Anti-Ivory Groups Take Aim at WA, IA & CA (Mammoth Included) + Fed Update

leghog said:
Where has anyone supported a ban on ownership?. Even the proposed legislation doesn't suggest that.
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But re-sale will be banned.

This proposed ban will not save the African elephants. But it will make the pro-ban people feel good.
 
Buffalohump said:
I honestly dont think the USA is the problem,
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Earlier in this thread I posted some articles about the smuggling of ivory into the USA.

a qoute from the SFgate article says ...

"Federal agents say they have seized 6 tons of ivory smuggled into the United States over the past 25 years. Kinzley said that is only about 10 percent of illegal ivory sales.

"And Chinatown is one the top spots to buy ivory in the United States, which ranks second - behind China - on the list of nations with the biggest ivory markets, according to experts."

The USA is part of the problem.
 
25 years is a long time. How about in the last 5 years? What is the estimated tonnage of ivory exported outside Africa in the last 25 years?
 
Let's put this in perspective. If your house has a piece of framing or trim made from rare wood, you can no longer sell your home. Moreover, if your house contains another type of wood that resembles a rare species, you can no longer sell your house. It makes no difference if the latter has been extinct since the last ice age. How do we feel about that?

As an indicator of current American values, this legislation is really priceless. Groups will lobby until any natural material that resembles ivory is illegal. Meanwhile, Boko Haram continues to slaughter masses of people. To anyone who watches that on the news, then uses their voice to protect the elephants, I suggest your values may be a bit out of whack.
 
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22-rimfire said:
But re-sale will be banned.

This proposed ban will not save the African elephants. But it will make the pro-ban people feel good.
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Actually that is to stop the smuggling of Ivory out of the USA to Asian markets. The goal is to choke off all Ivory trade as much as possible on all fronts.
 
Justin King said:
Meanwhile, Boko Haram continues to slaughter masses of people. To anyone who watches that on the news, then uses their voice to protect the elephants, I suggest your values may be a bit out of whack.
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You do understand we are only discussing the Ivory topic in this thread?

Boko Haram, Isis, Jihadist are talked about in other locations...just not here.

We use our "voice" on more then one thing and to speak of one topic does not preclude someone from also speaking up on other topics.
 
Steven65 said:
Joe has travelled extensively in Southern Africa. He has visited the areas affected by poaching and has seen the problem with his own eyes. Have you?

You have a very strong opinion and I respect that. Unfortunately most of what you believe about Elephant conservation in wrong.

Apply for a passport, climb on a plane and come down here and see for yourself.
Then you might realise just how complex the problem of animal conservancy in Southern, Central and East Africa is.

Attempting to stop the poaching of Elephants in Southern Africa by banning all Ivory sales in the US may make you feel better, but the truth is that it is an exercise in futility and will do nothing to save the species.
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My friend people who don't know just don't know

It's that simple

They watch the shows and hear what a group wants them to hear but they will never understand till they see what is going on and more importantly speak to the people that live there and live with the results of someone's decision thousands of miles away

Some people can not grasp that by killing elephants that are encroaching on people and controlling the harvest of elephants and making them worth something to the people that are killing them (poachers) that this is the most viable method of protecting them

Again I do not want to see elephants get shot but if killing an old bull out of a herd that eventually will die a cruel death anyway protects the rest of the herd and their habitat than this route is the lesser of the two evils

Many have comments

Few write the checks to back them up

I just came back from South America where I travelled the Amzon Basin

Jaguar are illegal to kill and to export

At every remote village I stumbled in guess what the local indigenous people where selling

That's right Jaguar claws

I guess they found a lot of dead ones :)

You don't know to you know

It's that simple

Thanks Steven
 
Justin King said:
Let's put this in perspective. If your house has a piece of framing or trim made from rare wood, you can no longer sell your home. Moreover, if your house contains another type of wood that resembles a rare species, you can no longer sell your house. It makes no difference if the latter has been extinct since the last ice age. How do we feel about that?

As an indicator of current American values, this legislation is really priceless. Groups will lobby until any natural material that resembles ivory is illegal. Meanwhile, Boko Haram continues to slaughter masses of people. To anyone who watches that on the news, then uses their voice to protect the elephants, I suggest your values may be a bit out of whack.
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Stay on-topic or don't post. If you want to climb up on a soapbox, we have a Political Arena forum.
 
Justin King said:
Let's put this in perspective. If your house has a piece of framing or trim made from rare wood, you can no longer sell your home. Moreover, if your house contains another type of wood that resembles a rare species, you can no longer sell your house. It makes no difference if the latter has been extinct since the last ice age. How do we feel about that?
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Another terrible analogy that truly doesn't put it into perspective. How many ivory handled knives cost the equivalent of a house?

If those dealers with stocks of elephant ivory worth the cost of a house were paid far market value for surrender of their stock when/if the law were enacted would you then support the law?

As an indicator of current American values, this legislation is really priceless. Groups will lobby until any natural material that resembles ivory is illegal. Meanwhile, Boko Haram continues to slaughter masses of people. To anyone who watches that on the news, then uses their voice to protect the elephants, I suggest your values may be a bit out of whack.
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What kind of logic is that?
 
JParanee said:
Some people can not grasp that by killing elephants that are encroaching on people and controlling the harvest of elephants and making them worth something to the people that are killing them (poachers) that this is the most viable method of protecting them

Again I do not want to see elephants get shot but if killing an old bull out of a herd that eventually will die a cruel death anyway protects the rest of the herd and their habitat than this route is the lesser of the two evils
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Even more locally, people tend not to realize that hunters are also by nature conservationists...

We have a huge deer population in my area (of course a slightly different analogy as deer are not endangered, at least, here) and if they aren't trimmed off each year they'll do major damage to the local flora and themselves.
 
RedLynx said:
Even more locally, people tend not to realize that hunters are also by nature conservationists...

We have a huge deer population in my area (of course a slightly different analogy as deer are not endangered, at least, here) and if they aren't trimmed off each year they'll do major damage to the local flora and themselves.
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Not really comparable to elephants as today there are more white tail deer east of the Mississippi River than when the first Europeans arrived. We've eradicated the vast majority of their predators, and they've proven to be very adaptable even in the environment we've created.
 
From http://www.kniferights.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=40&Itemid=135

Knife Rights is dedicated to:
Providing knife and edged tool owners an effective voice to influence public policy and to oppose efforts to restrict the right to own, use and carry knives and edged tools;
Encouraging safe, responsible and lawful use of knives and edged tools through education and outreach, enhancing positive perceptions of knives and edged tools and their owners and users;
Encouraging the marketing of knives and edged tools in a responsible manner conducive to the organization's goals;
Cooperating with advocacy organizations having complementary interests and goals;
Providing knife and edged tool owners with services that they will find valuable in order to build membership to enable success in our primary objectives.

Knife Rights Foundation is dedicated to:
Encouraging safe and responsible use of knives and edged tools through education and outreach;
Educating knife owners, public officials and the general public about the history of knives and edged tools;
Educating knife owners, public officials and the general public about knife and edged tool related laws and regulations
Defense of knife owners' civil rights through litigation

Ivory, at best, seems like an issues that is VERY loosely related to any of the line items in the mission statement. Given the plethora of serious issues that threaten knife ownership (as opposed to the choice of decorative material), I am extremely disappointed that D. Ritter and Knife Rights have decided to divert their limited resources to address this.

I hope that D. Ritter is reading this. Knife Rights stance and involvement in this issues is going to HEVILY influence my decision to donate in the future. From the response in this thread, I am not alone. My guess is that polling a larger audience would result in an even more negative response. I have given to Knife Rights in the past. In the future I am going to work to find another organization that is more aligned with my views and is more responsible in how it spends my money.

I actually read this entire thread. Although my initial reaction was in support of a TOTAL ban on the sale and trade of ALL ivory, I tried to keep an open mind. Not all issues are simple, and I was MORE THAN WILLING to give the "mammoth ivory" crowd a chance. To be blunt, I found the pro-ivory arguments to be puerile, filled with weak anecdotes and bastardized political philosophy, and simply illogical and not at all compelling. Pre-ban, post-ban, mammoth, whaterver; the sale and trade of this stuff still contributes to global ivory industry, and I want the global ivory industry eradicated.

Here is my stance; if you have it, you can keep it. You cannot sell it or trade it. I support a TOTAL ban on all sale and trade of ivory, regardless of the source.

One more thing; thanks to this thread I have become more educated about this issue and will be providing my support and voice to support total ban on ivory.
 
leghog said:
Not really comparable to elephants as today there are more white tail deer east of the Mississippi River than when the first Europeans arrived. We've eradicated the vast majority of their predators, and they've proven to be very adaptable even in the environment we've created.
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Of course. And the gestation period of the elephant is a very long time, for another thing. My comment was more a commentary on how hunters (I'm not one myself) can often be misunderstood. Of course I don't think we should have eradicated all of those predators in the first place, but what's done is done, for better or worse.

Unlike Joe I haven't been to Africa or talked to any of the locals (I did go to school with an escaped slave, but I don't think he had any first hand knowledge of the overall elephant situation there) so I don't really know about this except what I read and watch on the news or in documentaries, and I'm forced to draw my conclusions from that. My current conclusions say that there isn't much good, if any, going on with the elephant situation right now. But it seems the local (I assume non-poachers) Joe has met have a different view of things. Something I should probably learn about to further inform my opinion on this.
 
OK, I'm tired of people thinking this is a knife rights issue because people use ivory in knives. By that logic, artists speak through their art, so if the medium is ivory to ban ivory would be an infringement on freedom of speech by this logic. Let's make an ivory bullet so the NRA can get involved, cuz then it'd be a gun rights issue. Or an ivory stent so its a medical care issue. This is NOT knife rights, its ivory rights. Until one shows where the legislation mentions knives, this isn't knife rights. Objectively.
 
BenchCo Spydermade said:
OK, I'm tired of people thinking this is a knife rights issue because people use ivory in knives.
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You are correct. If the handle makes it a knife rights issue then it would also mean it is a "Gun Rights" issue correct?... and it is not.

pic-2012-12-04-ivory-grip-1911-001-medium.jpg
 
AVigil said:
You are correct. If the handle makes it a knife rights issue then it would also mean it is a "Gun Rights" issue correct?... and it is not.

pic-2012-12-04-ivory-grip-1911-001-medium.jpg
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Of course you realize there is a large number of custom knives using some sort of ivory. A large portion of which are not full tang, and would be very hard to replace. By choosing not to replace the handle, this ban would render these knives valueless.

There are other issues besides not "wanting" to replace the handle. I have a John White golden crackle Mammoth frame handled bowie, and especially now since John has passed, there's no way I'd let another maker touch it - Would you?

I've said it before - This ban will not be saving any elephants. All a ban will do is increase the price of ivory, thus giving people an even larger incentive to poach and smuggle the ivory into the US.
 
egally08 said:
Of course you realize there is a large number of custom knives using some sort of ivory. A large portion of which are not full tang, and would be very hard to replace. By choosing not to replace the handle, this ban would render these knives valueless.

There are other issues besides not "wanting" to replace the handle. I have a John White golden crackle Mammoth frame handled bowie, and especially now since John has passed, there's no way I'd let another maker touch it - Would you?

I've said it before - This ban will not be saving any elephants. All a ban will do is increase the price of ivory, thus giving people an even larger incentive to poach and smuggle the ivory into the US.
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Would this ban hurt my right to carry and use a knife? No.

And this is the problem I am having in understanding why this issue is being taken up by Knife Rights. This issue isn't about the controversial end of the tool. At this point it is not really about the Elephants any more for me. That is a problem that is much bigger and harder to get at. I am concerned about my right to carry and use a knife. Not about the value of a knife. Value will always be in the eye of the beholder. I am not concerned about making money. I am sorry, I am not in the knife making business. I know this issue is important for those that are. But you know what? There are other ways to make money. People change careers all the time. It sucks, I know but no matter what career one chooses, no matter where one chooses to live, no matter what you like to do day to day, you should have the right to carry and use you knife. This is what I am concerned about and I think this issue we are discussing has very little to do with protecting my right to carry and use an edged tool.
 
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