If story missed mark, so did respondents
Dear Emory,
If the crossbow story missed the mark so did the respondents. First permit
me an explanation.
I am 66 years old. I built my first bow from a hickory limb, bailer twine
string, early in the Korean War. Around the end of that war an older cousin
from St. Louis gave me a self bow he had made as a shop project. Wow, a real bow. I thought I had arrived.
In ‘55 my Dad bought a 55 lb. aluminum bow, my first venture in the over 50 lb. range. It would throw an arrow a quarter mile, was short on accuracy and noisy on release. In ‘57 I bought a 50 lb. fiberglass bow with which I became very proficient, killing rabbits on the run on occasion. In ‘58 an uncle bought a crossbow. He let me use it at our farm for deer, I took it back to him, I did not like the crossbow, then nor now, preferring the aesthetics of the traditional.
A stint in the Air Force followed by marriage and family put a damper on my bow activities. In the ’70’s I joined the compound craze, frankly I did not like them either. I amonce again fully traditional but arthritic shoulders threaten to prevent me continued enjoyment of the longbow.
I am currently experimenting with lighter bow weights in order to find something my shoulders will tolerate. I also am a black powder enthusiast, black powder not Pyrodex. I shoot cap locks and flint locks having no use for inlines.
Jack Compton was a personal friend and fellow employee with me at Southwestern Bell for years. My father in law, a personal friend of Earl Hoyt’s, introduced me to Earl over forty years ago. A Hoyt Sky Bow was the best manufactured longbow I ever owned or shot. I say all this to emphasize that I possess more than a passing relationship with archery and feel justified an opinion on same. Probably I was using a bow before many of the respondents were even born. I think my love and respect for tradition at least meets, probably exceeds, theirs.
I still fail to see the controversy over the crossbow. I found it cumbersome, accurate to a limit and slow to re bolt after a shot. Why it was classed a firearm is a total mystery to me, probably politically motivated.
Firearm, by definition, utilizes a “powder charge to fire a projectile.” The only resemblance to a firearm is cosmetic; stock, trigger and sight. In my opinion
a good man/woman with a compound is far better equipped to pursue deer
than any crossbow user will ever be. But then, as one respondent opined, it is
the man not the weapon, I agree. In short crossbows are not the deadly demons of deer destruction respondents make them out to be.
Perhaps your respondents should consider a bigger picture. A thousand dollar Black Widow re curve is a technological marvel without equal but is it
primitive? Hardly. Traditional? Maybe. One writer opines it is obvious why
they are classed as firearms? How so? Another feels archery season was
established by and for traditionalists. The list of credits at the end of another
must be intended to lend weight to his opinion against the crossbow.
Ten thousand new hunters running amok through the woods with their newly
purchased crossbows? Doubtful.
And last but not least, keep bringing us good articles but not personal opinions in your articles. Hmmm! I must be confused on just what personal opinions consist of. I have no personal aspersions against any respondent but as a group it appears they carry their feelings on their shoulder straps. This is the 21st century. PETA, ASPCA, the UN, Hand Gun Control, etc. surely wring their hands with glee to see practionadoes of the killing sports at each others throats. Divide and conquer personified.
Animal rights activists care not how you kill they just want you stopped. Your
guns today, bows tomorrow. Think about it fellows. Hunting participation, as
a percentage of population, has been declining for years. License sales are
declining. I only wish those tens of thousands of crossbow addicts would get
started now, so do state license sales agents.
I think I have as much experience, love and appreciation for traditional
archery as any one yet I fail to see the logic against the crossbow. Because
it is not logic but opinion. “Valid reasoning especially as distinguished
from invalid or irrational argumentation”, one of the many Webster defines. I,
gulp, myself, gulp, gulp, may indeed have to take up one of those “horrid”
crossbows if I lose the battle with my shoulders. I certainly do not intend to
have to justify the reason to any self-styled purist as to why. To them I say,
chip your own flint point, mount it on a lance or atlatl, conceal on the
downwind side of a berm of rock, dirt or brush, in leather or linsey-woolies,
and run it through a passing deer. I will then sing your praises as a
primitive, a-la traditionalist, hunter. Until then an modifier like quasi is
warranted.
Frankly I think I detect a tad more concern about all those new crossbow idiots stumbling on to a favorite honey hole more than any real concern with the crossbow per se’. But then what do I know. I would agree to allowing crossbows during the archery season. What ever they are; they are not firearms, no where near it.
Mike Harris, hardomo1@charter.net
PS: Emory my congratulations on the paper. The signatures and folds are neater, layout and print clearer, advertising more prolific and the articles getting superb.
This is from an ex quality control manager for the yellow pages so I know a little about print media. Jo Shaper’s article on Mine La Motte is well done. It is a
little known fact that the old St. Joe Lead Company covered mining costs with
residual and trace metals, primarily silver, gold and copper; lead was the profit.
Keep up the good work.
