J.B.Katz said:
SSadler said:
Back to the video of elephant-killing (I don't even use "hunting" for what that video is about).
I am a gun owner and hunter, but that video turns my stomach, and I hope it would regardless of the size and species of the kill.
NRA members should be chagrined that their elected president was so incapable of kill shots on a non-moving target--(he fired three? four? shots at short distance even with the guides there to stalk and direct the shooter to a short-distance shot with scoped rifle.
Pretty sure THAT video is not what NRA is all about.
LaPierre still leads the NRA.
So if the video of him peppering a trapped elephant with bullets isn't what the NRA is all about, it's what a key leader is all about: using guns to kill wild animals trapped by a guide you paid to make an animal available to you to kill so you could ship the body parts home. And Susan LaPierre knew that if the boxes were addressed to him people might be too disgusted about what they had done to handle them so she made sure their names were removed from the shipping crates filled with elephant feet that have been made into stools for the LaPierres' home.
So many strawmen.
It wasn't a trapped elephant. It was a mortally wounded elephant.
The guide didn't trap the elephant. He outfitted the hunt which tracked a wild elephant, on foot.
Ever tracked a wild elephant on foot?
Do you have any idea how hard that is? how many miles of walking are invovled?
I*'m no fan of LaPierre, but the guide should be faulted for what happened. It's hard to describe the crescendo of adrenalin, fear, and excitement that blares in your mind when you're squeezing the trigger on dangerous game, compounded by the reality that if you fail to execute, people can (and do) get killed. And executing a brain shot on a moving elephant is...well....LaPierre made an excellent shot, with a single shot rifle (Blaser) in a minimum caliber (looks like .375H&H) necessary for the job. He dropped a moving elephant with a brain shot. Impressive.
Why is a brain shot on a moving elephant at 50 yards so hard? Put a refrigerator in the back of a pickup truck. Put a loaf of bread in that refrigerator. Close the door. turn around and take 50 paces. Turn right. Take 10 paces. Then stop and turn around and shoot the loaf of bread.....while the truck is driving past you. You have to know exactly where that loaf is inside that refrigerator, calculate the angle of the shot presentation, give it a little lead.....and if you don't hit that loaf of bread, that truck is going to turn and run you over. Then back up & run you over. And then run you over some more. for maybe 30 minutes or so. You have to KNOW anatomy and angles & presentation to shoot large game. You cannot overwhelm large game with caliber like you can with "center of chest" shot on whitetail and elk. You have to poke a hole thru one or more vitals and ideally 1) have an exit wound (two holes to bleed from) and 2) break weight bearing bones.
So LaPierre executed an excellent shot. A shot his pro was advising him not to take...wanting to wait to let the elephant stand, which would have been a safer shot. The pro should have either made the insurance shot himself, or handed LaPierre his open-sighted double rifle. If you listen to the dialogue....you can hear LaPierre and an interlocutor discussing "aim an inch low...." That's to allow for the problem created by using a scope at point blank range. Bullets do not come out the barrel "right on the X." It comes out a little over 1" below the line of sight. It doesn't reach line of sight again until about 25yds. Then it goes above line of sight before gravity starts taking over...and wham....it hits the paper 2" above the X at 100yds so that it will hit paper dead on at 200yds. That's why pros carry open-sighted rifles (usually doubles). You need a quick shot and you need to make it immediately (on a charge). No time to calculate and estimate & such for range & where the scope is sighted.
I carried a Westley Richards double in 465 Nitro Express when hunting dangerous game, and let the tracker carry my Sako Safari 375 H&H bolt gun. The Sako was for any plains game we happened upon, or a longer shot on dangerous game. I carried the double because I was my own pro. I had to handle my own lgoistics and sort out my own problems. Put down an unprovoked buffalo charge one day. If I'd been carrying that bolt gun, I probably wouldn't be typing this. But my first buff was a little bit of a rodeo like LaPierre's elephant. Buff was laying down and approaching sundown didn't give us time to wait for him to stand. Problem is, laying down changes the anatomy in ways that are impossible to precisely ascertain. So my friend (a pro, who had his 470) and I discussed the shot angles. I actually aimed the Sako 2" below the top of the grass...shooting thru several feet grass to try to get low enough to hit the heart. It worked. Sorta. All I could see in the Zeiss after the shot was 4 buffalo feet up in the air thrashing about. So I raced forward to about 25 feet and just as I stopped, the buff stood. I popped him in the neck. Neck shots always work on deer, right? Wrong. He spun 180. I popped him on the shoulder again and he dropped. Spine shot. The first shot actually was to high. Hit spinal process. Stunned him. For a few seconds.
LaPierre is an experienced shot, but not an experienced dangerous game hunter. He had too much adrenalin & stress to be able to think & reason quickly in that situation. THAT'S WHAT PROS ARE FOR.
Dangerous game is not easy quarry. It fights back. Sometimes, it actually wins. LaPierre's critics are making asses of themselves, but then, virtue posturing often does that to the person involved.