Plinker
So, raccoons are killing cats in Washington somewhere:
the town meeting becoming a place to mourn and cry, the tearful cat owners who’ve seen their pets die, the frustrated wildlife officer whose life traps prove useless, the wildlife coordinator who promises to evaluate the situation and perhaps bring in trappers from the dept of agriculture, the group racoon attack on a small dog, and on and on and on.
Seriously? A 22LR would solve the problem.
August 24th, 2006 at 3:30 am
Discharge a fiream inside the city limits? Inside the Olympia city limits?? And kill a living creature while doing so???? Just how many many charges do you want to be brought up on, really?
🙁
August 24th, 2006 at 6:41 am
Kirk, you’re very right. That’s probably a large portion of how they got so out of control in the first place. They’re “cute” and get fed by a bunch of folks, and those who realize that’s not a good idea can’t do much about it. (Well, other than “less-lethal” methods… Slingshots and paintball guns come to mind.) Next thing you know, people are only a food provider and pets are just food.
But could you imagine seeing this story in Atlanta or Dallas?
August 24th, 2006 at 8:43 am
what about an good (like smoking good) BB gun. you can get some special pellets that penatrate extra far and you would probably have a meal.
August 24th, 2006 at 9:17 am
Isn’t it enough statewide to say “it’s comin’ right for us?”
August 24th, 2006 at 9:47 am
Hey libbies! Guess what? YOU NEED A GUN TO SOLVE THIS PROBLEM.
August 24th, 2006 at 11:46 am
Or, you know, keep your pets indoors. (Although I favor the bang-y solution.)
August 24th, 2006 at 12:25 pm
Most people don’t realize that it’s not too hard to get away with a single .22 shot when fired outside (especially in the evening)… No one saw you do it, and most people aren’t even sure it was a gun shot. If the police show up, just say you heard it, but didn’t think it sounded like a gun shot, so you didn’t call…
But then, that’s why they make crossbows right? Just remember the three S’s
Shoot
Shovel
SHUT UP!
August 24th, 2006 at 12:28 pm
Lots of anti-gun counties have laws against things that fire projectiles powered by gas expansion. For some folks, air-guns and paintball guns are out of the question… (although there may be some legal gray area if you fire one from within your house, but that varies)
August 24th, 2006 at 2:43 pm
I’m with Kit on this one. There are two kinds of cats: indoor cats and stray/feral cats. “Pets” are only the former variety. The latter variety constitute “wildlife.”
As to legal solutions, couldn’t you trap them? My dad used to do that with squirrels (because my Mom wouldn’t let him kill them).
August 24th, 2006 at 3:27 pm
Definitely use a small bore rifle. Then after you shoot all the cats, take out the racoons too.
August 24th, 2006 at 4:13 pm
I figure a paintball gun loaded with those pepper balls the cops use would do the trick. It would probably pass legal muster, not to mention be much quieter than a .22. Plus you could go full-auto; even a stream of a few paintballs hitting about the same time would get the message across.
The problem here is the wimpy pet owners apparently don’t have the guts to do anything by themselves.
August 24th, 2006 at 10:50 pm
existingthing Says:
CCI CB Longs or other subsonic .22
August 24th, 2006 at 10:57 pm
Actually, around here it’s illegal to livetrap a living thing and relocate it without a special permit from our everloving overloads, the county maggots.
There’s a ferral kitty around here I need to trap and fix. I could just trap and kill, but then I’d just have another one come around. I could just leave it alone, but then the neighbors would just feed the critter and we would, one way or another, have more kitties. What I haven’t figured out yet is whether this one was someones former pet, or it was born ferral. Unfortunatly, at this point, I’m leaning toward the first case.
August 25th, 2006 at 2:04 am
BB/Pellet guns would be an option-WA has state pre-emption (much to the irritation of the Seattle and Olympia city councils), and there’s no law against airguns.
Crossbows are cheaper, though.
Olympia is actually more wacked-out leftist than Seattle. The Olympia city council refused an offered port visit by the USS Olympia, a nuclear attack sub. Seattle hosts Navy ships and the Blue Angels annually, at SeaFair.
August 26th, 2006 at 3:43 pm
Sorry, Heartless, but state preemption only applies to ownership, transportation, and carry (concealed, but presumably open, too.) Counties, cities, and towns are completely free to regulate the discharge of firearms and just about everywhere that’s urban or suburban does.
A brief survey of a few municipalities in my area (Tacoma, University Place, and Lakewood) reveals that:
a) hunting (including pest control) is prohibited by everybody,
b) discharge of a firearm (except in cases of legitimate self-defense) is prohibited everywhere that isn’t an established firing range.
c) Tacoma has a blanket prohibition on the firing of airguns and–get this–the use of slingshots!
d) University Place, where I live, specifically allows discharge of airguns provided you have a safe backstop and are doing target shooting; culling crows and rodents by airgun is still banned.
I’m quite certain Olympia has similar strictures.
In Pierce County itself, there’s no blank prohibition against discharging firearms, but quite a few of the more-populated areas have gotten themselved declared no-shoot zones.
August 27th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
There is one non-firearm solution: turn a few large dogs loose in the neighborhood. I used to live in a small town where leash law enforcement was pretty much non-existent, and several neighbors were unwilling or unable to do what it took to keep their mutts in their own yards. (It’s not always a simple problem; I once owned a Malemute mix that snapped several hefty chains, until I moved up to hardware made to hold a horse, anchored to a post set deep in the ground with concrete.) No cat or garbage can was safe, but we didn’t have any problem with raccoons, rabbits, or deer – and we were so close to the woods that a black bear once broke into the vacant house across the street. Bears don’t worry about dogs much, and neither do skunks, but those were the only wildlife willing to come out of the woods.
Of course, then you might need the firearms for dog control.