Online Hunting Firm Is Now the Quarry

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-liveshot21apr21,1,1280932.story?coll=la-headlines-california

Online Hunting Firm Is Now the Quarry

Lawmakers nationwide are targeting a website that allows computer users to fire at game roaming a Texas ranch.

By Nancy Vogel
Times Staff Writer

April 21, 2005

SACRAMENTO — So far, John Lockwood has had only two customers for his new Internet-based business, yet lawmakers in California, 14 other states and Congress are moving to shut it down.

Lockwood operates a website — live-shot.com — that for a few hundred dollars lets anyone with access to a computer shoot and kill a variety of animals roaming a fenced ranch in Texas.

A rifle, video camera and computer are mounted on a stand at the ranch at a spot frequented by deer, antelope and sheep. From thousands of miles away, via computer, a person can control the camera and gun, firing with a click of the mouse.

Even if Lockwood doesn't yet have customers lining up around the block, the mere notion that a venue exists for remote-controlled killing has triggered a backlash of disgust, compelling lawmakers and forging an unlikely coalition of big-game hunters and animal rights activists.

Lockwood's venture has offended sensibilities even in Texas, where many private hunting ranches promise clients they can bag exotic trophy animals such as impala and wildebeest.

continued

I live in Texas and have some family that hunt, but never would they go along with this. This just stinks.
If you'r to lazy to get up out of your chair, keep with stupid video games. What cowards and lowlifes.
Shame on the websites owner.
Just my thoughts

I think I just heard some freepers saying "oh yeah!"

After all, it's exactly what they're doing with the drones.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2002/20021003/science.htm#1

I've met Graham Hawkes through his submarine projects when I saw his protype .308 remote firing rifle a couple of year ago and, well, now I see that the army is testing it....Cripes, this could take the concept of armchair generals to new heights lows.

... he always intended to sell sophisticated assasination weapons to any sort of bad guy with money.

The "big game for the wheelchair bound" crap was merely free publicity, and lots of it.

*Tip o' th' tinfoil to ya*

ps. I suppose I'm predisposed to this theory because, criminal mind that I have, lol, I'd already had the basic idea.

I'll never sing in a stadium (except from the stands), I'll never climb Kilimanjaro. Sometimes, you have to accept your limitations, and focus on what you CAN do.

Who goes and picks up the dead animal?

The whole concept is sick, and I have hunters in my family who take care of most of their meat ration for the year during hunting season. They wouldn't go for this at all.

By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
23 April 2005


John Lockwood has so far attracted two paying customers to his Texas hunting business, but already legislators across the United States are looking to shut him down.

It is not that they object to shooting animals per se. But rather they find something distasteful about being able to do it online.

For a fee between $1 and $3,000 (53p to £1,570) any customer with access to the internet can aim and shoot a rifle at a variety of animals on a fenced-in Texas ranch. The hunter could be on the other side of the world.

Mr Lockwood, 40, who also runs a car repair shop in San Antonio, hit upon the idea of online hunting after showing a friend a video he had taken while out hunting. The friend said it must be possible to hook up a camera to a gun and the idea of live-shot.com was born.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/story.jsp?story=632218