Hurley's Gold

Poacher gets big fine.

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  • rotor

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    Got to have a line somewhere. It's not like he just made a mistake and it would have been fine to spotlight and shoot a deer after dark if its rack was a little smaller. They also didn't have tags and didn't dress to keep the meat from spoiling.

    That would be kind of like you not going duck hunting because you're afraid of someone charging you with blasting swans with a flak canon.
    Understand that I am not condoning poaching. It's the ridiculous greater than 24 inch vs less than 24 inch to decide if it's a felony or a misdemeanor. Make it a felony for any spread is okay with me. Fine the guy for poaching. Put him in jail, whatever. The distinction in less than 24 inches is a minor crime vs over 24 inches is a major crime. That was my point.
    Guns International
     

    BMF500

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    Understand that I am not condoning poaching. It's the ridiculous greater than 24 inch vs less than 24 inch to decide if it's a felony or a misdemeanor. Make it a felony for any spread is okay with me. Fine the guy for poaching. Put him in jail, whatever. The distinction in less than 24 inches is a minor crime vs over 24 inches is a major crime. That was my point.
    IMO it's a matter of setting an example.
     

    TX OMFS

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    Understand that I am not condoning poaching. It's the ridiculous greater than 24 inch vs less than 24 inch to decide if it's a felony or a misdemeanor. Make it a felony for any spread is okay with me. Fine the guy for poaching. Put him in jail, whatever. The distinction in less than 24 inches is a minor crime vs over 24 inches is a major crime. That was my point.
    If this guy were being jailed for a 15.5" rifle bbl "conservatives" wouldn't like it. If he were jailed for making an illegal suppressor in the dark of night we'd discuss the merits. But when he's jailed for shooting an animal in the dark "conservatives" love the government.
     

    BMF500

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    If this guy were being jailed for a 15.5" rifle bbl "conservatives" wouldn't like it. If he were jailed for making an illegal suppressor in the dark of night we'd discuss the merits. But when he's jailed for shooting an animal in the dark "conservatives" love the government.
    Legal hunting and game preservation is an important issue to those that follow the law, purchase licences and take/tag fair game. It's not like this dude was only trying to feed his starving family or anything.
     

    candcallen

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    He was illegal in shooting the deer but how was one to know the difference in the antler size to distinguish between a felony and a misdemeanor? One of the reasons I never went duck hunting, they all look the same to me.

    The waste of the animal is what's infuriating here. They wernt hungry or anything like that.
    Since they made no attempt to process the meat its obvious they were in it for the trophy only. So phuck em.

    If they had processed the animal and assuming they arent habitual or repeat poachers I could pretty much guarantee you it would have been lowered to the MM class crime.

    I'm addition to the minimum fine I would bet they also lose all their equipment and vehicles too. This could cost them a tidy sum in the end. Deservedly so.
     

    candcallen

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    If this guy were being jailed for a 15.5" rifle bbl "conservatives" wouldn't like it. If he were jailed for making an illegal suppressor in the dark of night we'd discuss the merits. But when he's jailed for shooting an animal in the dark "conservatives" love the government.
    It's the waste of the animal that's the main issue here and the reason why he got no accommodation on the charges.

    He could still get off easy or have it lowered to a MM charge in the end.
     

    TreyG-20

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    Yup dumb to waste an animal, but for the sake of conversation. What if this had been a hunter taking game for meat on his own property?
     

    lightflyer1

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    If this guy were being jailed for a 15.5" rifle bbl "conservatives" wouldn't like it. If he were jailed for making an illegal suppressor in the dark of night we'd discuss the merits. But when he's jailed for shooting an animal in the dark "conservatives" love the government.

    If he had murdered a person would you be saying the same thing? All these are are stack on charges to make it worse for him if convicted on any of them. The original charge was poaching. Everything else was just to up the ante on him. Kind of like they do to someone who is involved in a robbery. They will charge them with every thing they can think of that happened along the way to their capture. No one but their lawyer will care about the extra charges. If the person you robbed dies by your hand no one cares that you just upped the charge from robbery to aggravated robbery, you are now a murderer. Same thing here. Just a low down poacher who got caught and they are charging him with everything they can and hope they all stick. Because of this people just want him punished as much as possible and don't care about the nuances of the law. Even though they might in another case where he wasn't such a low down scum in the first place.
     

    Hoji

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    I think he should be fined. Fined heavily to the point it fucking hurts. I think if he can not pay the fine , then court ordered indenture doing the shittiest work available at an effective rate of minimum wage should happen until that fine is paid off( as in go to your day job and after that you pay off your fine cleaning porta-johns on work details with a hand pump kind of thing)

    but a felony? No. We are talking about stripping all of his rights as a citizen away for a deer.
     

    BuzzinSATX

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    All you folks who are lamenting the “waste of an animal” who support commercial pork and beef production are serious hypocrites.

    Do you know how many hundreds of hogs and cows are killed and wasted every day? And I’m not talking about the ones that are eaten, I’m talking about the ones that are just wasted.

    A helluva lot. But one deer matters so much to you?

    Give me a break!
     

    Dawico

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    He killed that deer just for the rack and that's why the law differentiates on the rack size.

    If he took it to feed his family it would be a slap on the wrist.

    Also, I have to ask because I do not hunt much. How long before the meat is wasted by not field dressing it right away in what I assume is colder weather? To word it differently, how long did these assholes sit around with an illegal dead deer?

    Common sense would say you get your deer and get the hell out of there.
     

    oldag

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    Understand that I am not condoning poaching. It's the ridiculous greater than 24 inch vs less than 24 inch to decide if it's a felony or a misdemeanor. Make it a felony for any spread is okay with me. Fine the guy for poaching. Put him in jail, whatever. The distinction in less than 24 inches is a minor crime vs over 24 inches is a major crime. That was my point.
    Agree.

    Poaching issue aside (no problem with his getting busted for what he did with respect to poaching).

    But the 24" span law is really stupid. "Excuse me Mr. Buck, would you please stand still while I break out my extra large calipers and measure your rack? By the way, if you are under 24", I will shoot you on the spot. Now hold still... Dang. 24.01", you can leave now."
     

    Moonpie

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    Gunz are icky.
    To hell with poachers.
    I run into them all the time down here in fishing.
    They steal the resource from all of us.
    That twerp killed that deer for the horns. So he could brag about it later.
    A true survival poacher feeding his family would've taken something much less visible.

    This same kind of stupidity happened a few years back right there in San Antonio where the idiot poacher killed a massive buck, took it to a meat processor, and got caught.
    It was such a large horn rack questions started to get asked. State wardens started investigating
    Stupid azz had illegally killed a well known deer in a subdivision.
    KA-CHING! It cost him bigly.
     

    mongoose

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    All you folks who are lamenting the “waste of an animal” who support commercial pork and beef production are serious hypocrites.

    Do you know how many hundreds of hogs and cows are killed and wasted every day? And I’m not talking about the ones that are eaten, I’m talking about the ones that are just wasted.

    A helluva lot. But one deer matters so much to you?

    Give me a break!
    I've spent many hours in slaughter houses. My experience is that very little of an animal is wasted. From prime meat to animal food, everything is utilized. I never have seen wholesale waste of an animal from grain feed to canter and cutter stock.
     

    TX OMFS

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    It's the waste of the animal that's the main issue here and the reason why he got no accommodation on the charges.

    He could still get off easy or have it lowered to a MM charge in the end.

    I think he's an ass and should be charged with something. Primarily I don't like the idea of making him a felon - unless there's other history we don't know. He's an ass but he killed a deer in a way the crown didn't approve of and he wasted the meat. He didn't kill 10 babies this morning like Planned Parenthood a few miles from me.

    I also don't like the government deciding they own the land and animals and make the rules. I know, I know, the animals belong to all of us...so long as we pay our hunting tax and please the crown.

    Similarly, I'm all for legalizing weed but while it remains illegal I'm also all for punishing people reasonably.

    Maybe I'm overthinking it all. It's the pseudo-Libertarian in me, same reason I'm intrigued by but not entirely convinced by the OCT guys taking on Olmos Park.
     
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