Thank you CSI, because this is just sick. The link is a reference to "canned hunts", which are exactly what the name sounds like: animals, often animals that have been bred not to fear humans, are basically put in a cage where a "hunter" with a gun gets to shoot them (for varying amounts of money: up to $4,000 per gnu or $9,000 for each Pere David deer, for example.) Often, sites offering canned hunts feature a "no kill, no pay" policy, to ensure that these sportsmen get their money's worth.
The NRA takes a surprisingly nuanced position on the legislation put forward by the Humane Society to try to curb the practice. While condemning canned hunts as "inhumane and unethical", they ultimately come out against the bill for reasons procedural (mostly, that it bans not conduct but motive); it's worth noting that the link is for the NRA's factsheet regarding an older Congressional proposal to ban canned hunting; the new version, S. 304, the "Sportsmanship in Hunting Act," was just introduced three days ago (by the way, love the name; is it just me, or are the names bills and other political causes give themselves getting more and more ridiculous? As if anyone is really against being a PATRIOT (in all caps, even!), or as if pro-abortionists are against life, or anti-abortionists, against free will. It seems like either a pretty sad or a pretty Orwellian consequence of our declining national attention span, depending on how fatalistic you are.)
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