Hunting has been an Australian activity since the year dot. And in our earlier days a necessity. But today, except for the control of vermin, and the eradication or feral animals, hardly a necessity ? Yet many call it a bona fide (justifiable) sport, some claim they add their kill(s) to the pot, both for human consumption and to feed their domestic or working animals.

To those who assert Hunting as an authentic, legitimate sport, I would respectfully offer this proposition -

'...Hunting is the only sport where your competition doesn't know they're playing...' ? So if we were to accept that premiss, this statement must also have an appreciable degree of legitimacy as well ?

Therefore what does a hunter 'acquire' from killing an animal ? Taking a 'roo at 150 yards with say a .270W or similar ? Or dropping a 'roo at 45 yards with a re-curve perhaps ? The challenge of a good clean shot (particularly with the bow!), or is it something much deeper, a more worrying, psychologically pathology perhaps, laying quiescently deep within us perhaps ? The sense of possessing the ultimate power of life or death ? Within the small index range of; 2 1/2 to 4 lbs of backward pressure of one's index finger ?

Please, don't go for my jugular, though never a hunter, I enjoy the engineering of firearms, but I no longer have one. It's merely a question, nothing more ? One small consideration though; during the 'great' gun buy-back days, trying to diplomatically remove a F/A from a perfectly reasonable, and legal shooter, because technically his F/A was no longer 'legal' on technical grounds, was like trying to pull teeth without anaesthetic. Notwithstanding they're well compensated for it ! Most would have gladly forfeited their wives in lieu, before surrendering their beloved gun !

Dear O Sung Wu,

For most of us, hunting is immoral.

But is this the topic? Are you here to listen to me preaching morality?

No, the topic is that the government of Australia, an immoral body to the core, is pretending to offer moral guidance and enforce its idea of morality on us.

I do not advocate hunting, in fact I abhor it, but one can only increase in moral merit when they have before them the choice between good and evil - and then freely choose the good over the evil. However, when evil, due to legislation, is no longer an option - nor is goodness and righteousness!

o sung wu,

So I take it you also oppose indigenous hunting?

Regarding 'morals', do you regard it as a higher morality to have someone else raise animals and slaughter them for your consumption?

You want to be careful siding with those who believe they ought to be able to tell others how to live their lives. It is likely that many of them might also decide that the care and keep, life too, of a mature white gent is not worth supporting. Hardly a necessity they might say and in the blink of an eye it is green dream for you too. So they can take that underused house and other assets that the 'more deserving' ought have (but were unwilling to work and save for).

Anything can be defined as 'hardly a necessity' and that is where totalitarianism takes over. We were watching a TV program tonight where snooker was banned overnight by a regime. Snooker was 'hardly a necessity' I suppose.

Freedom is about letting others lead their lives and being responsible for your own choices.

O sung Wu, you know you are asking for trouble with this topic : )
I think everyone on this forum knows I hate firearms being in the hands of anyone besides police, military and farmers.

It is a well known fact that people who end up as murderers and serial killers often start their love of killing by torturing and/or killing animals first..... usually from childhood.

So, I don't think it is a big stretch to say that guns could be used just as easily to kill others, or the owner themselves, in a fit of depression or rage?

I don't believe shooting should be an Olympic sport, or indeed any form of sport.
Thank goodness Australia has such careful gun laws.
They could still tighten the laws more though.

Suseonline,

There is treatment available for hoplophobia.

http://www.phobiasource.com/hoplophobia-fear-of-firearms/

Catastrophysing, see here,

http://psychcentral.com/lib/what-is-catastrophizing/0001276

Being consistently irrational and alarmist? Well this is more aimed at helping others to deal with you,

http://dev3.cepr.org/meets/wkcn/3/3503/Papers/Baumeister.pdf

Best leave the authoritarianism for another day.

Garbage Suse, if we had not been a nation of shooters, the japs would have walked straight through Kokoda, & into Oz. With todays laws, & bleeding heart attitude, we could not raise a militia capable of defending us for even 10 minutes.

I have no problem with a someone who is a vegetarian, because they don't want anything killed for their food, but like onthebeach I can have no respect for those who want someone else to raise & slaughter their food for them, but refuse to do it for themselves. Such false ethics.

Even more I despise people who can throw a fish into a boat to suffocate slowly, but have the hide to complain when someone makes a clean instantaneous kill on a dear. Why does Bambi attract more sympathy than Nemo?

I don't believe in going around blasting things. I had a shotgun that I could boast had never fired a shot, without supplying something to eat. Sometimes It might only have been a stork of Coconuts, shot down because the palm was too hard to climb, & sometimes I was shooting one of the locals pigs that had escaped, but always food.

We ate a lot of rabbit in the early 50s, & there was no sense paying someone else to hunt them, when you could do it yourself.

I knew people who only survived the depression by use of a rifle & fish trap. They ate rabbit, kangaroo fish & crabs. It says a lot about our society that neither are legal today.

I bought 50 rounds for my rifle dozen years back, when we had a feral dog problem. I had to as we are not allowed to turn our dogs loose. I shot 3 in 5 nights, & they have not come back. I had best buy some new ammunition, the 47 not used are getting a bit old.

So o sung wu, I'm in favour of hunting, for those who want to.