Smart Rifles and Drones are Making Hunting Unethical
“One thing I’m certain of is that if we ever become slaves to our technology, we can no longer call ourselves hunters” (Carmichel). Jim Carmichel, firearms expert and author for Outdoorlife.com, was talking about smart rifles and how people are becoming more and more dependent on the new technologies in hunting. He believes that this is becoming a bigger and bigger problem in the argument of fair chase. Fair Chase, as defined by the Boone and Crockett Club, is “the ethical, sportsmanlike, and lawful pursuit and taking of any free-ranging wild, North American big game animal in a manner that does not give the hunter an improper advantage over such animals.” So the big question is whether …show more content…
Smart rifles are a new technology that were unveiled in 2011 and the most prominent feature is their “never miss” system (Tracking Point). That is what a smart rifle is, it is a never miss platform that calculates bullet drop, wind, distance, type of ammo the shooter is using and many others. “... the sight won’t allow the rifle to fire until the reticle coincides with a specific optimal point of aim. You can’t miss!” (Carmichel). What Jim Carmichel is saying here is that the computer inside the scope of the gun will not let the rifle fire until it is aimed in the proper spot. There is absolutely no skill involved with this besides moving the gun to line up with the spot that the rifle shows. Manufacturers of the smart rifles say the gun can hit targets that are over 1,800 yards away and targets that are moving at 30 mph. They also claim the rifle can adjust for animal movement (Schmitt). This is insane compared to the average distance of a shot taken by deer hunters somewhere around 100-200 yards. Even when a hunter is that close to his target with a normal rifle, he could do many things that make him miss the shot, or even make the deer run away. This means that the hunter needs a good amount of skill to do the right things to make the shot, but with the smart rifle, the hunter could be sitting over one mile away from the animal and still hit it with a clean kill shot. The smart rifles take all the skill out of hunting, and the public approval of hunting dropped significantly once hunting with smart rifles became a reality. The smart rifles and similar guns should be banned because they are unethical and diminish the skills needed to take animals in terms of fair
“One thing I’m certain of is that if we ever become slaves to our technology, we can no longer call ourselves hunters” (Carmichel). Jim Carmichel, firearms expert and author for Outdoorlife.com, was talking about smart rifles and how people are becoming more and more dependent on the new technologies in hunting. He believes that this is becoming a bigger and bigger problem in the argument of fair chase. Fair Chase, as defined by the Boone and Crockett Club, is “the ethical, sportsmanlike, and lawful pursuit and taking of any free-ranging wild, North American big game animal in a manner that does not give the hunter an improper advantage over such animals.” So the big question is whether …show more content…
Smart rifles are a new technology that were unveiled in 2011 and the most prominent feature is their “never miss” system (Tracking Point). That is what a smart rifle is, it is a never miss platform that calculates bullet drop, wind, distance, type of ammo the shooter is using and many others. “... the sight won’t allow the rifle to fire until the reticle coincides with a specific optimal point of aim. You can’t miss!” (Carmichel). What Jim Carmichel is saying here is that the computer inside the scope of the gun will not let the rifle fire until it is aimed in the proper spot. There is absolutely no skill involved with this besides moving the gun to line up with the spot that the rifle shows. Manufacturers of the smart rifles say the gun can hit targets that are over 1,800 yards away and targets that are moving at 30 mph. They also claim the rifle can adjust for animal movement (Schmitt). This is insane compared to the average distance of a shot taken by deer hunters somewhere around 100-200 yards. Even when a hunter is that close to his target with a normal rifle, he could do many things that make him miss the shot, or even make the deer run away. This means that the hunter needs a good amount of skill to do the right things to make the shot, but with the smart rifle, the hunter could be sitting over one mile away from the animal and still hit it with a clean kill shot. The smart rifles take all the skill out of hunting, and the public approval of hunting dropped significantly once hunting with smart rifles became a reality. The smart rifles and similar guns should be banned because they are unethical and diminish the skills needed to take animals in terms of fair