After last night’s Academy Awards, it feels appropriate to reiterate a story closely related to the eventual Best Picture Winner With an Incomprehensible Ending That I Understood But Obviously Didn’t Appreciate.

According to an article printed earlier this month in the Riverfront Times, the Missouri Department of Conservation unanimously approved a proposal that would allow hunters to use high-caliber air-powered rifles (not unlike the weapon used by a certain antagonist) at the start of regular-weapon deer season on November 15.

These weapons (which must be powered by compressed air or a hand pump with a minimum of a .40 caliber) came at the request of a small group of enthusiastic hunters whose logic led one member of the regulatory committee to comment on the nature of the weapons:

"These firearms are not Daisy air rifles. They are high-powered,
large-caliber, generally very expensive firearms that carry the
foot-pounds of energy necessary to take down large game."

Although I realize that any extension of firearm legalization is likely to lead to an outcry from someone, I feel that anyone who wants to use an expensive (retail prices for the rifles start at around $500), short-range (about a quarter of that of a traditional rifle) and slow-loading weapon to make their hunting experience more difficult can go right ahead. After all, who are we to stop the Missouri Outdoorsman from making his hunt as difficult as that faced by Lewis & Clark?

Just as long as we keep them away from certain people.