Doc

That is the absolute most ridiculous looking animal I have ever seen.

Grouse ........ I remember those things.

Like I said, your comments are exactly the same as those made by many gun hunters. So don't be surprised if gun comparisons automatically become injected. It's not crowbarring anything into anything. It is simply the very next logical step to the line of comment that you raised. When you start promoting advanced and more effective weapons to try to cure the shortfalls of another, you simply open the door for other arguments with the same theme. You can set whatever ground rules that you please, but eventually you have to face with the reality of how the rest of the world deals with those very same sentiments. And by the way, the intermixing of firearms with bow seasons is not some hypothetical that I made up and really doesn't fall into the category of an "outlandish idea". And so as uncomfortable as it may be to have that pointed out and attached to your comments, I'm afraid that it is a genuine fact of life that, like it or not, has to be faced up to and acknowledged.

There seems to be a lot of information being released that indicates that he may have had help, or that he was just the trigger man of the operation. It also appears that suicide was not the main part of the plan. Some of the arrangements look like he had some escape enablers set up. It will all come out. It just takes time. And officials are not spilling everything they know yet either.

If you got the wind right, enjoy your coffee or whatever else you want to eat and drink. If you don't have the wind right, some additional scents won't matter.

I have all my days off (retired). But don't let that fool you. Fall is the month when most of my other activities are in full swing. And then there are all the doctors appointments and social obligations. So my time is not as free or random as one might think. It seems that back when I was working, I seemed to have more time than I do now. However, the final years of my career, I was able to set my own hours, and I had more vacation than was decent. Pushing my start time as early as I could always left every afternoon free for the evening hunt.

That is because that very same argument that you are using has been parroted by gun hunters talking about all the deer running through the woods with arrows sticking out of them. Their solution?.....End bow hunting and use rifles. It sounds very much like the arguments that say X-bows are justified because there are some bad bowhunters out there. If you want to really sell that point, then you have to agree that guns should be allowed into bow seasons because they are less likely to cause wounding losses. It really is not as big a jump as you are making out. The argument has been used before many times ..... by gun hunters. Another thought comes to mind when I hear people talk about x-bows as a super weapon is the element of over confidence in the crossbow abilities. Those people who misuse bows are the same ones that would take ridiculous shots with their new super-weapon, their crossbow. It's not correct to think that those with bows are reckless and care little about the quality of shots that they are taking, but crossbow shooters are somehow more responsible for their shot selection. There is no real reason to believe that.

Yes that's the exact logic that prompted the DEC to push for an early muzzleloading season about a decade ago. I assume you were for that too. Care to give up a couple weeks of bow/crossbow season so the DEC can get a much more efficient weapon shoehorned in?

Nah, it's all just discussion of possibilities of a very powerful and current event. Fear not!

And that is where it all began.....lol. Was that a good move? It all depends on where it all ends.

You are right, I was on the wrong side of that one. Unfortunately it has taken many decades to actually see the result, and learn from the pattern. I see the issue not so much of imposing my preferences on anyone as simply trying to preserve something that is worth saving. Not everything needs to suffer the pollution of change

No......Nothing was ever resolved as far as the differences. The issues are the same. No reason for the discussion to come out any different.

Or at least he knew how to buy modified weapons. It's going to be interesting to see how all of this develops. It is true that none of this makes any sense right now. Hopefully none of us can possibly understand the mentality of someone who would do this kind of thing and we are all struggling to make sense of something so illogical. But the details will eventually be all put together and released. Until then it is only natural to let our imaginations come up with all kinds of crazy scenarios. And I suppose it is all quite harmless theorizing.

I have traveled almost the entire gambit of the bowhunting development in NYS. I have seen it all. I watched the struggles from the time bowhunting was a novelty and kind of a joke in the hunting community all the way to today where gun hunters are sincere in their opposition to bowhunting because of our growing success. And as a matter of fact I am very happy that we do have a season because I have been with the struggle almost since inception. Now for the first time, I am feeling a threat to that season. It all started with the compound and we are now outsmarting ourselves. I am convinced that I do not want to ever have to bowhunt concurrently with gun hunters. But as the nature and success of bowseason continues to improve, I am feeling a bit uneasy about that happening. That ois how I or those trying to enjoy what I have enjoyed all my life can be affected. No, at my age, I likely will be long gone before that ever happens, but I do get concerned over the future of a sport that has been so central to most of my life.

I was on the pro-compound side of the argument. I was laughing at the guys who claimed that the compound would provide the precedent for bigger and better things of the future.

We have gotten so used to these things being ISIS inspired or some home-grown terrorist group that we have forgotten that even un-affiliated people can slip over the edge suddenly and violently. It will be interesting to follow the investigation. My big fear is that this guy has shown the suicide wackos a new and effective means to terror that may become very commonplace soon. And there is no imaginable defense against it. I think he has changed our way of life in a permanent way.

I guess the word is quite official now that at least two of the guns are modified AR's. So I think you can look for a new war against all semi autos.

Somehow, we each think that we have control of the definitions. Moog thinks that inclusions into bow season will stop at gun powder, others think that as long as it only involves bent limbs. Others think the arrow/bolt is the defining factor. But the fact is that we really don't have control of what gets included in bow seasons and where it all stops. I happen to think that the style of shooting makes a difference and the physical disciplines and skills that must be mastered are the defining limits. But then I don't have control of what gets shoved into bow seasons either. The fact is that we already have gun powder propelled projectiles being used during bow season. We are only fooling ourselves when we think we have the power to set arbitrary limits on what legal weapons and propulsion and physical features or skills that will be limited for use in archery season time slots. Our individual definitions carry no weight at all. But I can say this. The more liberal our acceptance of weapons become for inclusion into or concurrent within bow seasons, the easier it is for items that we never imagined to creep into that time slot. We have seen youth rifle seasons arbitrarily slammed into bow season. We have seen muzzleloaders added into the northern zone bow seasons. We have seen muzzleloaders put in concurrent with late bow seasons. The fact is that bow season has become the dumping grounds for any weapon that no one knows what to do with. More and more people are jealously eyeballing the prime times that have worked so hard to carve out for ourselves. And every time we allow another weapon to be crammed into bow season, it get so much easier to find the next generation of ones to include. Also there is the growing bowhunting success rates that a lot of gun hunters are looking at. The gun hunters are starting to ask why there even needs to be a special bow season. They are questioning why we get the first crack at all the big bucks. It's getting harder and harder to come up with an explanation that satisfies that question. And we have not even begun to see where the technology of crossbows will go. If the growth parallels that of the compound, we are in for some more significant rises in success percentages. So yes lets continue the march toward taking challenges out of bowhunting and boosting success rates. We've been doing that for decades now. Perhaps our rush to remove challenges from bowhunting will eventually eliminate our special bow seasons completely. There sure are a lot of people who are looking to accomplish exactly that.

You are correct. Everyone should take a shot at 5 yards just to be familiar with the weird things that happen.

I get there as close to sunrise as possible if it is cold.

Don't kid yourself. There was plenty of opposition to compounds back in the day. The argument was that compounds were just the precedent for the addition of more and more unintended weapons in bow seasons. And sure enough, compounds have been used as the pry-bar for inclusion of cross bows. And now we have another giant precedent set that will lead to other future inclusions. Bow season is in the process of completely losing its identity as we march along the path of eliminating all the reasons that we have a special bow season in the first place. The talk has already begun, asking why bowhunters need a special season as success rates continue to climb, but we still keep cheerfully moving along that path.

No to full inclusion.

Well, the good news is that there were no skeeters this morning (37 degrees) or yesterday morning (35 degrees). But temps are supposed to increase throughout the week. The bad news is that I have not seen any deer yet. But the season is young yet.

I am real anxious to hear more about this gun that he used that was fully automatic. Specifically whether he had all the proper permits and paper work, or whether it was a stolen weapon or an illegally modified semi-auto. The legislative fall-out may depend on those answers. If it is a modified semi-auto, look for further restrictions on that class of weapon. If it turns out to be a legit full auto, look for the media to soft-pedal that fact as that would show that the most restrictive of gun controls does not work.