This week an amazing thing happened. We passed the pigeon-shoot bill in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Some people say pigeons don’t deserve protections because they are just “giant rats.” But rats are just hamsters with tails, and if you go to someone’s habit-trail and start clocking their hamsters on the head with hammers, you are unlikely to be invited back. Trust me, I know.
Similarly, if you ask the hostess at a dinner party how her butt can possibly fit on her chair, you are also unlikely to be invited back. This is not directly relevant to the pigeon bill, but still good to know.
Just by way of background, you should know pigeon shoots are not “hunting.” Hunting involves some element of “fair chase” meaning that the animal has some theoretical chance to escape. This is what makes it a sport. That is why people do not “hunt” potato chips. They just sit there. They don’t run away. Although I have no doubt that there are many good NRA members who would die for their God given right to blast a bag of Sour Cream and Onion Ruffles with a AC-556 – M1 Carbine “Grenade Thruster.”
In a pigeon shoot, there is similarly no “fair chase.” The bird is kept in a small box for a long time. Then, someone with a large gun stands a few feet away and waits for the pigeon to be pitched out of the box. It brings to mind the famous Monty Python skit:
HOST
Today we have a man who’s cat can fly!
GUEST
Yes, my Tibbles will fly across the air into the bucket.
HOST
Wow, amazing. Does she fly by herself?
GUEST
No, I fling her.
When the pigeon is “flung” out of the box, it is immediately shot. If it doesn’t have the decency to die immediately, it lies wounded on the ground until some young child is sent to wring its neck. (And they said that me taking my son to drop pumpkins from bridges onto passing cars was “bad parenting“).
I should also note that such “boxed hunts” are banned in all 49 other states. Think about that. States where it is legal to eat people ban pigeon shoots. States that have no problem setting land mines around gay bars or refuse to fly the Confederate Flag because it is “too pinko” say that pigeon shoots go to far. There are almost more states that rhyme with “Pennsylvania” than join Pennsylvania in allowing these barbaric events.
When I introduced my bill, the NRA sent out an “action alert” saying that I was threatening the Second Amendment, which apparently not only gives you the right to carry a gun, but also protects your right to shoot specific stuff, including, dammit, small disoriented birds!
[At this point it would be appropriate to crank up Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American." If you don't have that, the Star-Spangled Banner would suffice, but "F%&@ You" by Cee Lo Green would not.]
As a result I got more hate mail on this than on any other issue I’ve been involved with. I got e-mails from all over the state telling me that I obviously hated America and that God, who wanted the pigeons he created to be slaughtered as quickly as possible, was very disappointed in me. They insulted my ancestry, mental stability, and ability to look good in a Speedo (they may have had a point there).
Most of these people never bothered to write about poverty, homelessness, under-funded schools or unsafe roads. But take away their right to cage and shoot pigeons at close range and you’ve crossed a line. The only other time that line is crossed is when you threaten the right to shoot endangered species, or shoot people who look at you funny on the street, or people who don’t look at you funny on the street, or in a bar, or on campus, or in a hot tub, etc.
Yesterday however was strangely different. There were no blast e-mails. There were no protests in the Rotunda. The lobbyist for the NRA didn’t even appear at the committee meeting.
Everyone present voted to ban the shoots. Maybe it was because this time it was introduced by a Republican Senator who has been shooting, stabbing, garroting, smothering, sitting on, electrocuting and otherwise smiting small creatures for decades.
Or maybe it was simply because people finally realized that boxed hunts, like canned-hunts, or kicking newborn puppies to death really isn’t very sporting after all.
