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Um…at least in Minnesota, ‘buckshot’ is illegal for hunting deer. You must use only single projectile ammunition.

http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/rlp/regulations/hunting/biggame.pdf

I’m not sure where the name came from, but buckshot would not be very effective on a deer and not very humane.

Regardles of how John Kerry likes to kill animals (or at least act manly talking about it), the 2nd Amendment has nothing to do with hunting. It’s there to allow US citizens to support the Constitution and continue to protect themselves from an oppressive government. To remain “citizens” rather than “subjects”. Without the 2nd Amendment to back it up, the rest of the Bill of Rights is all just words on paper.

John Kerry may like shooting and hunting, but he shows very unsafe gun handling. He would likely get his a** kicked in our deer camp and never be invited back if he waved the gun around with his finger on the trigger like he does at those staged shotgun events.

Much more importantly, regardless of his campaign rhetoric, his votes regarding gun control show that he does NOT support the 2nd Amendment.

By the way, I’ll be deer hunting with a rifle based on the AK-47 this fall. Much more effective (and legal for hunting when used with a 5-round magazine) than a double-barrel shotgun. For those of you who will freak out about the “evil AK-47″, it’s not really different than any other rifle. The AK-47 actually shoots a less powerful round than a typical hunting rifle, so I will have to stalk and get close to the deer – although it’s unlikely I’ll get close to deer by crawling on my belly.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=94010

So I guess it’s possible that Senator Botox is telling the truth. (I know. As unlikely as that seems.)

I believe (but am not sure) PeTA is a non-profit, which prohibits them from endorsing or opposing anyone.

If they did support a candidate, it would likely be Nader, though…

PETA doesn’t like hunting, so I am sure they’re appalled by this.

–Kynn

As for crawling through the woods – it’s plausible & on occassion necessary.

You don’t need a rifled barrel with iron sights to shoot slugs or buckshot effectively at deer. You just need to know your range limitations & get cloe – usually within 30 to 50 yards for slugs & under 30 for buckshot.

& you can shoot slugs through a choked barrel. I wouldn’t do it with a full choke or perhaps not even an improved modified, but skeet through modified can be done with the right types of slugs. & while rifling helps accuracy out a bit, people have been running slugs through smoothbores for quite some time. It limits the practical range a bit but it doesn’t harm the barrel.

So I don’t necessarily find his statement unreasonable on its face. What I do find unreasonable is him crawling through the woods on his belly to get close enough to a deer (after stalking it) to put a slug or a load of buckshot into its vitals.

& also I find it unreasonable that he tries to diminish his love for gun control by making an appeal to the hunters & Fuddites.

The other thing that makes it a deer barrel is that it has rifle sights. Most shotguns just have a simple bead on the front. The spread of the shot pattern makes absolute accuracy unimportant, and the simple sight lines up fast when shooting birds in flight.

You typically only see rifle sights for guns that are set up for deer or turkey. (Unlike other birds, turkeys aren’t shot on the wing, and you have to put a lot of lead on target to kill them because of their size.)

Could Kerry have a double-barreled deer rifle with cylinder bore and rifle sights? I won’t say with 100% certainty that it’s impossible, but I suspect Kerry’s full of it. As Otto von Bismarck said, “People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election.” Kerry’s two for three.

It’s that they left out a lot of the quote.

Here’s the full thing:

After his successful round of trapshooting Saturday (Kerry hit 17 of 25 targets), Kerry told a reporter he would rather have been hunting.

He was asked in the interview Sunday what kind of hunting he preferred.

“Probably I’d have to say deer. It’s tough, depending on where you are,” said Kerry.

“I go out with my trusty 12-gauge double-barrel, crawl around on my stomach. I track and move and decoy and play games and try to outsmart them. You know, you kind of play the wind. That’s hunting,” said Kerry, whose manner was relaxed as he spoke on the final day of an excursion along the scenic upper Mississippi that he seemed to take some relish in.

To help out, I’ve highlighted the quotes that have been dropped.

There’s nothing in the original version to indicate that Kerry’s quotes were said in direct succession (nothing to say they weren’t either), but he clearly didn’t make the statements as portrayed in the edited version, which appears to flow cleanly between “hunting deer” and “crawling on the ground.”

In particular, the phrase It’s tough, depending on where you are can be seen as Kerry saying, “It’s difficult to find a place where you can hunt deer, because they’re not always around” — so likely he means that he hunts other things.

His reference to “that’s hunting” has to be read in light of the fact that he’d just been trapshooting. He wasn’t saying “hunting deer with a shotgun on my belly, that’s hunting” — he was saying “going out and stalking prey instead of blasting clay pigeons, THAT’S hunting.”

–Kynn