Selling shotgun in Jungle "Love" section???

[Wonderland]

I've always lived in cities and would never go near a real gun (I guess unless I was defending my life or that of a loved one) and I was shocked at VRLA when I was surprisingly good at shooting virtual reality cans, VR clay pigeons and other objects with a VR gun. If more people who shoot for sport would stick to VR or video game shooting, this would be a much better world. I hope I can live the rest of my life without ever even seeing a real gun. Ironically, a lot of my art consists of sci-fi sexy girls with big sci-fi guns but I'm actually kinda spoofing the genre...

 

[LisaB]

Never Again: Cecil's Murder Should Mark an End to Trophy Hunting in Zimbabwe Forever

Please check this out and sign. It's about a rich hunter who killed a beloved lion named Cecil just for sport. Help stop these animals from being killed in real life...

This was horrific and sick in my opinion. No reason for it other than ego.

There's also Juma the Jaguar being shot after some Olympic ceremony in Brazil. Apparently it happened in June but I just heard about it the other day. Sad, sad, sad.

 

[LisaB]

How come animal rights activists never complain about big game fishing?

They do. That's why tuna fishing rules have changed.

The U2 song It's a Beautiful Day has the lines "see the tuna fleets clearing the sea out" which is what's happened to tuna. I use canned chicken instead of tuna now

 

[Satira Capriccio]

I've always lived in cities. Though, Philadelphia is the biggest to date and Nantucket the smallest. I first lived in Nantucket town and later moved out to the country. If one can call any part of Nantucket "country."

Much as I love the idea of country/rural, and hope to be able to move to a much smaller community ... preferably on the Oregon Coast ... when I retire, I am scared of encountering bears. Fortunately, even though I've spent a lot of time camping on the Oregon Coast and in the Cascades, I never did encounter one. But that didn't keep me from visualizing them ripping through my tent any number of times. My worst experience was when I camped with friends somewhere outside Denver and had to set up the tents in the dark. Something was wandering around the woods that night. And having never even seen the campsite in daylight, I was imagining a whole forest full of bears looking for people food.

 

[eclark1894]

They do. That's why tuna fishing rules have changed.

The U2 song It's a Beautiful Day has the lines "see the tuna fleets clearing the sea out" which is what's happened to tuna. I use canned chicken instead of tuna now

That's commercial fishing. Big game fishing is going out on a boat and fishing with fishing poles.

 

[Gadget Girl]

I've always lived in cities and would never go near a real gun (I guess unless I was defending my life or that of a loved one) and I was shocked at VRLA when I was surprisingly good at shooting virtual reality cans, VR clay pigeons and other objects with a VR gun. If more people who shoot for sport would stick to VR or video game shooting, this would be a much better world. I hope I can live the rest of my life without ever even seeing a real gun. Ironically, a lot of my art consists of sci-fi sexy girls with big sci-fi guns but I'm actually kinda spoofing the genre...

I think there's something important to remember here. Hivewire isn't selling actual guns, and I'm pretty sure if you put that model through a 3d printer, you wouldn't get anything useful. I'm an anti-gun activist myself. I write my congressmen almost every week about gun legislation and get in strange fights with my sister, who won't come with me when I take my great-nieces to the museum because it's legally open-carry, but she owns a shot gun because she lives in the country and worries about her neighbors.

That being said, I want to be able to use guns in my art work. (And incidentally, I consider many video games a kind of art). You mentioned that many native tribes don't use guns to keep wild animals at bay. That's true, but the same can't be said about many of the white explorers and colonists who have gone to Africa over the years. To quote, of all things an Irish rebel song Black and Tan about the British forces:

Come tell us how you slew
Those brave Arabs two by two
Like the Zulus they had spears and bows and arrows,
How you bravely slew each one
With your sixteen pounder gun
And you frightened them poor natives to their marrow.

There's definitely a place for guns in telling the story of Africa, and I don't think it should be glossed over. Art shouldn't hide from the ugly things in the world. I applaud your stand against poaching. I'm all for it. But the story of poaching is in many ways a story of guns. And how can we talk about it in our art if we can't represent guns? A render of a guy facing down a big cat with a knife or bow and arrow might look brave. One of a guy a mile away with a high powered rifle, not so much.

My only issue with the shotgun is that I don't think it's the right kind of gun for the jungle, but then, Dawn and Dusk's mid length hair is also on sale, and they aren't significantly 'jungly' and that doesn't really bother me.

 

[Dragonsegg]

Actually guns printed on a 3D printer are a pretty big concern. They can be made of resin or plastic and not detected by usual means. A Symbolic Weapon - In Photos: The World's First 3D-Printed Gun

This is just a FYI, not that a gun model at Hivewire has anything to do with an actual working gun model that you can 3D print and use.

 

[Riccardo]

I do not mean to offend you, Wonderland, but I feel yours was an approach that does not good to the fair cause you support.
You raised an issue that has no real reason to be... People here already answered by telling why having the shotgun in this sale has no bad implications, and I think last Gadget Girl comment summarises it all well.
I'm with you about the concern for environment and animals; I'm happy to receive newsletters from Ifaw, Peta, Animals Asia and more. And it is nice to find out that most people here share similar views.
But when someone raises issues also for "light" situations like this one (it happens often with poeople fighting for good causes) they do not get the result they're looking for: they have the best intentions, but they only annoy average people, who will dismiss this as exaggerate; the important message will be lost and then maybe people will consider all animal/environment related complaints as the annoying one. I feel it lessens the importance and credibility of a lot more serious circumstances (that really require standing for the environment's or someone's rights, and where unaware people can be made aware of problems, injustice and so on). Really, I like to think I am quite compassionate towards animals, but this sale seems "unharmful" to me.
Just my two cents, of course.

 

[Art_of_Mind]

12 gauge shotgun against a big dangerous animal, I would not want that for hunting, with the wrong kind of load it would just make the animal angry, with the right kind of load you would need to be close to hit it; possibly too close and could still just make it angry if you missed or grazed it. 12 gauge shotgun good defense, bad offense, unless you are shooting birds.

Now if that were a 50 caliber rifle with a high powered scope it would be hard to justify that as a defense weapon.

Edit, point I’m trying to make is if someone said, “here is a 12 gauge and million dollars, go out into the jungle and poach a gorilla, tiger, hippo, or elephant,” whoever excepts the challenge is most likely going to get their self killed. If you want to be cruel and see someone get mauled by a wild animal - here take this 12 gauge, loaded with rock salt and go shoot that tiger with it. Probably would not even break the skin but would make the tiger so mad it would chew the shooter up like bubble gum.

 

[MCarr]

Just watched a doc yesterday about natives who live in villages right near wild animals and they didn't have guns and fed themselves by fishing and there was a group of people whose job it was to deal with poachers but they were local enforcers wearing T-shirts that had IFAW on it, not tourists with cowboy hats and adventurer clothes. Maybe if the promo had a guy in an IFAW T-shirt, I'd feel better about the whole thing... I'm actually doing art right now for a charity trying to save the animals in Borneo from poachers and did some art for another anti-poaching group, so I guess I'm a little over-sensitive to it... BTW, the natives lived right near elephants but made special noises to scare them away if they got too close. The natives know what they're doing. Tourists aren't even supposed to be in those areas...

And many of the natives are also doing the poaching because someone higher up the food chain is paying them to. When it comes down to you and your family's survival, the animals come second unfortunately. I am very anti poaching and advocate for extreme measures in stopping them. You have 3 areas to address, the ones doing the killing, usually to make a buck. The ones who the poachers report to, the one with the money and the need for the product, and probably the worst one, the CONSUMER! get rid of the demand and there is no need for the supply.

As for your extreme dislike of guns, I am an avid shooter, go to the range once a week, own several and have a concealed handgun license. That being said, I don't hunt, have no problems getting my meat at the supermarket and have no need for trophy's on the wall. I would shoot a human way before an animal in most cases, LOL. I always joke to my GF that my dream job is taking out poachers in Africa. There is a great video on youtube for a training course for protrackAPU Protection Services and Training Programme - Protrack Anti-Poaching Unit - Hoedspruit - Limpopo Province - South Africa | HOME that makes me want to enlist .

reminds me I gotta get me one of those bumper sticker "save a rhino, hunt a poacher" LOL

 

[LisaB]

That's commercial fishing. Big game fishing is going out on a boat and fishing with fishing poles.

View attachment 14355

LOL Yes of course you were. My mistake. I'm LOLing because I'm doing my best to visualize camping out and tracking big game fish. Not to mention a tiny hook and some bait. It seems to me that the odds are in THEIR favor. The fish, that is!

The tuna fleets on the other hand ... Uh, no ....

 

[LisaB]

Reading all of the comments here shows me this is a sensitive issue that people are passionate about for very good reason. No matter what stand you take I encourage you to take a peek at the other side. At worst you might learn something you didn't know. At best, what you learn might be more powerful for your cause than what you didn't previously know.

 

[eclark1894]

Reading all of the comments here shows me this is a sensitive issue that people are passionate about for very good reason. No matter what stand you take I encourage you to take a peek at the other side. At worst you might learn something you didn't know. At best, what you learn might be more powerful for your cause than what you didn't previously know.

Actually, I have strong views on both sides of the fence. I don't believe animals have RIGHTs, so anyone who tries to sell me that load of hooey is wasting their breath talking to me. On the other hand, while I don't believe they have rights, I do believe that they're God's creations and we have an duty and sacred honor to watch over them and protect them. As for poachers, I pretty much just don't like lawbreakers. As for hunting and guns, I can live with you hunting for sport as long as you eat or wear what you kill, or someone does, and provided the animal isn't on the endangered list. I do think people who wear alligator shoes should have to grab a knife and and wade in to get them.

 

[Satira Capriccio]

What's rather interesting is just how many species use tools, are self aware, have extremely complex social and family relationships ... and language, as well as being capable of emotional and cognitive thinking. Pretty much everyone now realizes just how biased IQ tests are. After all ... if you've never even seen a cup and saucer, would you pick saucer as the match to a cup? Perhaps so, if you'd encountered cups and saucers in books you'd read or tv/movies you'd watched. But if not, would you even know what a saucer was? Would you think saucer meant flying saucer? And if so, how on earth would that be a match to a cup?

Point being that the tests we use to determine animal intelligence is just as culturally biased as many of the IQ tests that we've relied on to determine human intelligence.

One day we're going to discover that while we've been running around babbling about our superiority to all other species on earth, those species have been debating whether it's time to remove humans from the earth before it's too late.

It's not the aliens from other worlds who we should be worried about impressing with how advanced we are :wink:

 

[Pendraia]

Intelligence tests have come a long way from what it once was for anyone interested have a look here Gardner's Multiple Intelligences It explains Gardener's multiple intelligences which most schools use these days. Generally teachers will try to teach using different intelligences to assist all students to learn and to teach things in a variety of ways to ensure everyone has a fair go at learning in the classroom. The only time I've seen IQ tests of any type used in schools is when a student is having problems and they use a Vineland's test and that isn't the type of test they use for Mensa and such...
Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, Second Edition (Vineland-II) | Pearson Clinical Australia & New Zealand
which is mainly used to help identify what issues the child is having so we can develop strategies to help them to learn more effectively...I've filled out a few of those in the last few years. Also Sensory profiles to see if students have any issues that might impact on their learning.

 

[eclark1894]

Point being that the tests we use to determine animal intelligence is just as culturally biased as many of the IQ tests that we've relied on to determine human intelligence.

One day we're going to discover that while we've been running around babbling about our superiority to all other species on earth, those species have been debating whether it's time to remove humans from the earth before it's too late.

It's not the aliens from other worlds who we should be worried about impressing with how advanced we are :wink:

I often find it amusing that many people, especially activists, think that earth would be a paradise if we could just get rid of those pesky humans. Here's the thing: nature abhors a vacuum.

If all humans were to disappear tomorrow from the face of the planet, the next to go would be the domesticated animals s the wild animals would begin a wholesale slaughter of the all the cows, sheeps, pigs, chickens, and horses. Within a few months a new dominant species or two or even three would develop and territorial disputes would probably break out among them. Other species would probably be hunted to the brink, or even past, of extinction. And some areas would be over hunted, causing a breakdown in the natural order of things. And of course without a natural predator to keep some species in check, the same thing could happen, and many animals would starve to death.

In other words, sans the political reasonings, many of the same problems that we have today WITH humans in mix would still occur WITHOUT them. Heck, might even have some new ones pop up.

EDITED To add: I know many people despise the idea of humans hunting for sport, but truth is we are not the only species that does it. Cats, for example. One cat, unchecked, can wreak havoc on the natural environment in an area hunting all the birds and mice, which in turn will usually cause a increase of other types of vermin which are normally fed on by those animals.

 

[Wonderland]

Anyway, I totally screwed up. I was so upset by the gun thing that I just left the two cats in my cart without purchase and now missed out on the sale and free cub... Guess I'll stick to the Daz cats and LAMH. Too expensive for me now. Bummed, I really liked the cats and if I hadn't seen the gun, I'd have all three by now. But I just found the gun way too upsetting... Maybe they will go on sale again soon, I hope so. I really wanted them.

 

[Pendraia]

Sorry to hear that Wonderland...it's no fun when that happens.