PETA Wrong to Criticize Racoon-Killing Rep. Steve King
Among other things, U.S. Representative Steve King (R-Iowa) is a responsible citizen, a family man, a firearm owner, and is staunchly pro-gun. He also has a Twitter account from which he “tweets” fairly regularly.
According to a February 16, blog-post on Sioux City Journal.com, Rep. King recently tweeted the following during a snow storm he was riding out in his rural, western Iowa home: “Mid day, mid blizzard, 15 degrees, Crazy Raccoon chewing and clawing his way into my house. Desert Eagle 1, Crazy Raccoon zero.”
Apparently the home-destroying--and potentially rabid--raccoon had been attempting to enter the King’s home for several days. The blog post noted that King not only feared the raccoon might be rabid, but that King’s granddaughters often played in the area where the attempted “break-in” occurred.
So King did what most reasonable, self-reliant, self-preserving people in his situation would do: he shot the raccoon.
Enter People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the radical and increasingly irrelevant animal “rights” group who, predictably, criticized King for his action.
King should not have dispatched “a small animal seeking warmth in another blizzard,” said PETA spokesman Jaime Zalac.
A normally nocturnal wild animal that is known to be a frequent carrier of rabies, attempting to gain entry into your home in the middle of the day--and destroying your property in the process--is certainly just cause for concern. And the desire and will to protect your family, home, and self by dispatching the wild animal before it can do more harm would certainly be considered reasonable by most.
Unless, of course, you’re PETA. In that case, you place the welfare of a destructive animal that could potentially be carrying a fatal disease and is trying to gnaw its way into a home, above the welfare of the home’s human residents.
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Seriously, you had to shoot it AND get PETA and the NRA involved?
Not that I condone killing animals , nor do I condone the outburst by PETA, but couldn't you just toss a rock at it instead? Consider a frying pan, use a metal baking sheet as a shield. You'll look silly, but you'll save the animal's life if you're any sort of coordinated. Blizzard or not the ability to wield a baking sheet is probably very high, just make sure you use a large one.
And I'm not kidding, the sound alone will scare the animal, and if it does attack you can put the pan between you. I find it hard to believe someone like him wouldn't have a large enough baking sheet. Granted I don't live in the boonies, but when there's raccoons around my house just the sound of getting the sheet out is enough to scare the little intruders away from my garbage barrels.
Stop the presses! The NRA writes an anti- PETA rant! Who woulda thunk it?! There are non-violent ways to get rid of an unwanted wild intruder, but hey, if you have a gun around (isn't keeping firearms in a house that has kids living in it the greater concern here?), the natural thing to do is assume rabies, grab the gun, and blow the poor, freezing animal away. Bad move, Steve. Some Republicans are more pro-animal than the Dems, but clearly, you're not one of them. :(
By all means, in the middle of a blizzard, one should head to town and go shopping for humane traps (assuming anything is open).
The funny thing about most animal rights activists is they don't seem to have a fuzzy clue about the animals they get active about. Have any of them ever seen a racoon outside of a photo or zoo?
Racoons do attack people. One man I know personally required over 40 stiches after a racoon attack. He had to beat it to death with a shovel to stop it, went to the hospital, then of course followed the series of rabies shots.
Racoons are also well known for attacking cats and small dogs . What would PETA 's position be on that one? Would it be inhumane to stop a racoon from mauling a family pet to death?
Here's one about a school crossing guard being attacked by a racoon:
http://wjz.com/watercooler/bite.raccoon .bite.2.724111.html
Golly! Where was PETA when they needed to step up to condem the local police ?
In the mean time, I think the NRA is idiotic to respond to these brain damaged attention seekers. As the saying goes, "If you argue with a fool, what does that make you?".
I'm a member of PETA and I have to agree they should NOT have touched this one. There are thousands upon thousands of animal cruelty cases far worse than this including people burning and torturing animals alive just for their entertainment . Sometimes PETA does do off the wall things and this is one example of this. I don't see the interest in Tweeter and fail to understand the popularity of it.