GAME SHOOTING AND AUTOMATIC GUNS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18535, 21 April 1922, Page 8

GAME SHOOTING AND AUTOMATIC GUNS.

• TO THE EDITOS. gi R) —It is amusing to read the protests from ’sportsmen, good, bed, and indifferent, against the licensing of game shooters and the barring'of the automatic gun. The latest protest is from .Mr R. A. Kempshell. I thought an old sport would know that our o-ame is getting scarcer every year, and without some protection must, through time, become nearly extinct. Rangers are badly needed to watch the poachers. I have often seen empty cartridge cases lying about the duck pools a week or so before the opening. • Your correspondent .goes on to talk about the license debarring the young sports from learning to shoot. Surely duclca aren't the only things to shoot at. What about rabbits, hawks, shags, etc., and if they want something extra, “clay pigeons.” So far as learning to shoot is concerned, the license doesn’t” bar one from learning to shoot. Again, he says,, “why not bar the decoy?” Well, I have shot alongside Mr Kempshell, end it would go hard with his bag sometimes if such was the case. As regards the automatic gun, I admit it is a "ood gun for the money, but I think the societies arc to be congratulated on barring it. Mr Kempshell talks about shooting the wounded ducks that fall from the first two shots, but doesn’t say anything about the others that fly. away; wounded from at least twp of 1 the remaining shots from the automatic. Time after tyne I have known shooters to fire five shots into.a. .mob of ducks, and you hear them boasting how many ’ they have brought . down. . An automatic in the hands of an expert - does far move harm to game than • when ■ handled by a novice, who probably misses four times out of five.—l am. etc.. Dim Spobt.