Bustin' a cap in Dumbo

I think it's time we had a discussion on big game hunting, specifically elephants. Some of you seem to be losing your shit over this topic in ways that are totally out of proportion to its importance.

So there's currently a flap over the possibility that Trump will allow elephant hunting torphies to be brought into the United States. This has caused roughly 100% of Starbucks patrons reading it to instantly spit their soy lattes and angrily update their Tumblr blogs with calls for impeachment. I mean, who else besides HITLER would think hunting elephants is an ok thing to do?! What's next? Killing the unborn? (Actually they're usually ok with that.)

Let's get a couple of basic facts out of the way first.

Nothing Trump does will alter whether elephant hunting is legal or not. In some African countries it is, in others it's not. Nothing Trump does will affect that in one way or other. There is simply a ban on bringing in trophies, ie tusks.

Even if the US were to somehow ban its citizens from elephant hunting it would change nothing, as it doesn't affect the rest of the world. Aussies, Europeans, shit even the Chinese go on safari now.

Preventing trophy imports doesn't dissuade rich people with stupid amounts of money from going on safari any more than finding out you couldn't bring your Louis Armstrong bobble head on the plane home would prevent you from going on vacation to New Orleans.

With those out of the way, let's dig a little deeper.

Going on Safari is a huge business. In some African countries like Mozambique it's almost the only way they can get money to fund conservation efforts. Guided elephant hunts run around $70,000, which is by no means the total cost. We are talking about Africa afterall, where you have to constantly bribe governments just to give you permits and licensing for things you already paid for.

That's also not counting the cost of weaponry. When you go to hunt a massive elephant, you're not going to cart along your AR-15 or even your .308 bolty. You're looking more at something like a .458 mag, or even real monster rifles like the 577 Tyrannosaur loaded with Barnes solids. Hunting like this is not cheap. All of this gets expensive very fast. Yet many of the same people who would decry this as waste would have no problem with someone using the cash instead to buy a high-end Jaguar or Audi which would cost about the same, and would even spend such money on them themselves if they had the opportunity. And none of that money would go toward conservation of the very animals they claim they just LUV SO MUCH.

The cost is important because it means only a few handfuls of people can afford to do it. It's not like every Bubba in the US is now flocking to Africa to blast an elephant and wipe out the populations within a year.

Hunts are also strictly regulated. This is obvious when one considers the amount of money they get from these things. They are guided and only certain individual animals get designated as allowed for harvesting by those responsible for the conservation effort (for example, if a herd has too many bulls). So you don't just get to shoot whatever you want.

You're also not guaranteed to get anything. Like any other type of hunting, you could come home empty handed.

I've also seen people declaring angrily how it's a 'coward's sport', and super easy to just go out there and shoot an elephant. What I find funny is these same people also usually claim they don't have a problem with people hunting deer in the US. These people don't seem to understand how easy it is to hunt deer. It's way easier than hunting an elephant (and less dangerous). If drunk hillbillies in northern Arkansas can blast them away from tree stands, literally just sitting in a chair and waiting for the deer to happen to walk into the field of fire, it's really not that hard. Hell I've done it. It's easy. Also, deer are way cuter than elephants, so why aren't they angry about harvesting deer too?

Just to sum up, the hunting they do actually pays to preserve the elephant herds. In fact, the only places in Africa where the elephants are growing and the herds are healthy and doing better is where the safari hunting is allowed.

Do you want the elephant herds to grow, or slowly disappear? You certainly aren't dropping $70,000 in conservation funding in Africa are you? Shit, you still get pissy when you have to drop $40 on Steam when the game you wanted isn't on sale. Should said rich guy drop the $70,000 on one of those ridiculous 'pizzas' that is covered in gold instead? No, you'd be angry about that too. What, should they just give YOU the cash? Well, yes, you'd TOTALLY approve of that. Then you'd just GIVE all that money to the conservation effort, right?

Bullshit. You'd just go buy an Audi.

Dear Conspiracy Theorists: This is why no one takes you seriously.

By now everyone except 7 Inuits and your mom know about the mass murder that took place by the gunman in Las Vegas. It’s a peculiar case as it doesn't appear to be religiously motivated, angsty teen, etc. It's a retired man who was, by all accounts, a millionaire.

The cops as of this date (10/4) are being very tight about what info they release yet, which is about how it always works with them on active investigations. This has given rise to wild speculation regarding the nature of the attack and who was involved. In principle, conspiracy theories THRIVE and actually grow in scope in direct proportion to lack of facts. This lack of facts can either exist due to the police/authorities not releasing all info yet OR (to the point of this post) self-anointed 'experts' mischaracterize the things we do know.

I'm not going to go through all of the crazy shit I've seen on this topic as it would then be too long and I don't have the patience for it. Far from being bombshells, these points do little than to showcase why people tend to laugh at conspiracy theorists. The ones I want to focus on are classic examples of people declaring something 'doesn't add up' because they simply don't know the subject matter.

(In summary) "OMG you guys, there's like totally no way this old dude could have killed them. He was, like, a bazzilion trillion yards away and he wasn't a super Call of Duty Delta A-Team SEAL man trained killer, so NO WAY he could have hit those people. Besides, the guns he had couldn't hit anything at that range. FALSE FLAG!!"

I say: I swear, the number of retards who keep saying this is legion.

If we were talking about a total newb firing off hand with a Century Arms AK clone at a moving steel plate or bullsyeys at 300 yards, one could make that point.

HOWEVER, here in the real world, you had a situation where a man with high quality arms, shooting from a comfortably braced rest from a position of height fired down at an enormous (tightly massed group of people), mostly static target, well illuminated, that was held in position by fencing. He wasn't exactly sniping here. He was simply firing into masses of people who had nowhere to go. Viewing the phone videos that have surfaced shows this well as there are long bursts of fire that seem to put rounds everywhere by the look of the strikes on the ground. Yes, ANYONE, including your mom, could do that.

As for the guns (or rather, the caliber he used) being incapable of it, I suggest you look up some youtube vids that Blackwater put up after the initial fights in Iraq, where they are firing on targets at that same distance from rests in their stronghold, and being very effective indeed.

"OMG, if he was so rich, then why did he do that?? It makes no sense!!"

I say: The implication here is that rich people are always stable and happy. Put like that it sounds pretty retarded doesn't it? You could just counter with "If Robin Williams was so rich and successful, why did he commit suicide?" Having money doesn't inoculate you from hating people or having mental issues.

"OMG, why were nearly all of the exits blocked and fences around the venue?? 'They' obviously wanted to make sure everyone died!!"

I say: The only honest people who can say this are people who have never seen nor been to an outdoor event and don't know what money is. The rest are just retards. Why, at an event you have to pay a high ticket price to get access to, would they put fences around the venue? How about….. to make sure the only people coming there PAID for a ticket? How hard is that to understand?

"OMG, how did he get all those guns into the hotel room without anyone seeing them?? He, like, had no training!!!"

I say: The same way you bring your 27" suction cup dildo and full collection of Star Trek commemorative jumbo butt plugs on vacation with you - in multiple suitcases. He was there for over week and it's not like he was trying to sneak a giraffe up to his room. Although this is Las Vegas so I doubt anyone would have noticed anyway.

Anyway, more to it, but that's all I have patience for.