ANTI - CROSSBOW TALK

[hetichunter]

The socialist republic of Illinois wrote the book on greed. All other greed should be compared to what takes place here regarding hunting. The criminal clowns called politicians in Chicago want to take every weapon away, guns, crossbows, bottle rockets and party favors. They took party favors off the hit list as they found all Illinois former governors can trade them for cigarettes while serving time in Joliet. Only in Illinois do you have to carry a Firearms Owner Identification Card to own a firearm. Our politicians thumb their nose at the words "the right to own and bear arms" contained in our constitution.

The greed downstate in the best deer hunting area is without parallel. The counties down south produce enormous deer and commercial enterprises found they could charge enormous prices to have people come and hunt them.

I have no doubt that Illinois will be the very last state to approve crossbows for hunting if they ever do. They could be approved immediately in Cook County however. Send bribe to Ron Emanuel care of the office of mayor, city of chicago. He will forward Obama his cut.

[Bowster]

I don't understand.....

I hunt with my Phoenix, vertical bow, shotgun and rifle.

My toughest decision in the "archery" season is which bow to take out.

I'm glad I live in Ontario and still have such decisions to make.

[Onetimeonly x-->]

Wayne, like you stated the law allows us to use whatever! With that
said, ****em, which is short for You know as well as I do if they
could unload their weapons for the value they have invested they
would go with a Xbow! Like Uncle Ted would say "Everyone SUCKS
but Xbower's SUCK Less"

[Hallaketrout]

Wow, this is an eye opener, I did not know such a controversey existed.
I am 55 and crossbows have been legal in Ontario as long as I can remember, since I started hunting at about 15 years old.
To the best of my knowledge, a hunter is a hunter here, rifles, shotgun, black powder or archery ( crossbows are included in archery by definition )
C'mon guys we all have to stick together or the anti's win, you know " divide and conquer. "

[Sopchoppy]

When I retired and moved to Tennessee, I became a deer hunter. I had been hunting since I was 12 but only small game. The rifle was the weapon of choice for a couple of years until I became aware that I was missing almost 2 months of hunting season waiting for gun season. Started looking at archery equipment and didn't take me long to decide I wanted no part of compound bows. Too many moving parts to adjust and wear out. Crossbow was the logical choice as they were legal the entire archery season. All the research led me to Excalibur. My new next door neighbor had been a deer hunter forever but had not hunted in a few years because he had no hunting partner. He WAS a compound bow only guy, until he saw first hand what crossbows were all about. Crossbows do not shoot 100 yards with no drop and you cannot just pick it up and shoot and hit bullseye without practice. To make a fat story thin, he now hunts with a crossbow only during archery season. He never said anything negative about my choice of weapon and neither did I. We are just two hunters that enjoy God's creation and hunting together.

[OkXbowHunter]

Probably the most anti-crossbow people I run across are actually other bowhunters who should know better. For some reason, they think just because they shoot traditional archery or a compound bow, that they know more than others. But as it was said earlier, one of the primary reasons for this is greed. They're afraid that someone else is going to kill their deer. You only have to look at the Nebraska or Oklahoma thread at Bowsite to see how deep this ignorance runs. I mean, c'mon, some of these people are actually pretty intelligent until they open their mouths and start talking about crossbows!

Another reason is that they're just plain ignorant and do not want to educate their self about crossbows. I was like this during the late 80's and early 90's. Finally, I actually tried shooting and hunting with an xbow when I lived in Arkansas and quickly found out that I wasn't going to decimate the deer herd with this thing!

Thirdly, and I believe this is as big a reason as the other two (if not more so), are the manufacturers their self. What I mean by this is, take a look at the Tac 15 and some other bows put out there recently. REALLY? Do we need a crossbow that looks like an M16? Some other ones look just as ridiculous. I don't know if this is true, but in an archery shop last fall I overheard a sales rep telling a Customer that the Tac 15 takes the same lower receiver as an AR.

Yeah, that won't add no fuel to the phrases of "Crossgun" or "it shoots just like a rifle".

You have to stop to remember, we're a small minority. We just don't have the votes to ignore other segments of the population like we used to. Can you imagine what some Non hunters think when they see someone with a Tac 15 or similar looking crossbow? How about the non hunting legislators that work with the State's Game Departments?

Sometimes I think we (hunters, bow hunters, crossbow hunters, outdoorsmen, manufacturers, etc) figuratively shoot ourselves in the foot when dealing with our image and the general public. I also believe seeing how large the non hunting segment of the population is, that manufacturing something that looks like an assault weapon but is designed for bow hunting is pretty irresponsible.

Whether you like it or not, we live in a world that makes many of its decisions based on nothing more than visual perceptions. It's the same reason you don't see 300 lb women in Playboy or why you see fat people modeling clothes in clothing catalogs (you won't even see them in Big & Tall catalogs). If you're still not convinced about this, just ask a Pit bull owner or handgun owner what they think about all the laws that regulate them.