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The rifle that killed five Wisconsin hunters and wounded three more on Sunday was an SKS 7.62-millimeter semiautomatic assault weapon not normally used in hunting animals.
"This is not a gun you go deer hunting with," said Lawrence Keane, senior vice president and general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry trade association.
The reason the SKS is not used by hunters, Mr. Keane said, is that it is designed for combat soldiers and is therefore underpowered for killing an animal like a deer with a single shot, the goal of good hunters.
"The ethics of hunting are you don't want the animal to suffer needlessly," Mr. Keane said.
Mr. Keane said he suspected that the man accused of the Wisconsin killings was not a trained hunter, since with the SKS he was carrying, he would have had to shoot a deer several times to kill it.
The SKS is a precursor of the AK-47 assault rifle. Though it has a longer barrel, it otherwise looks much like the AK-47. It has become popular in the United States among gun collectors, target shooters and some criminals, because it sells for less than $200, or more than $100 less than an AK-47, said Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Violence Policy Center, a gun control group.
By executive order, President Bill Clinton barred the importing of Chinese- and Russian-made SKS rifles. But the Bush administration, Ms. Rand said, has specifically authorized the importing of SKS's from Yugoslavia and Albania.
It is not known where the SKS used in the Wisconsin shootings was manufactured.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/23/national/23gun.html
"This is not a gun you go deer hunting with," said Lawrence Keane, senior vice president and general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry trade association. True, we might think it's not much of a deer rifle, but not a Hmong.
I've hunted with a Hmong tribesman. They are a primitive tribe of almost Stone Age hunters. The one I knew grew up in a grass hut and hunted with a bow and a spear. There was only one old muzzle loader in his village and no powder for it most of the time. He was a great hunter and tracker. I couldn't even see the tracking sign he could follow at a fast trot. To him, the 7.62 SKS would have been the most incredible high powered, high tech rifle he had ever seen and he would have shot elephants with it.
Lawrence Keane may think he needs a Weatherby Magnum for deer hunting, but the Hmong I knew would have thought a .22 was plenty good enough for any deer he ever saw, and a lot better than anything he ever used before he got to the States. He would have sneaked up on a deer and shot it right in the ear from 30 feet away.
By the way, after growing up in a primitive jungle village he joined the Vietnamese army and went on to become a jet fighter pilot and then made it here after the war.
In this case, maybe shooter was not a native of Laos. By his age, he very well could have grown up here in the States. But the Hmong I knew was a real Hmong from Laos.
I'm not defending the shooter, either. We'll have to see how the trial plays out.
I guess it's all up to what you're used to hunting with.
"This is not a gun you go deer hunting with," said Lawrence Keane, senior vice president and general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry trade association.
The reason the SKS is not used by hunters, Mr. Keane said, is that it is designed for combat soldiers and is therefore underpowered for killing an animal like a deer with a single shot, the goal of good hunters.
"The ethics of hunting are you don't want the animal to suffer needlessly," Mr. Keane said.
Mr. Keane said he suspected that the man accused of the Wisconsin killings was not a trained hunter, since with the SKS he was carrying, he would have had to shoot a deer several times to kill it.
The SKS is a precursor of the AK-47 assault rifle. Though it has a longer barrel, it otherwise looks much like the AK-47. It has become popular in the United States among gun collectors, target shooters and some criminals, because it sells for less than $200, or more than $100 less than an AK-47, said Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Violence Policy Center, a gun control group.
By executive order, President Bill Clinton barred the importing of Chinese- and Russian-made SKS rifles. But the Bush administration, Ms. Rand said, has specifically authorized the importing of SKS's from Yugoslavia and Albania.
It is not known where the SKS used in the Wisconsin shootings was manufactured.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/23/national/23gun.html
"This is not a gun you go deer hunting with," said Lawrence Keane, senior vice president and general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry trade association. True, we might think it's not much of a deer rifle, but not a Hmong.
I've hunted with a Hmong tribesman. They are a primitive tribe of almost Stone Age hunters. The one I knew grew up in a grass hut and hunted with a bow and a spear. There was only one old muzzle loader in his village and no powder for it most of the time. He was a great hunter and tracker. I couldn't even see the tracking sign he could follow at a fast trot. To him, the 7.62 SKS would have been the most incredible high powered, high tech rifle he had ever seen and he would have shot elephants with it.
Lawrence Keane may think he needs a Weatherby Magnum for deer hunting, but the Hmong I knew would have thought a .22 was plenty good enough for any deer he ever saw, and a lot better than anything he ever used before he got to the States. He would have sneaked up on a deer and shot it right in the ear from 30 feet away.
By the way, after growing up in a primitive jungle village he joined the Vietnamese army and went on to become a jet fighter pilot and then made it here after the war.
In this case, maybe shooter was not a native of Laos. By his age, he very well could have grown up here in the States. But the Hmong I knew was a real Hmong from Laos.
I'm not defending the shooter, either. We'll have to see how the trial plays out.
I guess it's all up to what you're used to hunting with.
