[BITList] arms n cattle

[CT's]

hugh,
are you referring to this when you mentioned the right to own firearms and keeping cows in the garden [which I haven't heard of]?

this article is from 13 years ago!

I didn't know one could be charged with unauthorised use of livestock. 

we live and learn

ct

Oregon Man Takes Aim at Cattle Along With Open-Range Law 
West: He shot 11 Herefords who had strayed onto his land and was convicted of criminal mischief. He vows to challenge statute in appeal.
October 26, 1997 JEFF BARNARD, ASSOCIATED PRESS
JOHN DAY, Ore. - One fine fall day a year ago, Dr. Patrick Shipsey, his wife and two young daughters drove out to their 960 acres to plant grass along a creek that was healing from generations of overgrazing.

When Shipsey saw that his neighbor's Herefords had gotten inside his fence again, he pulled out his favorite rifle, walked to within 50 yards of the cattle and, with calm deliberation, dropped each of the eight cows in its tracks with a bullet to the base of the skull.

Shipsey, who was convicted of criminal mischief and unauthorized use of livestock after a 30-minute nonjury trial last week, could face more than 55 years in prison and loss of his medical license. But prosecutor Patrick Flaherty said Shipsey would probably get no more than 10 days in jail and two years' probation, plus community service and payment of restitution. He will be sentenced within the next two months.
Shipsey vowed to appeal.

Earlier, he said he was less concerned with being caught than with spotlighting an open-range law he considers ludicrous.

The law allows ranchers to hold others liable for the welfare of their cattle, no matter where they roam. The concept holds sway a century after its inception in Oregon, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming and parts of Texas.

It goes against much of American jurisprudence but is well understood in cattle country.

"When you build a fence in this country, it isn't to keep your cattle in; it's to keep your neighbor's cattle out," said barber Joe West as he trimmed the hair of John Hays, president-elect of the Oregon Cattlemen's Assn.

Cattle still are herded down Main Street in this eastern Oregon town of 2,000. Hays said ranchers need open range to move their herds.

"It's just the law of the West," he said.

The man with the dead cattle, Bob Sproul, sees Shipsey as an outsider threatening a traditional way of life. The two had argued for years over cattle getting through Shipsey's fence and grazing in the creek bottom he had worked hard to restore.

"[Newcomers] love it here and want to change our history and laws," Sproul said. "Why don't they just stay away? The cattle and men who own them in these vast areas can't protect a garden patch."

Shipsey, a conservationist, is not so different from the locals. Reared in Klamath Falls, a community in southwestern Oregon, and in cattle and timber country, Shipsey feels a strong connection to the high desert.


 



From: HUGH 
Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 2010 1:52 PM
To: bitlist at lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com 
Subject: Re: [BITList] more Anti-Gun Senator Shoots Intruder


Colin, Dave (in no particluar order),

If everybody exercised every right they possess or enforced every law in existence, it would be a chaotic world - the trick is to be sensible.  Unfortunately, some only select the rights that appeal to their less civilised instincts.  I understand the Amendment that gave the US gun lobby's ancestors the right to own firearms (on the assumption they were a militia, I understand) also gave them the right to keep cows in their gardens. I don't see them falling over themselves to buy cattle.

I'll try to think on something controversial. On another site, the crankshaft was very controversial indeed at one point.

Hugh.
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