Where are the Republican right to lifers on this plan to kill the unborn?

Where are the Republican right to lifers on this plan to kill the unborn?

Some years ago a group of my acquintances who had been badly stricken with shooting fine double-barrel shotguns at anything they could find did quite a bit of pigeon shooting here in the Delta. A few farmers had pigeon cotes and lots of birds and the shooters would shoot them as they left and returned to the cotes and in fields they found the birds to be using.

Some of these fellows were also addicted to live pigeon shoots, a rich man's game played all over the world. One of my former friends, Don Whittaker, was a champion and won the world championship in Mexico once some 30 or more years ago. He traveled all over the civilized world for a few years shooting. At times he won some really big money. I suspect that he also lost some nice sums at other times.

This game is quite interesting. You shoot from a ring with a pigeon box in the center. The bird is released and the shooter must drop him dead inside the ring. He is given two shots to do so.

Here's another article, with this description of controversy surrounding one in rural Illinois:

Former Texas rodeo cowboy John McSweeney said all he wanted to do was hone his shooting skills. Clay pigeons weren't challenging enough.

So the Will County electrician looked outside at an empty field that surrounds Carpy's Cove, the remote rural tavern and restaurant that he lived above, and decided to hold a live pigeon-shooting contest.

McSweeney said he bought pigeons from a broker who had trapped them in municipalities and industrial complexes. Then he invited about a dozen or two fellow shooters and charged each $100 for a go at 25 birds apiece. In the last two years, McSweeney said, he held about four shoots a year.

The winners walked away with a 14-carat gold pigeon pin, a local bird dog trainer got the dead birds and sometimes McSweeney had "a few extra dollars" in his pocket. Sometimes, because of costs, he had a few less.

As far as McSweeney was concerned, contestants were only shooting "rats with wings," and everything was going along just fine - until the end of the first season.

That's when animal rights activists showed up ....  

With videocams:

The videotapes show how the live birds are catapulted by a spring mechanism from one of five box traps.

Shooters stand about 30 yards away from the trap boxes. They are allowed two tries to hit the birds. The birds must fall within a circular fence, whose diameter is about 50 yards, in order to score. High school boys retrieve both the dead birds and the fluttering wounded. They twist the neck of the injured birds to kill them.

David Petzal, executive editor of Field and Stream magazine and one of the magazine's shot-gunning columnists, said neck-twisting is the traditional way to kill small game birds.

And even more aspects sure to appeal to Rethugs:

{Petzal] said although in the United States live pigeon shoots attract only a small number of participants, the contests usually are shrouded in secrecy for "all the obvious reasons."

Petzal would not delve into the ethics of live pigeon shoots, saying that "was a question for the individual, because shooting and hunting sports attract people with just about every viewpoint you can find."

That includes, he said, "most hunters who feel you don't shoot it if you can't eat it."

Tell that to Deadeye Dick.  Of course, he might be inclined to go for the sport.  One of the protestors noted:

"Killing anything for sport is cruel," .... "Most mass murderers started out by being cruel to animals."

After the friend left I asked my neighbor what the friend did for a living. She told me his co had the gvt contract to keep pigeons off federal buildings.

It didn't seem like such a big deal at first, as I was thinking only of DC, but she pointed out that there are federal buildings all over the country - including every post office.

They are, and the pigeon that was foolish enough to nest on my balcony is wondering where it's egg and poorly made nest is.

It was delicious by the way.