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Airliners come under attack from idiots at Belle Isle Marsh
By adamg on Sat, 01/05/2008 - 8:01pm
Jorge, who reported idiot duck hunters under a Logan flight path in Belle Isle Marsh on New Year's Day, reports they were back this morning. This time he took their photo:
... At this point the planes are very close to the ground. I heard them fire twice. I called the Boston Police twice from my cell phone and of course, the hunters and their dog packed up and left with no appearance from the Boston Police. These guys are a hazard in so many ways that I can't even begin to tell you without getting all balled up with anger.
But wait. Look at this Channel 4 report today: Fireworks Possibly Shot At Plane Landing At Logan:
... An Air Wisconsin regional jet was coming in for a landing over Winthrop Saturday afternoon, when the pilot reported seeing what looked like fireworks.
They appeared to be coming from the Belle Isle Marsh area. The plane was not hit and landed safely. ...
The Globe says it was a model rocket fired from the marsh around 12:26 p.m., or about 45 minutes after Jorge filed his blog post. So you've got dolts at one end of the marsh shooting rifles shotguns into the sky while planes are landing and dolts with model rockets at the other end of the marsh shooting their toys into the sky while planes are landing.
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Comments
Duck hunters don't use
Duck hunters don't use rifles.
What do they use?
My apologies for not knowing anything about duck hunting, then.
en.wikipedia.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_hunting#Guns_and_shells
Now that idiots!
I'm just wondering if guns should be banned in the airport approach zone? Cause really, this is a disaster waiting to happen...
My 2 cents...
How close is this area to the airport itself? Certainly, if it's an area where a plane would be in range of gunfire, I'd have less of a problem with banning the use of firearms there.
There is no constitutionally protected right to hunt.
The writer of that post stated that she called the police and that they never responded. Tells me the guys weren't violating the law. If they were directly underneath approaching aircraft (i.e. in a boat at the end of the runway, the law enforcement response would be significant).
Heck, they shut down the airport for that ditz with the blinking sweatshirt art project on.
Further, if hunting is allowed there and they're firing in the direction of the neighboring houses and people, then haul their asses downtown and charge them under existing state laws covering reckless discharge of a firearm.
Technically speaking, banning guns in the airport approach zone would disarm a large chunk of East Boston residents (with the exception of the criminals in that area who couldn't give less of a rat's ass about such a law).
Friends of Belle Isle Marsh say ...
from their website:
Reminder: The use of firearms in the City of Boston is prohibited. If you see violators hunting at the marsh, call the Environmental Police. EPO hotline is 800-632-8075. In Winthrop, Hunting is prohibited within 500 feet of an occupied dwelling.
------
I don't know how much of the marsh is in Winthrop, or whether some of it is more than 500 feet from any house. Nor whether it's OK to hunt ducks there with a bow and arrow or a crossbow.
Does Anyone know where Dick Cheney
was at the time of this incident?
Oh, wait. Nobody went to the hospital
with gunshot wounds. Never mind.
The Hunting Nazi needs to
The Hunting Nazi needs to quit whining. I'd worry more about cell phone-using drivers than I would about those hunters on the marsh.
The problem with the hunters
The problem with the hunters is that they are hunting in a Reservation, where hunting is not allowed. Also, the fact that there are so many houses, cars, and businesses within close range...not to mention all the adults and children who use that area.
And I believe that endangered birds use that area as a nesting ground and stopover area.
I think it's fair to say
I think it's fair to say that no one is nesting in the marsh today, no? And for shotguns, "close" would mean much closer than anyone gets to the hunters. If it's a no-hunting area, that's another matter.
I wouldn't hunt with you
You clearly have little understanding of habitat, and less understanding of legal restrictions on hunting. Go hunt with Dick Cheney - that'd be fair! Mutually assured destruction.
This is, of course, aside from guns near airplanes. Some dopey dimwit gets hauled away for a damn laser ten miles out, then this should be an issue.
Some 'Reservations' allow hunting
Belle Isle Marsh is owned by the state Department of Conservation and Recreation. Some of their properties are called "parks", some "forests", and some "reservations", but the name doesn't seem to prescribe a policy of hunting or no-hunting.
Their Hunting page claims that "Hunting is permitted in most state forests and parks". I don't know if that "most" is really accurate, but a number of the hunting-allowed properties listed there are called Reservations, such as Scusset Beach State Reservation in Sandwich and Salisbury Beach State Reservation. Even the Waquoit Bay National Estuarine
Research Reserve allows it, which I'd never have expected with that name.
Latest news
Bird watcher upset over hunters in Belle Marsh
So, apparently duck hunting is legal there
I was going to post this link first, but you beat me to it.
There - wasn't that easy?
There - wasn't that easy? Logan knows and isn't bothered. The law is satisfied. What we had here was a birder with a feather across his *ss. In the vast majority of this country this stuff goes on unnoticed every day. It takes a Masshole.
And Swirly... you should really do something about that anger management issue. Piss and vinegar is not a tasty treat.
Oink Oink to you!
Anger management? Why is it only women who get these lectures about how to be sweet and nice and never question manly masculine men who shoot with guns?
I wasn't taught to hunt for sport, dearie ... I was taught to hunt for dinner when the money ran low. As somebody who worked with aircraft issues when I still was an engineer and as a girl who went hunting with her daddy, I fully realize that shotguns prolly won't harm a plane. I think it is foolish to let people play with guns in a flight path. Today it may be guys using shot guns, but Johhny Jihad or Timmy Masterrace may have grander plans.
I fahhht in your general direction.
Hunting still requires a license, though
Something I suspect Johnny and Timmy wouldn't or couldn't get. I have no problems with the police taking special care to enforce the licensing law at this location. There are also regulations about exactly what size and capacity of shotgun is allowed for duck hunting.
Appearance of Security
This is classic: "They're just duck hunters".
Maybe. Maybe not. As usual, what does or does not get done depends on maintaining an appearance of vigilance, rather than a systematic audit and remediation of hazards.
Say Betsy Binocular Birdwatcher III calls the staties to complain. "Silly Birder, marshes are for hunting" they chuckle. They condescendingly chid her for wasting their time and refuse to investigate.
Consequently:
They don't go check the situation.
They don't ask for licenses.
They don't check for use of lead shot.
They don't check that these "hunters" are actually using shotguns.
Meanwhile Suay Sidale Skinhead, romping around the marsh in full camoflage and weilding a high powered rifle with scope, takes down a truly large bird with a solid shot to the wing. Subsequent loss of wing flap control results in the obliteration of a neighborhood of Everett or Chelsea or Malden or Medford...
Oh, but they took away a kids empty water bottle before he boarded the fated flight. They also harassed an elderly chair-using gentleman with limited range of motion in his joints by conducting a full search, and yelled at a woman for taking her shoes off (even though they yelled at the person in front of her for NOT taking his shoes off). Their plane was really safe as a result, right?
I don't have a problem with hunting. I have a problem with obvious stupid.
Agreeing with the Swirly
I happen to work in the transportation security field, and I agree with Swirly. Many of the TSA efforts are just window dressing. You can't really compound a liquid explosive in the bathroom of a moving airplane. Taking away your water bottles is just Security Theater.
A much greater threat to aviation security is lack of control of weapons use under the flight path. Birdshot isn't going to do much harm, but a .50 caliber rifle (available in 49 states) could.
On the other hand, it would also be possible to hit from quite a range with such a rifle, and if I were a terrorist, I'd try to shoot something with a little more fuel in it than a landing aircraft. Like, say, a LNG tanker.
That said, the danger under the flight path is that there are relatively open areas under BOS and JFK paths, and you wouldn't have to be much of a shot to hit the big birds at a few hundred feet. If a loser like Richard Reid had one of these instead of a shoe bomb, he could have done more damage.
So I agree with Swirly Girl that if somebody calls with reports of men with guns in the marsh, it's worth checking to see that they're hunters and not lunatics.
Bird Hunting at Logan
Oh, the marsh is not the only place you will hear shot gun fire around Logan. We see the Logan Airport Wildlife Hazaard Management staff kicking it up with the poor birds right at the airport all the time. Unfortunately, I don't usually have my camera handy, but we have seen them shooting overhead, sideways, I saw one guy pull up within 150 yards of me, take down three gulls and a duck in about a minute - while a plane was landing directly behind him! I will keep my eyes out to post better footage. But, for anyone who is interseted, the adventures of Cowboy Logan 129: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwS4Bcu0ORU
Fire Arms
Winthrop Ma. Town By Laws.
9.08.010 Discharge of Firearms within Town Limits.
No person shall, except as authorized, justified or required by law, fire or discharge any gun or other firearms or an air rifle within the limits of the town but the provision of this section shall not apply to any member of the police dept. in the performance of his or her duties or to the use of such weapons at ant military exercise or in the lawful defense of the person, family or property of any citizen. (Prior code*134.1)
you guys are all total
you guys are all total losers.
it is legal to hunt in belle isle marsh; and due to morons like yourselves i have been hassled by the police who were called - the winthrop police, where it is legal. and guess what - they said they were only 'just checking' just like you idiots were saying they should be done. guess what again - the system works! so stop whining and frittering away your lives blathering on the internet.