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Thread ID: 15048 | Posts: 8 | Started: 2004-09-19
2004-09-19 02:49 | User Profile
UK: Commons stormed as MPs vote to ban hunting
Sep 16 2004
Kirsty Buchanan, The Western Mail
MPS voted overwhelmingly to ban hunting after a debate was interrupted when five demonstrators stormed the Commons chamber yesterday.
Emergency talks were being held last night after the third House of Commons security breach in six months despite millions being spent on tightening security at Westminster.
News of the breach, which forced a 20-minute suspension of the hunting debate, was greeted with cheers by 10,000 pro-hunt protesters who rallied outside in Parliament Square. Frustration and anger turned to violence as hundreds of protesters tried to breach police barricades only to be beaten back.
Four demonstrators burst onto the floor from behind the Speaker's chair while a fifth dodged a doorkeeper guarding the main entrance.
Some Labour MPs shouted "get out" as one protester screamed at Rural Affairs Minister and Cardiff South MP Alun Michael, "This isn't democracy. You are overturning democracy."
The stunt may have a long-term impact on Commons security but it did little to halt the Second Reading of the Hunting Bill. In a free vote MPs voted for a ban by 356 votes to 166 for a ban.
The Bill will be debated by the Lords next month and, if they reject it, the Parliament Act will be used to get it onto the statute books.
With a ban expected by July, 31, 2006, the Countryside Alliance has warned of mass defiance in the countryside as well as a lengthy legal challenge.
url: [url]http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/newspolitics/tm_objectid=14646832&method=full&siteid=50082&headline=commons-stormed-as-mps-vote-to-ban-hunting-name_page.html[/url]
2004-09-19 06:09 | User Profile
I'm not a big hunting fan. If Americans ever have to turn en masse to hunting for survival, wildlife would become extinct in short order. If you think animals play a role in survival, raise some. (I've flirted with the idea for when I move to my new place.)
But, an interest in hunting does provide one great benefit. It helps to keep's the American people armed. The UK, it seems, doesn't have enough hunters.
2004-09-20 12:58 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Happy Hacker]I'm not a big hunting fan... But, an interest in hunting does provide one great benefit. It helps to keep's the American people armed. The UK, it seems, doesn't have enough hunters.[/QUOTE]
My sentiments exactly. I have no use for hunting, but at the same time I recognize that a widespread interest in hunting is the biggest obstacle the gun-grabbers face. As the bumper sticker so aptly puts it, "The Second Amendment -- It Ain't About Duck Hunting." But until the amerikan TV zombies come out of their spell, it's useful for them to associate guns with traditional outdoor activities.
As for Once-great Britain, there are [I]many[/I] things of which it doesn't have enough these days, testicles being the prime example. Each time I think that benighted and accursed land can't sink any lower, it surprises me all over again.
2004-09-20 14:49 | User Profile
Tjis is hunting in the sense of chasing after a fox on horseback with hounds. What have guns got to do with it.. unless... you Americans don't [I]shoot[/I] foxes do you?
2004-09-20 15:09 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Jim]This is hunting in the sense of chasing after a fox on horseback with hounds.
Ah, that's a different story. The quoted article simply says "hunting," a word which apparently carries a different implication on the Atlantic's eastern and western shores. I stand corrected -- though my comments about the relationship between USA-style hunting and the amerikan Second Amendment remain valid.
What have guns got to do with it.. unless... you Americans don't [I]shoot[/I] foxes do you?[/QUOTE]
[I]This[/I] amerikan certainly doesn't.
2004-09-20 22:46 | User Profile
Bad article, it's only a ban fox hunting. Still a bad idea, may be they need to bring Bull Baiting.
[QUOTE]Britain's hunting fraternity fights ban on fox hunting September 18, 2004 UPDA0918
ââ¬Â¢ Latest: Watching her 90 English foxhounds leaping and yapping in a paddock Friday, Di Piper grimly counted the cost of a likely government ban on fox hunting.
"My stable would close, four staff would be put out of business and my dogs -- some of whom have bloodlines going back to 1725 -- would have to be destroyed," Piper said. The dogs aren't pets; they're pack animals and couldn't be given to families, she said. "We will have no option but to defy the ban," said Piper, joint master of the Puckeridge Hunt, which boasts of hunting on "well-foxed" fields about 25 miles north of London.
Members of 360 hunting packs in England and Wales are contemplating the loss of their livelihood if the ban becomes law -- and promising confrontation. The Countryside Alliance, an umbrella body of rural groups, says thousands signed a declaration to go on hunting, come what may.
ââ¬Â¢ The bill: On Wednesday, 10,000 hunt supporters -- including Piper -- demonstrated outside Parliament while lawmakers debated a bill to outlaw hunting, which developed as a pest-control method in the 17th century but was taken up as sport in the 19th century. Lawmakers later voted 339 to 155 to ban fox hunting, beginning in July 2006.
The bill still must go through the House of Lords, the unelected upper chamber of Parliament, where it faces stiff opposition -- but the government says it will invoke the rarely used 1949 Parliament Act to force through the legislation if the Lords balk.
ââ¬Â¢ For and against: Hunters thrill to the chase, which pits one fox against a pack of dogs and a thundering troop of riders.
But many in the Labor Party, and even a few Conservatives, despise fox hunting. Some see it as offensive and cruel, others as an anachronistic example of upper-class privilege. Hunting supporters say a ban would disrupt the balance of rural life by allowing foxes to proliferate.
Associated Press
[url]http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&oi=news&start=2&num=3&q=http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/4987379.html&e=42[/url] [/QUOTE]
2004-09-20 22:49 | User Profile
Happy Hacker,
I don't know about that millions of people in the UK own shotguns. Rifles are hard to get, I think .22 rf are the most common.
Waterfowling in Britain [url]http://www.wildfowling.co.uk/magazine/uk.htm[/url]
The British Gun Closet [url]http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel051403.asp[/url]
2004-09-21 05:36 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Jim]Tjis is hunting in the sense of chasing after a fox on horseback with hounds. What have guns got to do with it.. unless... you Americans don't [I]shoot[/I] foxes do you?[/QUOTE]
There was a fox hunting season in Wisconsin when I was a kid. I never shot one, but I never really cared much for hunting. I saw many foxes shot, though. Foxes are the farmer's enemy. They eat chickens and turkeys (I love turkeys - great wild turkey hunting season in Wisconsin).
Like almost every other boy (and girl) in that farming community, I received a single shot .22 rifle for by 14th birthday. The Army taught Dad to shoot really well, and he taught me. I was a pretty good shot. Everybody had guns where I'm front. One neighbor was a gunsmith and he had in his living room an unlocked cabinet filled with all sorts of guns (mostly collector's items) prominently on display. The lower drawers were filled with ammunition. But it never would even have OCURRED TO ME to ever TOUCH that man's cabinet. Same ten times over for his six kids, who were my playmates. Or much worse BRING A GUN TO SCHOOL? He'd kill them, Dad would kill me. That would basically have been it.
The point is that none of us even wanted to know what would happen, so we didn't even entertain such notions.
The problem isn't guns, it is social collapse caused the the decay of parental authority.