I like Texas and all, but come on...

Yeah yeah, I've been away for a while. Get over yourselves. ;-)

So I did indeed spend a large number of my "formative years" in TX, which I usually enjoyed. I still miss the open space, the slightly slower pace, the drawl, the lack of snow, and let's not forget Whataburger. While I never personally "packed heat" while strolling down the street, I knew many folks who did, and while I may have questioned some of their cognitive ability, I was always assured of their seriousness when it came to firearms and safety. Most of the gun-toting folks I associated with were of the hunting variety. Though I was not a hunter myself, I certainly partook of the bounty from many hunting expeditions including some jalapeño stuffed, bacon wrapped, smoked quail - YUM! I am much more prone to take my shooting practice to the range and murderize a series of paper targets, much as I did in military school. This is just to give you a little background beforehand. I am not a fanatical NRA lobbyist, but I do believe that firearms in the hands of responsible and safety conscious citizens is a good thing. I've seen this topic also go way overboard in both directions for example, I think using an AK-47 to hunt boar is a little over the top, but what do I know. I also think not having the ability to own your own is a little frightening. Regardless, this was supposed to be about something I read that I couldn't really wrap my head around.

Apparently there has been a sufficient outcry in TX by the sight impaired folks, that the government is looking into allowing blind people to hunt. It essentially requires them to have a sighted person with them to lead them to the location, handle the weapon, sight the target, and then tell the person when to shoot. I was just amazed that a large enough group of people wanted to know that they killed something personally, that it became an issue for government. I had (apparently erroneously) thought that the thrill of hunting was in the tracking the prey, and it being a sort of 1 on 1 experience. Again, what do I know? I personally can't see where just pulling the trigger after having someone else do everything (including line up the shot) would be satisfying in the least - even assuming that I can imagine that far.

Maybe it'd be more fun just to tag the quarry with a transmitter that is tied into a sight on the weapon and an earpiece for the blind shooter. Then they could line it up themselves. It would certainly be more fun to watch all the other hunters running to try to keep themselves out of the line of fire. Maybe we should just give ALL the hunters a loin cloth and a knife, and tell them to hunt that way. That would certainly be interesting to see how well they fared, though I fear our venison supplies would become significantly diminished.