The Right to Hunt and Fish

Salon reports

 

In four states this November, voters will decide whether to institute a constitutional amendment ensuring the “right to hunt and fish.” These measures are being pushed by the National Rifle Association primarily as a way of preemptively protecting hunters and gun owners from “radical” animal rights groups.

To most people, these amendments probably sound like a solution without a problem. But the NRA has been warning voters and state legislators that “radical” animal rights groups could come for their guns and traps any day now. As the NRA’s legislative arm, the NRA-ILA, wrote on its blog, it’s working to “protect the citizens’ hunting heritage from attacks initiated by well-funded anti-hunting extremists who have assailed sportsmen throughout the country in recent years.”

The main “extremists” the NRA-ILA refers to are PETA and the Humane Society of the United States (unrelated to the organization that runs local animal shelters but often attacked as radical for pushing for things such as crackdowns on puppy mills). But HSUS says it has no plans to go after hunting and fishing rights, and it called the Kentucky amendment “inconsequential and merely window dressing.”

Aren't those the same scare tactics they use for gun rights in general? Yes, that's what the NRA is all about.  And the insecure and frightened gun-rights activists love it.  It plays right into their damaged psyches.
People who own guns are often motivated by the supposed empowerment they provide. The ones who find this most attractive are those who lack power in the first place. Of course this is all in their minds.  Usually it's an imaginary lacking, an underlying fear which in their fantasy life is made complete with a gun.
Hunting is worse.  it combines all the psychoses involved in gun ownership itself with the actual killing of animals. That's just sick.  People who get off on killing animals have mental problems, in my opinion.
Now, none of this translates into banning guns or outlawing hunting.  That's just hysterical exaggeration on the part of the gun owners and hunters. Gun control is about ensuring that folks who do decide to own guns, for whatever reason, are qualified to do so.
What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.