They can use those zip guns during the normal firearms seasons, scopes and all. They don't do so, because they can instead use their modern breechloaders with scopes then ( Or whatever is permitted.) My point it that if Scopes were disallowed, you would not have to change these special seasons to " Traditional " archery or MLer. Just eliminating Scopes would be enough to drive these guys out of the seasons, give MLers a better chance at winnin a tag in drawings, where they are held for such seasons, and return the season to what it was always intended to be. We had a separate ML season here in Illinois for years before Zip guns came into the picture. Unfortunately, the Game department scheduled the shoot for one of the coldest and snowbound weekends of our year, and right before the Christmas Holiday. In spite of many years of requests to set it BEFORE the main firearms season, No, it had to follow it. Sale of tags was also impeded because you had to choose whether you wanted to hunt the 3-day special season, or the 6( then 7) day Firearms season- you could not do both. Only since the Zip Guns have appeared have they allowed hunters to hunt both seasons here., as mild winters have allowed the deer herd to explode in numbers, so that the Department was finally interested in just getting more people out in the field killing deer. The only reason we have a " special " ML season for deer is because the Legislature has dictated it. If it were left to the Department, I believe there would be no special season at all. The department only recently decided to allow certain calibers of revolvers to be used to hunt deer during the Firearms Deer Season here in Illinois. I am sure the policy makers think that allowing the zip gunds, and scopes just increases sales of deer tags, and helps kill a few more deer each year.
We have strayed a bit far from the original post about a blown barrel, so I apologize for my part in that straying, and want to end this now.
I do wish more information was forthcoming on that case in Wisconsin, as I also want to know the details of how 3 men could manage to blow up a barrel and kill someone with shrapnel from it.
I also suspect Smokeless powder was involved, probably because it was "black" ( Probably Bullseye), and I also suspect large quantities of alcohol and/or drugs were also involved to cloud men's judgements.
Drunks are a bit like kids: You determine the average IQ for any group involved in mischief: Then divide that IQ by the number of individuals involved to get the actual functioning IQ for the group as a unit. Usually, you are well down into the moron level.
Maybe that is why we strayed into discussing Zip Guns used in the special seasons. The same test can be used when judging the decision-making of politicians, and bureacrats. :rotf:
