David E. Petzal - The Gun Nut

Field & Stream is running a beginner’s guide to crossbows in its August issue, and the editors want to hear your opinion on where the weapons belong in the hunting landscape. Should they be considered just another bow? Or should they be banned from archery seasons? Read David E. Petzal and Anthony Licata's positions (below), then tell us what you think.

Crossbows, Compounds ... Who Cares?
By Deputy Editor David E. Petzal

This blog is supposed to be about guns, but a good argument is a good argument, so why not?

The crossbow was invented in China, certainly by 200 B.C., and possibly as early as 600 B.C. Like gunpowder, its use eventually spread to Europe, where people used it to shoot each other. The first person who really didn’t like crossbows was Pope Innocent II. In 1139 he and the Lateran Council outlawed the use of the crossbow (except on non-Christians) declaring that skill with it was a “deadly art, hateful to God.” In 1146 it was outlawed throughout Europe, but then, as now, people paid no attention to weapons bans.

Crossbows were for short range only, and their rate of fire, compared to the longbow, was very slow. But their advantage was that the average ignorant dung-encrusted peasant required little training in order to use one, while it took a lifetime of practice to produce a competent longbowman. Firearms made the crossbow obsolete as a military weapon, but it remained popular for hunting.

People still hate crossbows because, compared to a conventional bow, they supposedly require little skill; and they remove the single greatest handicap of the conventional bow by letting you keep an arrow “cocked and locked” indefinitely. Users of stickbows and compounds brood on this and become enraged. “Unsporting,” they bellow, and demand that crossbows be outlawed for hunting.

This is pretty thin logic. If you compare a crossbow to a compound, there are two differences. One is the stock. The other is, you can put a scope sight on a crossbow. But how much advantage is a scope over fiber optic sights? A crossbow is still a 40-yard tool, just like a compound. Is the stock that big a deal? I tend to doubt it. A lot of animals are taken each year by hunters who have to draw their bows just before they shoot, so really, is it that hard?

Unless you want to limit people to stickbows and flintlocks, drop the hypocrisy. A crossbow is just a bow, albeit one with a handle, and it belongs in archery seasons as sure as any modern compound does.

Crossbows Are Great, But They’re Not Bows
By Deputy Editor Anthony Licata

For a few heady weeks, it seemed as though 11-year-old Jamison Stone might replace Lindsay Lohan as a media sensation when he slew a 1,000-pound-plus hog (with a 50 S&W revolver, no less) in his home state of Alabama on May 3. However, he may be as over as Don Imus. It turns out that the behemoth boar he blasted was formerly a pet pig named Fred.