Mr. Pirie,
I hope you don't consider this an attack, because that is not its intended purpose. I simply disagree with you (although, until recently, I could not say that on this subject), and here's why:
Lots of people enjoy pulling the trigger a lot (and I mean A LOT), and these semi-auto guns to which you refer are great for those people, not to mention their legitimate useage for home defence, etc. As long as they send all that lead those guns were designed to dispense downrange to paper, cans, bottles, etc. or to legal game, who are we (or anybody else for that matter) to say they should not be able to use those tools for that purpose which they enjoy?
The "public" view of those guns is skewed, due in no small part to the media, but also because those of us who hunt tend to want to distance ourselves from the supporters of those guns. I used to be one of those guys, but I'm changing my mind on the whole thing. The gun-ban crowd wants you to have no nice double shotguns, just like it wants the fella down the street to have no ARs. They will not stop at the ARs, and there's no reason to think they will.
The argument, to me at least, is about rights. We have no right to tell the AR owner that he or she should not own or shoot that AR, just as the AR owner has no right to tell us not own or shoot our doubles. I'm afraid that we are all in this thing together, and we'll either make it together, or we'll surely go down together.
Ty
