Once again spoken like a true anti hunter - thanks for this attitude. Really helps us all. If you don't understand the importance of hunting elephants to the economy or to the elephants themselves then brush up before slandering another hunters wishes. Seriously we are all hunters and if you don't like a method or type of hunt please keep it to yourself as the anti hunters love comments like yours.
Oh yeah and we are all beer drinking slobs like you would like to imply.
You know, if you refuse to think objectively about these issues, and insist on an "all or nothing", "them or us" mentality, you're really doing exactly the same thing as the enviromaniacs and hoplophobes of this world.
You're also making yourself look like a fanatic to the most important audience of all: the public at large.
And from a purely tactical point of view, the more nuanced, complex and reasonable sounding the responses from the firearms owners and hunters are, the more dogmatic, irrational, confused and visibly ill-informed the antis appear by comparison.
I understand the emotional and intellectual attraction of simplicity. Maybe that's enough for some people, but not for a community as threatened as ours.
Sorry, I don't agree with hunting elephants and nothing is going to make me agree except population control, (and by all means, sell the right to cull for big money to competent hunters who will get a thrill out of shooting an elephant.) I don't know what people get out of killing an animal like that, but I'm not going to speculate. They do hunting and firearms owners a disservice because most people agree with my view, not surprisingly.
And to say that opposing elephant trophy hunting is an attack on all hunting is just the Goebbels line of propaganda: never admit that your opponent is even slightly right or you admit that you are slightly wrong. Worked well in Germany, not sure it'll do so well here.
The problem for elephants is poaching, and corrupt African governments. Then you have really stupid actions like the Tanzanian/Kenyan government burning huge quantities of poached ivory which could be fed onto the market gradually to satisfy demand and fund conservation efforts.
As for "beer drinking slobs", there seem to be plenty around. People too thick to realize that they are engaged in a war for their rights and that they should learn to keep their mouths shut about things that help their opponents, at least on the world wide web. You see this almost daily on this forum.