very glad to hear - anyway where a person as yourself could lay out a format showing the proper steps in presenting this to our own States? Basically showing start to finish, it appears your process has done well and I hope continues for you.....thanks
Truth is, it could easily be voted against on Dec 4th. I'm optimistic it won't be though. The best advice I received was from a local game warden. He said "the squeakiest wheel receives the most grease".
It helps if your state has a "hunting voice". Kentucky has the League of Kentucky Sportsmen. The League donates to the Fish and Wildlife on different levels and influences the laws and regs for hunting and fishing. They have an annual convention every year where resolutions are drawn up in a parliamentary style format, then brought to the floor . 60 voting delegates from different clubs all over the state vote to pass or decline these resolutions. The League passed a resolution to have slingshots legalized for small game hunting. The passed resolutions are presented to the Kentucky Dept Wildlife Commission, at either the Spring, or Fall meetings, and the political exchanges begin.
You have to show the "hunting voice" that the slingshot has always been capable enough to dispatch small game, humanely. Field & Stream were publishing in depth, slingshot hunting articles and stories in the early 70's, 80's and 90's. Popular Mechanics published slingshot articles in the late 40's and early 50's.
I've referred to this a few times -
http://www.airguns.net/general_field_use.php, which is Robert Beeman's study. This study is referred to a lot on the web. Beeman says it only takes 3 ft lbs of POI energy to humanely dispatch a squirrel, with a headshot. That means that a .177cal, 7.9 grain lead pellet needs to only be traveling at 415FPS at point of impact. Kentucky allows the hunting of small game with a .177 cal pellet gun, with no minimum velocity. So, I can go to wally world, and spend $38.00 on a daisy 880, which shoots the lead pellet at 658FPS, and be legal. The kinetic energy is 7.6 ft lbs/.02 momentum. The daisy powerline slingshot located in the same aisle, shoots a .36cal lead buckshot at 225FPS, which is over 8ft lbs of kinetic energy/.08 momentum. See where this is going, right?
The daisy slingshot has been brought up a couple of times by the Wildlife Committee, because of where it's sold and how easy it is to get. It's where most hunting and fishing licenses are sold. But the fact is, generating the widely accepted, minimum kinetic energy with the daisy slingshot isn't that difficult. Yeah, it's not what I would recommend, but it does the job fine. The argument that the game has a better chance of being wounded doesn't sit well with the hunting community here in KY. The number of deer and elk that are being wounded would amaze a lot of people. I've heard the numbers from attending the meetings. It doesn't matter if it's a slingshot or a 7mm, animals get wounded.
Youth numbers are low in KY, and we all know why that is. The slingshot is a great platform to introduce archery. I've had several deer hunters tell me they would like to legally hunt with a slingshot while scouting for deer, so they won't make any noise, and be able to take a squirrel while deer hunting. Then there's the "urban hunter", that lives close to a patch of woods big enough for a slingshot, but not for a gun. Slingshot hunting demands and teaches the core hunting and stalking skills. These are all arguments in my repertoire, because of individual concerns from different commissioners.
The entire commission would like to see organizational backing, and unfortunately, there is none. They've suggested standards so the writing of the law could be simple, and it's been a challenge convincing them that there are no limits on the style and cut/length of the bands used. So I'm leaning heavily on the facts, the current pellet gun law, written articles and the passed resolution.
I've been volunteering for an outdoor kid's event for a few years now, which the Fish and Wildlife attend every year. It's quite obvious the F&W hold the youth in high regard to the future of Kentucky Hunting, and the kids love shooting slingshots at these events. So if you can volunteer your time to an outdoor kid's event in your area, that goes a LONG way.
If you don't have a hunting voice in your state, then you need to find out how your state's hunting program operates. Can you hunt protected small game with a shotgun or small rifle? If you can, that's a foot in the door. Would they like to sell more hunting licenses, or give hunters another option? The facts regarding the slingshot's capabilities are already there.
Let's see if it passes next month, then we'll know if it works
