Page 165 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

CHAPTER XV
UNFAIR FIREARMS, AND SHOOTING ETHICS
For considerably more than a century, the States of the American Union have enacted game-protective laws based on the principle that the wild game belongs to the People, and the people's senators, representatives and legislators generally may therefore enact laws for its protection, prescribing the manner in which it may and may not be taken and pos- sessed. The soundness of this principle has been fully confirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Geer vs. Connecticut, on March 2, 1896.
The tendency of predatory man to kill and capture wild game of all kinds by wholesale methods is as old as the human race. .The days of the club, the stone axe, the bow and arrow and the flint-lock gun were con- temporaneouswiththedaysofgreatabundanceofgame. Nowthatthe advent of breech-loaders, repeaters, automatics and fixed ammunition has rendered game scarce in all localities save a very few, the thoughtful man is driven to consider measures for the checking of destruction and the suppression of wholesale slaughter.
First of all, the deadly floating batteries and sail-boats were pro- hibited. To-day a punt gun is justly regarded as a relic of barbarism, and any man who uses one places himself beyond the pale of decent sportsmanship,orevenofmodernpot-hunting. Strangetosay,although the unwritten code of ethics of English sportsmen is very strict, the Eng- lish to this day permit wild-fowl hunting with guns of huge calibre, some of which are more like shot-cannons than shot-guns. And they say, "Well, there are still wild duck on our coast!"
Beyond question, it is now high time for the English people to take up the shot-gun question, and consider what to-day is fair and unfair in thekillingofwaterfowl. ThesupplyofBritishducksandgeesecannot foreverwithstandthemarketgunnersandtheirshot-cannons. Hasnot the British wild-fowl supply greatly decreased during the past fifteen years? I strongly suspect that a careful investigation would reveal the fact that it has diminished. The Society for the Preservation of the Fauna of the Empire should look into the matter, and obtain a series of reports on the condition of the waterfowl to-day as compared with what it was twenty years ago.
In the United States we have eliminated the swivel guns, the punt gunsandthevery-big-boreguns. Amongtherealsportsmenthetendency is steadily toward shot-guns of small caHbre, especially under 12-gauge. But, outside the ranks of sportsmen, we are now face to face with two automatic and five "pump" shotguns of deadly efficiency. Of these,