Hi again ONTHEBEACH...

You don't need ever to apologise to me for anything ! I've no doubt we're more or less on the same wave length, and that's all that matters. This year of 2014 is one that I shall be very glad to see the 'a.se' end of to be quite honest with you. So it's for this reason I tend to look around for a 'blue' ! At my age patently ridiculous, but there you are !

When younger, my puerile aggression was diminished by climbing those rickety old stairs at Billy McCONNEL'S at Erskinville. Now, Billy's dead, his gym long closed, I'm 75, and climbing stairs, is now what you might call, complicated ?

All the very best to you and yours for 2015 ONTHEBEACH - PS: Don't change mate, not one iota, your sense of reality and veracity is sorely needed my friend !

Dear JBowyer,

Why are you so defensive?

I said nothing in my posts about 'taking guns off ordinary Australians'.

My stories are true accounts of individual Australians'(including my own) experiences with hunters. These stories are just as valid as any stories of yours about people enjoying themselves.

I have no complaint about people enjoying themselves - but I do have a worry when hunters do dumb things.

I am not an 'anti hunter'. Reread my posts: I said to the farmer that hunters could be useful in killing feral pigs. I disagreed with onthebeach that people shooting without permission were 'criminals', explaining that there was a history of public access to WLLs in WNSW.

None of my posts refer to criminal gangs in cities. Of course the police should come down on these like a ton of bricks. I think it's a different question. And before you jump, I do not think the answer is to arm the entire civilian population - all that would mean is more accidents by gun, more suicides by gun, more domestic violence by gun, and more guns available to be stolen by criminal gangs.

However, your over-the-top rant and your attribution to me of things I did not say, just adds to my cautions about people who are a bit obsessive about guns.

You want me to accept that gun laws should be relaxed? Then don't jump to conclusions about other people's views and attack them unfairly, and write rational posts supporting your own.

"And shooting pigs in pig-sties and taking selfies with road-kill suggest to me that we really do need to be very cautious and concerned about the 5% who are into guns here.

Posted by Cossomby, Tuesday, 30 December 2014 4:00:26 PM"

With such tall stories, by hearsay, I think it more important we be "very cautious and concerned" about the truth as expressed by those in the anti gun fraternity.

o sung wu I carried a 303 for protection, a 22 & a shotgun for hunting, & a bow for fishing on the yacht with me. I got so sick of being able to see the fish in the clear tropical water, but not get them to take a bait, I set up a fiberglass 35Lb bow to get them. I was a good bow shot, but did use it much, as I discovered I did not like tropical fish much.

Some of our ladies would be surprised how many people shoot their food, once you get away from the incestuous cities. It is too expensive to run deep freezes continuously, where you have to generate your own power, so they usually only kill when extra people are around.

The conversation when we appeared at one mates homestead after a couple of years since our last visit. Mate "Phil, where did you come from". "Debbie, beef, goat or mutton"?.

Debbie, "I don't eat goat".

Mate, "right, beef it is". "Debbie, see if you can find some limes, Phil, grab that rifle, I'll get a horse to carry a carcass".

Debbie could have got the beef, she & the kids can reliably take out a match box at 25 yards.

Andy loved having visitors, as he got to eat real meat, rather than the usual poultry.

Cossomby,

Ok, so to be charitable to you, it is only by coincidence that your stories bear a lot in common with those so often related by 'antis-'.

Nonetheless, you are not talking about the apparent psychology of hunters at all, but the psychology of offenders, law-breakers. Your own psychology comes into it too. You are blind to the role that the police should be fulfilling and whether they are resourced to do it.

That is the fatal flaw in your argument. You are appearing to want to make the many thousands of respectable, law-abiding licensed citizens accountable for the selfish, unlawful acts of offenders who are very unlikely to be licensed and even in the unlikely event that they were, would automatically lose their licence forever.

To take the example of your 'hunters' claiming road kill as a 'selfie'. Anyone with a firearms licence would immediately realise and note that the discharge of a firearm on or near a public road is a serious offence. If that photo ever fell into police hands they would face arrest. Would a court believe their story, probably not. It is hard to imagine any licensed person would be so stupid as to risk licence, assets and good record for that. What would be the point?

So once again you are talking up the offences of society's usual offenders, law-breaking ferals, to blacken the name of the thousands who are licensed, keep withing the law and display strong ethics.

Regarding poachers and other law-breakers, particularly unlicensed offenders, quite clearly that is a law enforcement problem and up to the authorities to do something about it. It should not reflect on the law-abiding firearms owners and hunters, any more than you would be willing to accept the drugs, violence and weapons offences of outlaw motorcycle gangs reflect you on as a licensed car driver.

Has been wrote: "And shooting pigs in pig-sties and taking selfies with road-kill suggest to me that we really do need to be very cautious and concerned about the 5% who are into guns here.

Posted by Cossomby, Tuesday, 30 December 2014 4:00:26 PM"

With such tall stories, by hearsay, I think it more important we be "very cautious and concerned" about the truth as expressed by those in the anti gun fraternity.

CAN I SAY IT AGAIN: I AM NOT ANTI-GUN.

These are not 'tall stories by hearsay.'

They are cautionary tales - a warning - to the hunting fraternity. As long as hunters do dumb things, the laws will tighten up.

Jumping to conclusions is dumb. Reminds me of the case in the USA where a home-owner shot a woman who knocked on his front-door to ask for help after a car accident. Jumped to the wrong conclusion, but with a gun in his hand.

If you jump to the wrong conclusions about my posts, why would I trust you with a gun?

Suse,

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

Does changing one word make a difference?

How many murders are committed using cars?
In Glen Innes a few years back two innocent people driving sedately in a 50 zone were murdered by a nutter who suddenly swerved into them head on and all three were killed.
The nutter had previously caused a sensation at a local service station by dousing himself in petrol and threatening to set himself alight; one wonders why he was free?

Suicides by car?

We don't know because vehicle accidents are usually written off to speed.

By the way, Suse, do you eat meat?
Is it not racist to be against hunting when so many people in this country come from cultures where hunting is one of their traditions?

Since this thread started I've shot five rabbits and one fox.
Got the bunnies on a warren, three with the first shot(they were very close together and two with the second barrel (12 ga. side by side double) and the fox on the way back to the car.

What have you done for the environment today?