School paper-any Ideas?

[Bassboy1645]

Okay for my shotgun sports class I have to write a paper understanding our oppisition. So as a fanatical hunter and pro gun type guy I need to write a paper supporting anti hunting and anti gun stances.( I know its terrible) After a few days of research finding nothing but opinions my experiences in the field are going to be my basis. Im going to write about how I watched Goverment hunters shoot coyotes out of helicopters on a movie. Im going to write about High fence hunting. And last I think im going to use bad examples of unethical or downright mean hunter behaviors. Does this sound like a good starting point for an anti stance paper? Any other ideas or suggestions??

[Surface Tension]

I would refuse to do it. I'd then ask the teacher as to their stance on the subject. Let him/her know you don't appreciate being used to further their agenda.

Then suggest the topic be Misconceptions of Anti Hunters.

Do it well and respectfully.

[xedge2002]

How about Troy Gentry(i think troy is his first name) who hunted a tame, doped bear in a fenced in enclosure and tried to pass it off as a legit kill of a record size bear? He gives all hunters a bad name since most people who do not understand the ethics of hunting think we all do that.

[xedge2002]

I don't think it is a teacher trying to push their beliefs on the students, I think that it is the teacher trying to push his students to understand some of the anti-hunter's objections to hunting.

I am a firm believer in understanding what your opponents believe. I think it is a lot easier to defeat them if you already know what they are going to try and throw at you, that way you already have a response prepared for it that is well thought out and gives you time to shoot holes in your own response and make changes to it to make it stronger.

[Down2Earth]

Dang I must have been out to lunch when people were signing up for this class when I was in highschool. After every idea supporting anti-hunters I would write "which is stupid...because......."

Just a note. In the school I taught at we also had a taxidermy class. Cool Beans hey!!!!!!

[Bassboy1645]

ST, my teacher is a fanatical duck hunter and takes a 2 week vaction off teaching in october to let his students go out and hunt. He is merely trying to show us from a conservation standpoint what kinds of things the antis have on us. Utimatley I think he showed me that even hunters and shooters have merely opinions on our sport we love most and that there are people who disagree with us. they htink thyre right we think were right. That being said its sad to think that instead of agreeing to disagree we have to try to end the others agendas to better our own.

[TrophyEyes]

I would potential explore other countries that have strict hunting regulations or no hunting permitted. Show the increase in game (and the starving or dead animals from over-population), show the decrease in government income, and increase in poaching due to a decrease in Conservation Officers due to budget cuts. I think it is a great idea to write such a distorted paper.

You could make a stand and say it is not regulations, but education that is needed. Stricter teaching and enforcement can prevent cultural and historical "bending of the rules." We can teach that "if its brown its down" methodology is a distorted sense of hunting. We can also bridge the gap between different cultures, like what happened in Wisconsin with the Hmong gentleman. I would be willing to concede that we do not need AR-15's in the woods ripping off 30 round clips of 30 cal. ammunition either. That could be your "gun control" stance.

Obviously I have no opinion on the subject.

[picksbigwagon]

I hate to suggest this, but PETA and the HUMANE SOCIETY should be your starting point. There are a number of organizations out there that feel hunting is wrong and the government should take over the feeding of animals in over populated areas. Start looking at those websites and move on from there.

I have a sister in law who thinks hunting is wrong but respects my decision to hunt. It is a respect issue, you are either respectful or you are not......

[tealitup]

Maybe take it another way. The need for hunting with current technology and farming. Is there a need for hunting in America when everything we need can be bought in a store.

Also, use the nature argument. Meaning, nature will over populate and kill its own in order for the species to survive as a whole. Use the disease as a factor and terrible deaths, but nature does correct itself.

[CodyDawg]

Another thing you could do is write it from the standpoint of an ethical, law-abiding hunter who wants to educate his fellow hunters on behaviors that influence the non-hunters. Remember, it will not be the anti-hunter who decides the future of our sport, it will be the non-hunter (that group of approximately 80% of the population who are not hunters nor anti-hunters.

Good luck and if you would be willing to share it, I bet you would have a lot of readers here who would love to see it.

[Surface Tension]

I jumped to conclusions. Sorry about that.

I see what your teacher is doing.

"my shotgun sports class" Hot dang, they didn't offer that in my school.

[Bassboy1645]

Well thanks for the ideas guys...eventually I used my own experiences and twisted them slightly looking at them through the antis views and how they would describe my experiences. My teacher gaves us a good speech on conservation and ethics and that got me thinking about some experiences I had where I was yelled at by a hunter on public land who claimed I stole"his spot". It also includes some high fence hunting and a video hunt where govt. hunters thined out predator populations via helicopter. I will post my paper on here after class.

ST, I wouldnt have taken the class but I need my minimum 12 credits for full time status. What the heck learn a bunch of stuff I know and shoot a few rounds of trap, skeet, and Sporting clays for a credit. what a fun class. Oh by the way If anybody hasnt guessed it its college haha. they have everything now to learn.

[BobT]

Sounds to me like your class instructor is not trying to push anti-hunting but is trying to increase your class' awareness of the position and feelings from the anti-hunting groups. I think this is a good idea. What better way to dispel or in a worse-case scenrio, the "enemy's" position than by understanding it better.

One way to defeat opposition is to have a better understanding of it and then work toward changing their position.

In other words, learn what is so upsetting to them and consider how we can change our ways and attitudes to help them relax.

Bob

[Whoaru99]

Quote:

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I hate to suggest this, but PETA and the HUMANE SOCIETY should be your starting point. There are a number of organizations out there that feel hunting is wrong and the government should take over the feeding of animals in over populated areas. Start looking at those websites and move on from there.

I have a sister in law who thinks hunting is wrong but respects my decision to hunt. It is a respect issue, you are either respectful or you are not......

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I was going to say the same thing. I'm sure you can find plenty of fodder on the PETA HSOforum. Now, you might have to separate some real fact from their version of fact, but I'd think there's a plethora of ideas to start with.

[96trigger]

If you are a hunter, and you haven't visited the PETA HSOforum, you really should. They are an extremely fanatical group. Whenever you think about turning on another hunter, go the HSOforum and watch the propoganda, they have a great divide and conquer agenda. The videos on the sight are disturbing to say the least, they show the worst of the worst and are only one sided.

The problem with most sportsmen is that we are sportsman with ethics, morals, and a sense of fairness. PETA has none of those qualities. It will be an ongoing battle that will take numbers and unity to ward off.

[Scott M]

I would check out NRA's HSOforum and see if they can help you out. There is plenty of bad press out there over things like Columbine, Red Lake, automatic weapons, weapon shows, registration and collection and firearms in other countries where gun rights have been repealed. There are plenty of ways people get worked up over guns and then automatically assume its true of all hunters.

Or how about the people that want to trap and remove or use birth control on deer versus hunting as a management strategy. I would recommend that angle for hunters. Contact Lou Cornicelli for that one. He's on this HSOforum, username lcornice, email him at [email protected]. He's the DNR's big game head guy in St. Paul.

[Whoaru99]

PETA isn't really that big of a deal although they like to make like they are. PETA has barely more members worldwide than Minnesota alone has licensed hunters & fishermen.

[fishwithteeth]

I don't know if your paper must be about hunting, but when I was in college I needed to do a speech about a contraversial subject without showing bias. I did the speech on gun control which at the time was very hot because of the Brady bill. I still believe it is a good subject for discussion because both sides seem to be "over the top" with their points of view. It was difficult being unbiased because I love the shooting sports. It was also very informative to me because it is good to know what the opposition is thinking. There is tons of material out there on both sides of the subject. Good luck and let us know how your paper turns out.

[tealitup]

Quote:

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PETA isn't really that big of a deal although they like to make like they are. PETA has barely more members worldwide than Minnesota alone has licensed hunters & fishermen.

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Peta has a better PR firm then we do. They get alot more press.

[Bassboy1645]

Heres my final paper....

Opposite Stance Paper

In today’s modern world, we need guns and hunting like we need a heart attack. Times have changed and people have evolved from simple nomads to sophisticated beings. We can grow food and raise livestock so there is no need to hunt. Guns are only needed by police because the common people have guns and use them on each other. If the people didn’t have guns, the police wouldn’t need guns. Animal cruelty, unfair chase, murder, and aggressive behavior are several reasons on why hunting and guns should be removed from this earth.

I was flipping through channels the other night when I saw something that horrified me. As I reached for the popcorn the remote slipped out of my hand and the channel stopped on a “hunting” program. The “hunters” were flying over a ranch in Texas via helicopter, with loaded shotguns, blasting round after round into an unseen area. When the camera zoomed in I was speechless as I watched blood fly from a helpless Coyote. The next scene showed the hunters showing off their mangled prize and smiling as if it was funny to take a life. This got more sickening as this went on for 8 or nine different kills. At one point the hunter missed nicking the coyote in the head with a couple BB’s. The coyote yelped and stumbled as it ran for its life before finally falling over and giving up. It looked up at the camera in the helicopter, as if to wonder why, while the hunters proceeded to turn the exhausted coyote into Swiss dog. If that wasn’t animal cruelty I don’t know what is.

Recently, an article in a famous outdoor magazine caught my eye. The cover asked the reader what side of the fence they were on. Curiosity got the best of me and I tried my best not to look at all the dead fish and animals as I found the article. I just about soiled myself when I learned that hunting preserves trap animals in high fence enclosures allowing hunters to run them down and corner them! I couldn’t believe what I was reading. Rich hunters from the cities would go out west to these places and pay as much as 3,000 dollars to kill a trophy elk. They cared nothing of walking up to a grain pile and shooting a bull in the shoulder and watching it smash into the ground as it died, obviously in extreme pain. Some of the hunters who wanted “fair chase” would go to a part of the fenced area where there were no animals for a few days. When they got bored of that they drove a jeep down the road, spotted an elk and chased it down to a corner where they would kill it. Again they displayed their prize as pictures were snapped and high fives were exchanged. It was a horrifying thing to learn about

Its not just hunting that’s bad. Guns are just as bad if not worse! As terrible as hunting is people do not lose their lives. On the big city streets and in the ghettos people lose their life. A majority of the death in the city comes from guns. It’s unthinkable as to why a person would kill another human being, yet it happens everyday. In fact, it makes the news if someone isn’t murdered in places like Minneapolis or Chicago. If we could do away with the second amendment and make guns illegal, the crime rate would go down. People couldn’t buy or sell any new guns. As people get arrested, police and law enforcement would confiscate any weapons they find. Sooner or later guns could be taken off the street never to be used again. Eventually police wouldn’t even need guns. The world would be at peace. Pedestrians walking through big cities could finally be safe and not have to worry about getting in the crossfire of gun battles and firefights.

Two years ago, around hunting season, the news world was focused on one story. It was about a group of hunters in Wisconsin who were shot and in some cases killed by another hunter as they argued over a deer stand. Hunters say they are sportsman and have ethics. I disagree! It is absolutely ludicrous to accept a statement like that and watch as hunters shoot it out all because of a stupid treestand. What about hunters who shoot at the same animal? Several times an argument explodes because each hunter wants to claim the animal. They are more worried about who killed what and who gets the trophy. Friends of mine use to own some private land bordering a wildlife refuge. Every year hunters would recklessly break the law and ignore the no trespassing signs and walk onto his land. He would go out there and yell at them until he got sick and tired of yelling at people. Eventually the cops would handle the trespassing complaints. One year the even caught a guy who was baiting and over his limit! What about duck and grouse hunters who waterball or ground pound the birds instead of giving them a chance? I don’t know about the rest of the world but this behavior by hunters in just unacceptable. They have no ethics and display a carless regard for the law as they purse the wild game.

Why anybody would want to shoot an innocent animal is beyond me. Why we need guns in this world is a lie because we don’t. There is just no need for hunting or guns. People could argue that they hunt for food. The world can grow plenty of food. Trophy hunting is just a terrible thing to fathom. Animal cruelty cases are all over the place, especially out in the woods and in the fields where hunting is going on. Animals are running for their life only to be cornered and shot in hunting preserves. Guns are responsible for a majority of the murder cases. Hunters everywhere are showing a disregard for the law and respect of other people. It’s very clear that the evidence is stacked against such an activity. By banning guns and hunting all of the people and the animals in the world could get along in perfect harmony. The pain and the bloodshed of hunting and murder would disappear. Life would once again be a sacred thing. The world would be a better place.

I completely disagree with everything I wrote in this article. The basis of my paper came from twisted views and experiences of real life events that I have witnessed.

I tried my best to give it an anti hunter/gunner view on what we see. let me know what you think! I think I see some controversey because some of the issues are well very controversial.