it will be early muzzle loader – and I don’t even own a muzzle loader. I wanted to go handgun hunting but then I realized that you can only use black powder revolvers in first season and my .44 mag is only good for second season, i.e. January.

         However, you can sit in your nice warm truck and putz down the gravel roads until you spot a rooster and jump out, shoot him, toss him in the back of the truck and jump back into your nice warm truck. Now THAT’S hunting!

         Sorry for the rant.

6. Another factor: More people (young) are vegans, vegetarians, etc, than a generation ago. Also, of those who eat meat they, a good number eat less than their parents did.

   • City life, fast food and lack of gun ownership reduces the amount of people who would ever experience hunting or want to.

     A similar thing happens with farm life in other countries when the youth decide to leave for the city when they are still very young. They usually don’t comeback to such a place, thus their kids never experience that life.

   • 97% of Americans eat meat. The growing vegan movement isn’t making a dent in hunting. If anything, the biggest growth in the hunting industry has come from food conscious individuals who are interested in knowing where their food comes from. Nothing more organic than a free range whitetail or elk. Nothing more unnatural than a 1000 acre mono crop field.

   • *cough* I live on meat when I can, but its expensive, hence why I’m probably going to take up hunting deer myself.

   • Most times I skip meat, anymore. Who needs it, just give me a cheeseburger or two.

7. 20 years ago I was hearing all the same shit too. Hunting was going to disappear. The 94 Assault Weapons Ban was here to stay. Hillary would be president after Al Gore and she would ban all guns. And we defeated all of that. Hunting is likely going down, but that’s primarily due to most people becoming urbanized/suburbanized.

   • Generally true, I was born in Chicago, spent half my youth there, the other half in the burbs. I have never hunted. But my younger bother hunts (birds) as does his eldest son. I think he was exposed to it by his Air force buddies, and he likes it.

   • Yeah, US population is double what it was when I was born in 1946, that makes hunting about twice as difficult. Or even any other shooting.

8. Its really amazing that distributing pornography was the battle cry for Liberals in the 1970s. But distributing gun plans, is not free speech?!?!?
   This is why I say the ACLU has NEVER supported the Bill of Rights.

9. Yeah, hunting is expensive and unpleasant. Might as well wander out to the middle if nowhere, roll in mud and puff-ball fungi, go to the courthouse and spend 2 hours for a new drivers license with your weight changed by 5 lbs, then go to an abbatoir and ask to captive-bolt a cow. T’were left to me we’d have to pay people to control deer populations because I’m not doing it.

   There’s an economy to it tho. Low general interest means more critters for the dedicated few to zap. I know there are licences now that are rare, people wait in lotteries for years. So there’s enough interest for conservation purposes.

10. Hunting suffers from a lack of area to hunt in. Also many states have onerous regulations and training requirements. Add to that the licence fees (I’m looking at you New York) and it’s a bit much for some people. I go every year but I’m looking for new grounds because my standards are overhunted. After 2008 we say a increase in hunters but it’s tapered off a bit.

    • Depends on what you are hunting and where. Here in Georgia, feral pigs are a big enough problem that there are no limits on hunting them on private land, you can hunt them at night with lights as well.

      All that said, I am still not a hunter.

      • In Georgia, is the general attitude ‘please come shoot my hogs’, or is it more like ‘how much will you pay me to let you shoot a hog’?

      • Careful, Rusty, the way you phrase that sounds like you don’t need the landowner’s permission. In TX, BTW, landowners are just as nuts as they are with our whitetails which run around 80-90 lbs dressed, $500-1000 per day just to look for some. USDA Prime steaks are much cheaper and available at the store. Many also charge huge amounts to hunt the piggies. Maybe in a few years they’ll be enough of a problem that owners will get more rational. Otherwise I might have to get into it, since hunting piggies from helicopters with machine guns is legal in TX. Does that sound fun, or what?

11. Hunting is in decline, i think because it has become a hassle to hunt. Asinine regulations, constantly increasing fees, stupidly short “seasons” and difficulty in finding places to legally hunt have added to it’s decline. In Colorado they are doubling the Waterfowl stamp next year and raising all tag fees. Not to mention they gouge out of state Elk hunters.

    Add in a draw system so complicated (this is what happens when bureaucrats run Fish and Wildlife) that they hold “seminars” on how to navigate it and you can see why hunters just say “f**K it”

    • Haven’t seen anyone comment on the reason for the comment on hunting popularity . The socialist left thinks that the only reason that we have the right to own firearms is to hunt. They have never read the second amendment which does not mention hunting at all.

      • “The socialist left thinks that the only reason that we have the right to own firearms is to hunt.”

        So when no one hunts Bambi anymore, there will be no need for anyone to own guns. See the logic?

        • They’ll think differently when they hit Bambi’s mom with their $100k car.
          Two years in a row.

12. “If lawmakers are truly worried about the threat of unregistered firearms, they should focus instead on the bustling market of unfinished firearms.”

    If lawmakers took their oath and Constitution seriously they wouldn’t focus on infringements

13. What happens with over-pressure rounds? What happens with striker drag? I’m doubting that stamps will in practice be as clear as they are purported to be.

    • The issue as to striker drag has been noted with test stamps of the existing (primer only) technology. More importantly, the impression quickly fades as the firing pin wears down. You could make the impression almost indecipherable with just breaking in a new pistol. All of these issues and more are recognized, including the fact that the law requires stamps in two discrete locations, which technology does not exist at all. But the law has withstood all challenges to date.

      • Firing pin microstamps wear, you say? It’s a short hop from “guns built to make stamps” to “stamps on all fired rounds” making a criminal of anyone with a worn gun. …which they’ll trace back to you via feed marks n sikilar.

        It’s like they don’t need the microstamps to trace anything. It’s almost like tracing things isn’t the point, while making new criminals is.

        • Damn, Jim, you’re making me almost happy that gun was stolen from me.

      • Mark,
        You said the law requires stamping in two locations? Other than the primer where do they want it?

        • Somewhere on the brass itself. So somehow the chamber would stamp a number. Of course this has never been done at all. Unlike the firing pin, which doesn’t work in real life.

      • ” You could make the impression almost indecipherable with just breaking in a new pistol.”

        Or some dry-fire time with snap caps…

14. Slate has recognized the obvious: the attacks on 3-D guns is stupid. Which makes me think that Schumer is just plain stupid, or a politician trying to take advantage of a situation by lying through his teeth….Or both.

    • Schumer isn’t stupid; he only appears that way to the people who understand what he’s talking about at any given time.
      The problem is this: the American voter is, as a general rule, not well educated on things he’s talking about. Even college graduates, who may be well versed on whatever their major happens to be, are taught by leftists who pass on their agenda as settled fact. So those graduates know what they know, even though it’s not actual facts.
      For the average (non-college educated) voter, even less knowledge is actually known. So Schumer can not only say whatever he wants, but the people he speaks to will assume he’s telling the truth.
      (The name Schumer is a stand-in for most politicians.)
      This is why most Dem politicians speak in such emotional terms; emotion trumps facts (or factoids) in the short run, which is why, after every high-profile shooting, another gun control bill is quickly (and very publicly) announced. When the bill goes nowhere, the pol will say that s/he at least tried to make our children safe, ensuring a positive spin for re-election when it comes around.
      It’s all a game, with the end goal of becoming what they profess to hate: a totalitarian, socialist state.

      • “Schumer isn’t stupid; he only appears that way to the people who understand what he’s talking about at any given time.”

        I got that backwards; it should be, “Schumer isn’t stupid; he only appears that way to the people who don’t understand what he’s talking about at any given time.”

        • No, I think you got it right the first time. If you understand the subject, you realize that whatever he’s saying about it is stupid. Willfull ignorance to further an agenda, nothing more.

15. So let’s say 80% lower kits are banned. No leaving a firearm 20% unfinished for home manufacturers to make their own guns. Welcome to the 75% lower kit market. Okay, let’s ban that. 70%.

    Eventually, it’s going to come out that what they want is a total ban on unlicensed manufacturing and repair. Only “licensed” manufacturers will be allowed to make guns, and very few of them. That’s why there can’t be any ground given on this at all.

16. Not a lot of places to hunt or shoot any long distance unless you live in certain places out west or are lucky enough to have a farm. In door pistol or 100 yard paper are all that is available to most urban/suburban dwellers

17. So their multi-front program of encroachment, erosion n friction is grinding down a tradition, craft and passtime that people not like them enjoy, and some depend on? I think there’s a word for that.

    They’ve driven some millions of people away from what they’d choose for themselves. Using the law, enforcement, and PR? I think there’s a word for that.

    And they’re celebrating this? Gleefully predicting the or hestrated demise of a lifestyle not their own? I think there’s a word for that.

    Am I talking about hunting, owning guns, living rural, or something else? Hard to tell.

18. https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/new-5-year-report-shows-1016-million-americans-participated-hunting-fishing-wildlife

    Hmmm. When I went to skool 101 million wasn’t 11 million. Perhaps this author doesn’t know what a decimal point is? Or was asleep when his elementary education teacher discussed the concept of zeros?

19. It takes a week of hunters ed classes to get a license in this state. And you have to sign up for the classes months in advance to get a space. Tough for some kids who don’t have transportation cause parents work.

20. “…and [microstamping] were reasonable to further the state’s goal of keeping people safe”

    What? How does something found after the fact keep someone safe before the fact?

21. Even in my conservative gun friendly state, getting tags and finding a good place you can legally hunt is such a pain I don’t know many people who do it. And of the few I do know, most of the time they can’t get a tag for anything really worthwhile.

22. Hunting is most certainly on the decline. For some reason, everyone seems to associate “hunting” with deer hunting. The #1 most popular game to hunt in the Unites States is Dove. More people go out hunting on the opening day of dove season than any other day.

    As we build out the suburbs, that means driving further and further to find places to hunt.

    The plus side is that something like dove or quail is very easy to introduce new people. You don’t need a fancy shotgun, any scattergun will do. (just plug it to the 3 round limit)

23. The fudds in texas made it where if you were born after sept 2 1971 then you have to take a hunter ed class before you can hunt i was born sept 13 1983. I refuse to take this class therefore i dont hunt its stupid what makes someone 12 years older than me that much safer? In my experience my cousins who were exempt from this class were much more dangerous than me one of them shot me in the leg while hunting squirrels in 96. So drop stupid regulations and there will be more hunters.

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