A pair of bills before the Pennsylvania House Game and Fisheries Committee would allow semi-automatics to be used in hunting. One big argument for the bill is that it is allowed by other states. Using that rationale, I’m sure the House will also soon be holding hearings on taxing natural gas frackers, which is also allowed in other states.
Pennsylvania House members should read Chapter XXII of The Pioneers by James Fenimore Cooper. It’s the famous chapter in which the residents of the town engage in an orgy of pigeon shooting. They use shotguns and at one point load up a cannon with nails and blast a hole in the flocks. (These are passenger pigeons, now long extinct.)
Leather-Stocking, the hero of The Pioneers, surveys the scene with complete distaste. Here are thousands of pigeons, dead and dying, wasted. One of the townspeople urges him to join in the fun. Instead he takes his rifle–that’s right, black powder rifle–shoots one bird, and picks it up for his supper. If I had the money, I’d photocopy that chapter for all of the House members and send it to them.
Do we really need semi-automatics to hunt? Or do the arms manufacturers need to make more money?
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