Do you feel like a real hunter now, you sick fuck?

[Marley23]

@Blake

OK, so do you also regularly start or contribute to pit threads about these people? Seriously, if you have an objection to his dishonesty that’s understandable, but I fail to see where the bear really enters into it except as perhaps an aggravating factor.

I don’t start a lot of threads, but slamming bad musicians has always been a favorite passtime. “Charlie Daniels is not a respected scientist, politician, pundit, religious leader, author, educator, commentator, or writer. He’s a guy who plays the fiddle, had a few moderately popular songs, and had one big novelty hit 25 years ago. He’s beyond musical irrelevance, so he caters to his audience with ignorant political rants.” An aggravating factor is a correct description of the phoniness in this case.

Once again though, your position seems more coherent than most here since it seems you at least object to the behaviour generally rather than this incidence specifically. You presumably also object to pest controllers and veterinarians taking money to kill animals.

Thanks. I don’t have a moral objection to veterans putting animals down, although I argued very strongly against it (successfully) in the case of my last dog. We’ve had a few threads about people having their pets put down because they just couldn’t handle them, and I think you’d find that I was furious in those threads.
Pest control doesn’t strike me as a problem either. I think humans do take precedence over animals when the animals are causing a quality of life problem. I’m not a PETA type; I also don’t think all animals are necessarily equal. Logical or not, I will say that killing a bear is worse than killing a bug.

True, but we all know that is because of the consequences.

A little humor. Even if nothing happened, I doubt the gun-toter would get much of a defense around here.

Well if that’s true it’s pathetic, but pretty trivial in the list of sins in this world. Hardly worthy of a pitting. It’s about on par with someone telling bullshit stories; ie the act of a small ego trying to inflate itself with fictitious heroism.

Yeah, but this is the Pit. You don’t have to do the worst thing in the world to get or deserve a Pitting, and perspective isn’t a priority. Usually, I don’t think it’s worth asking for it.

[Starving_Artist]

@Boyo Jim

Gentry violated the rules of bleeding heart liberals and’ REAL MEN (such as they are understood by folks like me, but that’s abother thread).

I agree. Not that I’m claiming to be a “REAL MAN” , but it’s nice to find myself in agreement with some of my liberal brethren (and sistren?) for a change. I imagine that clown is now the laughing stock of the country music business and its audience. I spent several years in a type of business that dealt with small town country folk, and they aren’t going to be given to the types of rationalization some of the posters here are engaging in. They are going to see him for exactly what he is, a phony wannabe he-man, and I’d wager they’re going to laugh him off the stage (if he even has the balls to take the stage after this) for being both a coward and a phony. What a despicable piece of shit! I, too, hope this destroys his career and that he gets jail time. I agree that he probably won’t get jail time but I’ll bet his career, even if it survives, will never be the same, and that he’ll be living this down for the rest of his life.

[Little_Plastic_Ninja]

Speaking as a non-vegetarian…

• Killing an animal for food or the use of its skin: Acceptable, if done humanely.
• Hunting an animal and using its remains as food/skin: Acceptable, if done humanely.
• Trophy hunting wild animals: Unpleasant
• Trophy hunting tame animals: Disgusting.
• Trophy hunting tame animals and passing the kill off as wild: Pathetic AND disgusting.
• Killing rats and other vermin for money: Acceptable, if done humanely.

Humanely: with a minimum of pain to the animal.

If the killing serves a purpose beyond feeding one’s ego, I consider it acceptable. Vermin spread disease and eat food that belongs to human beings. An animal that is hunted and killed is, frankly, serving its purpose in its lifecycle.

Let’s say a person has tame rabbits. They are named Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter. These rabbits have names, but they may not be pets – lots of people have kept and do keep rabbits as food. When Farmer Brown takes Flopsy and breaks her little neck so the family can have rabbit stew tonight, I do not consider him a bad person for doing so. On the contrary – he’s treated his prey animals gently and given them a fine life before turning them into dinner. It’s better, in my opinion, than the squalor of a feedlot.

Let’s say Farmer Jones has three dogs – Molly, Polly, and Dolly. One day, he decides that he wants to kill something, so he takes out his rifle and calls Dolly over to him. She bounds over merrily and he shoots her in the head. This is messed up, in my opinion, because apart from the pleasure of taking a life he has no reason for killing the animal. He’s not going to eat it, he’s not going to use its skin to make a new pair of shoes, he’s killing it because he felt like it.

Blake, if you were getting paid to kill rats because they were wild vermin encroaching on human territory, that wouldn’t bother most people. Including me. If you were buying a dozen rats and shooting them for the entertainment of an audience, it would bother most people, including me. Do you honestly fail to see the difference between these two actions?

[Little_Plastic_Ninja]

Forgot to add this –

In what culture, assuming you don’t consider the definition of culture ‘one person’, is this killing considered appropriate? It’s not among hunters – most I’ve ever known would consider this little stunt pathetic at best.

[mhendo]

I must say, i think i’ve gotta go with Blake on this one. And i say this as a vegetarian, as someone who doesn’t hunt and who doesn’t have much time for hunting, and who isn’t a fan of killing or torturing animals for unnessecary human vanity (including testing for cosmetics, etc.).

I don’t find what the Gentry guy did to be in any way admirable. In fact, i find it pretty repulsive. But i believe that my feeling is consistent with my overall value system regarding the way that humans treat animals. And i don’t think it’s much worse than hundreds of other ways of killing animals.

In the same way, anyone who opposes hunting or the unnecessary killing of animals is not being in any way inconsistent in condemning what this guy did.

But i’m less convinced by the whole “hunter’s code of honor” stuff, or the “needless killing of animals” argument, or the “you shouldn’t kill a tame creature with a name” argument, when those arguments come from people who have no general problem with killing other animals in similar situations.

For example, jsgoddess says she opposes killing animals just for fun, and that every hunter she knows eats what he kills. Well, i’ve known plenty of people who hunt and who didn’t eat what they kill. And, even of those who do eat what they kill, many of them hunt primarily for the pleasure of hunting and killing the animal.

I really don’t see much of a difference here, and i’m not convinced by the arguments about a “fair” contest or whatever. In my younger days, i did hunt and kill stuff. I’d go out to friends’ farms, and we’d shoot rabbits and foxes and kangaroos. And the fact that these animals had an opportunity to escape still never made it a “fair” contest. Not when i was armed with a powerful rifle and a good scope.

Also, maybe someone can tell me about bear hunting. Is is common practice to eat the bear after you kill it? And do you really think a strong argument can be made that most bear hunters hunt bear for any reason other than personal pleasure?

Don’t get me wrong. As i said at the top of this post, i have no admiration for what the guy did. But, in the scheme of things, i really don’t thinks it’s much different from any of the thousands of other animal deaths caused by humans every day. As Blake said, the species isn’t endangered, and we have no evidence that it suffered any more than any other animal shot with an arrow would suffer.

I’m sure that Starving Artist is right that this guy will be seen as a pariah among the country music crowd, but it seems to me that their judgment about his lack of manhood is, itself, rooted in a pretty juvenile definition of what constitutes manhood. If this guy did kill the bear to “prove” something, all he’s really guilty of is buying into their juvenile notion of what manhood is, and getting caught cheating.

[saoirse]

@Blake

And the fact that people here have such a bigoted outlook that they will call any cultural differences a moral flaw is a far bigger moral flaw: it is bigotry. Pure and simple.

They don’t even attempt to justify rationally why killing the animal for pleasure (“sport”) is fine but killing it for an ego boost is wrong, even though the end result is identical. They simply vilify this person because he disagrees with their cultural prejudices.

Okay, how about we judge him by his own standards. He doctored a videotape of his kill to make it look like he wasn’t killing a helpless, tame animal in a pen. He obviously thinks it’s wrong to kill a tame animal in a pen. He did in fact kill a tame animal in a pen. Therefore?

[mhendo]

@saoirse

Okay, how about we judge him by his own standards. He doctored a videotape of his kill to make it look like he wasn’t killing a helpless, tame animal in a pen. He obviously thinks it’s wrong to kill a tame animal in a pen. He did in fact kill a tame animal in a pen. Therefore?

While i wouldn’t presume to answer for Blake, i think that it’s perfectly fine to judge him for his dishonesty, duplicity, and even for his lame obsession with proving himself. And you also have a point about his apparent hypocrisy.

I was commenting more on the general tenor of this thread, and the massive display of indignation over the killing of—gasp—a tame bear!

[wolf_meister]

Teddy Roosevelt wouldn’t have approved.

[GusNSpot]

If I had gone in this cage and not done things correctly, there was no one with any means of saving me as I was the only one in the cage. The folks around had no guns.

You telling me that the kitty had a name and was tame means absolutely nothing. They are not domesticated. They can and will hurt you. If I had gone into a 3 acre pen with just a bow to try to kill this kitty and made even a small mistake, I would be the new rug. It is not domesticated and it has sense that will pick up it is being hunted. Even my little kitties pick up on that when I am after them with the wrong look. A large or small pen does not necessarily make it safe for the hunter. A bear is more likely to try to get at you than to run away. Do not miss.

I have no opinion about the singer dude. But just being within striking distance of a dangerous animal is an attention getting experience. Do not throw the coward word around quite so easily. Yes, it is about having been there.

YMMV

[Martini_Enfield]

I have to say I take an extremely dim view of this sort of “hunting” for people who are otherwise physically capable of engaging in a “sporting” hunt.

By that, I mean I can understand a disabled or handicapped hunter making use of the ability to hunt an animal in an enclosed pen of reasonable size (not a cage)- but someone who is physically capable of carrying a rifle, pack, etc into the wild (even if a 4WD drive vehicle is used) and simply can’t be bothered or doesn’t feel like it or is “Too busy”, and avails themself of the chance to simply shoot an animal at point-blank range in a small enclosed pen or cage is a contemptuous individual indeed.

I have no problem with shooting animals for trophies (never done it myself, though)- but there’s a vital aspect of “sporting” hunting which I swear by:

The game must have the chance to escape.

This is one of the reasons I’m not overly fond of scoped hunting rifles (the other is scope wobble). Being able to pick off an animal from 500m with a scoped .458 Weatherby is a challenging act, but to me, at least, it’s not a truly “sporting” way of hunting (it is, of course, a valid and acceptable way of hunting, and I have no problems with those who choose to hunt in this way).

One of the advantages- from a sporting perspective- of hunting with Military Surplus rifles is that you’ve go to ge close- around 200m or so, usually 100m or even closer- to guarantee a shot that will ensure a humane kill.
At that range, the animal being hunted is quite likely to get startled at any noise (even the sound of the bolt closing on a round can alert some animals), and if you miss, it’s going to be off and running, and out of range in a breathtakingly short space of time.

The point is, the option is there for the animal to evade you and escape, and some of my best hunting stories involve not the animals I’ve managed to take, but the ones that got away.

Most hunters have stories about animals that almost seemed to dodge bullets Matrix-style, covered amazing distances in the time it took to work the bolt for a second shot, or even had bullets seemingly bounce off them with no effect. Sure, some of the stories (like fishermen’s tales) are exaggerated, but the truth is that hunting, when practiced ethically and humanely, really is a mystical experience of sorts- and people who cage animals up so they can shoot them at point blank range for the sheer hell of it give real Hunters a bad name.

[Bricker]

@jsgoddess

If they kill something for the sake of killing it rather than the sake of eating it, yes, I absolutely do.

And this view of yours is definitively, objectively correct? It’s not simply your opinion, an opinion from which other reasonable people might dissent?

If you kill rats because you get off on it, you’re disgusting. How much clearer can this be?

I think this misses his point. Blake is saying that the purpose of the killing was making money, not “getting off,” and he compares this to killing rats for the purpose of making money. You are the only one bringing up “getting off on it.”

[Boyo_Jim]

Let’s not forget the real victim – er. besides the bear. Did Gentry never give any thought to Poor Montgomery? Monty will need to find a new pertner now.

[wonky]

@Bricker

And this view of yours is definitively, objectively correct? It’s not simply your opinion, an opinion from which other reasonable people might dissent?

Gosh, I wonder how I could make it clear that it disgusts me. Hey, maybe if I say it a few times.

@me

That disgusts me. If you kill a rat for fun, you are disgusting to me.

I think this misses his point. Blake is saying that the purpose of the killing was making money, not “getting off,” and he compares this to killing rats for the purpose of making money. You are the only one bringing up “getting off on it.”

That’s because he brought the rats into the discussion once I already said “for fun.” If he isn’t doing it “for fun” where is the relevance? If he is doing it “for fun” then it disgusts me.

No, wait. It disgusts me. Gotta put that emphasis in so you don’t miss it.

If someone is getting paid to exterminate pests, that’s one thing, and a bear can fall into the category of “pest.” But this bear did not. And getting paid to kill this bear would disgust me, unless the bear’s death was for a purpose other than 'Weee, this is fuuuun!" If the bear was going to be eaten, I would still consider letting a moron with a bow take shots at it to be reprehensible since it makes a humane death much less likely.

[Shirley_Ujest]

@ltfire

Just wait until Ted Nugent gets a hold of this story.

zactly.

[wonky]

@jsgoddess

If someone is getting paid to exterminate pests, that’s one thing, and a bear can fall into the category of “pest.” But this bear did not. And getting paid to kill this bear would disgust me, unless the bear’s death was for a purpose other than 'Weee, this is fuuuun!"

I should be clear that “a purpose” does not include “make buckets of money for some moron singer.” It includes culling, disease prevention, food, protection of livestock, protection of people, and possibly pelt, though I tend to be against killing an animal for its pelt unless it’s also going to be eaten.

And you can eat bear, you just have to make sure to cook the hell out of it or, in the immortal words of Ralphie’s mom, “You’ll get worms!”

[Eliphalet]

OK, I’m missing something important in all of this.

Forget all of the moral/ethical issues. What did he do that was illegal?

He (presumably) purchased a wild bear tag, and attached it to a tame bear that he shot in a cage.

He never hid the fact that he shot a bear, (he filmed it!!!) and according to the story, he registered it.

What law does that break that deserves a “maximum penalty of five years in federal prison and a $20,000 fine”??

What’s the crime?

Eli

[Ogre]

Registering the killing of a tame bear as a wild hunt. It’s illegal, same as hunting over bait is in many states, because for some reason, state lawmakers still tend to think that a hunt should be a HUNT, not shooting fish in a barrel.

[Eliphalet]

@Ogre

Registering the killing of a tame bear as a wild hunt. It’s illegal, same as hunting over bait is in many states, because for some reason, state lawmakers still tend to think that a hunt should be a HUNT, not shooting fish in a barrel.

OK, I can follow that, I guess. Not sure I understand it, but since when is that important?

So, if Gentry bought the bear, and decided he wanted to shoot it, would that have been legal? Is the indictment because he tagged it?

Seems to me that the indictment is a use of a “technical” charge on a moral crime.

Eli

[dropzone]

Feh, it’s just the way rich people hunt. You’ve heard about Cheney and the released birds and I suppose you’ve seen the film of Kaiser Wilhelm shooting corraled deer. Just be glad Gentry doesn’t have an army.

[Bricker]

@jsgoddess

Gosh, I wonder how I could make it clear that it disgusts me. Hey, maybe if I say it a few times.

OK, OK - just asking. In my experience, people can say, “It disgusts me,” and mean to convey that the act is objectively disgusting, or they can say “It disgusts me,” in order to convery their personal opinion, and not a sense that they are stating a moral law. It was unclear to me which flavor you were advancing, so I asked – now I know.

That’s because he brought the rats into the discussion once I already said “for fun.” If he isn’t doing it “for fun” where is the relevance? If he is doing it “for fun” then it disgusts me.

I think Blake’s thesis is that he did it for profit: that is, he did it as part of an on-goign effort to maintain and enhance his image as a good ol’ boy, the better to appeal to his fans. In other words, under this theory, he, personally, derives no enjoyment from killing the bear – he does it for the same reason that politicians kiss babies… to get good press and enhance his public image.

If someone is getting paid to exterminate pests, that’s one thing, and a bear can fall into the category of “pest.” But this bear did not. And getting paid to kill this bear would disgust me, unless the bear’s death was for a purpose other than 'Weee, this is fuuuun!" If the bear was going to be eaten, I would still consider letting a moron with a bow take shots at it to be reprehensible since it makes a humane death much less likely.

Right - now consider the utilitarian theory advanced above – killing the bear NOT for fun, but as a way to enhance his image. What’s your take on that?