Sould it be illegal to hunt with 8 gauge?

[Dean Romig]

Honestly, I know little about 8 ga. guns and the kind of pressures they produce or the min. wall thickness required to be considered safe.

[TARNATION !!!]

This thread has become an interesting discussion that touches on laws ethics and morals, as related to killing game. Is conducting oneself in a legal manner also conducting oneself in a moral and ethical manner? Does it depend on whose standards are in play? A philosophical analysis may be in order. Any philosophers out there??? With deference to true academics, I want to make a stab at this.

I think laws are developed for application to the whole of society. To do so, they can become vague and subject to interpretation. Morals and ethics may not have the same broad social application, rather they may refer more to rules and standards of conduct and practice, often developed by a segment of a society for application to and within that segment, e.g. doctors, lawyers, religions and even hunters. To establish moral and ethical codes within a segment of society, there will be debate. That debate may center on values related to some conduct, touching on the rightness or wrongness of certain actions and the goodness or badness of the motives and methods employed to achieve the ends of such actions.

So, let's stick with hunting.

To start, there are segments of society that abhor the thought of killing any animal for human consumption. Those who hold true to those ethical standards will not eat any form of animal derived product. Their sense of what is right and good varies from the vast majority of the human population who do eat animal flesh and other animal derived products. Who is right or wrong or good or bad??

For the rest of the population that does consume animal products, there is a broad based desire that the animals to be consumed are decently treated up to the point of being killed, most often in a slaughter house type of facility.

However, hunters perform the full range of actions required in order to take the animal from natural habitat to dining table. The chase, the kill, the field dressing, the home preparation, the cooking and eating.

So the end, a meat based meal, is the same for the person who relies on others to turn an animal into the product to be consumed, as it is for the hunter.

So with the same end, the motives and methods employed to get there become the subject of debate.

For the general population the motive may be as simple as a meal.

For the hunter, the motive may include the meal, as well as the enjoyment of the time in nature, and the camaraderie of like-minded persons. It may include the enjoyment of interacting with another species to assist in the hunt – our four legged friends.

The next issue is the methods employed, which directly touches on the 8 gauge discussion.

Rightness, wrongness, goodness and badness become the matters of debate that determine the morals and ethics of hunting.

We have to start with the assumption that hunting is good, not bad and that killing an animal for food is right not wrong. We know there are others who disagree; however, at the broad social level, the legality of hunting is not in question. Methods are in question, even amongst hunters and that depends on personally derived sense of what what is right or wrong good or bad.

So let's stick now with the method of killing using an 8 gauge gun. Will it kill, yes. How so? With #7 #6 #5 #4 #2 etc shot. This is the same shot used in any shotgun. Does the 8 gauge deploy more pellets than 10 12 gauge etc? It can but some modern loads for smaller gauges can actually deploy more pellets.

Do more airborne pellets increase the probability of a clean kill? Likely.

So, does the question ultimately become: Is there a maximum number of pellets deployed by a gun, beyond which, it is clearly wrong and bad?? On the opposite side, is there a minimum number of pellets deployed, under which it is clearly wrong and bad?

I rambled on at length here and must end with a personal level moral and ethical decision to make. If I had an 8 gauge gun, I would not hesitate to use it if it were legal to do so (don't want to lose my car, the 8 gauge, the backup gun or my hunting privileges).

The main reason for me to have no qualms would be increasing the probability of a clean kill.

I believe all moral and ethical questions are decided at the individual level. I may decide not to kill a certain species, even though legal to do so. That may be based on taste. If I don't eat it, I don't kill it. If another hunter enjoys eating that species, who am I to have a concern.

Okay, I'll end it on that note.

Cheers,
Jack