Really, is there no limit to the shady tactics that some people will try to employ in order prove a point?  They do so without realising that by using underhand methods they’re only hindering their cause and losing brownie points with the public whose approval they’re trying so desperately to win.

I’m writing, of course, about the latest ploy by the hunting community to win our sympathy (http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120530/local/Anxiety-and-stress-linked-to-hunt-ban.421910). The spring hunting ban imposed in 2009 was the reason behind a surge of mental health problems suffered by hunters, or so they would have us believe.

A disclaimer before I continue: I have all sympathy for those individuals, both hunters and not, who genuinely suffer from health problems. And for their families.

But not for those who choose to use said problems in order to further their personal agendas.

How dare these people use the suffering of others for the petty advancement of their cause?

How dare they belittle other people’s health problems by drawing such simplistic conclusions about the cause of the sickness and its cure?

Although these people were very careful to throw about phrases like “independent survey”, the truth is somewhat different. The study was commissioned by the hunting federation, the same federation that was also responsible for making available a pool of potential test subjects.

The conclusions I draw from this report is not that 61% of those interviewed succumbed to mental health problems due to the spring hunting ban.

The only thing I take from this report is that someone from within the hunters’ fold was aware of which individuals had problems and thought nothing of using this knowledge to further his/her agenda.

I won’t even comment about the part where suicide is mentioned as a possible consequence of the spring hunting ban. Such speculations are so very disrespectful to the families who were left behind that further comment could only serve to make the hurt worse.

The association of psychiatric nurses did not fall for the ploy, but I do have one bone to pick with them. Psychiatric nurse Martin Ward, one of the authors of the study, went on record saying that “the link to hunting was a constant variable for all those interviewed and this could not be discarded”.

Do I really need to explain the fallacy of the above argument? Of course the link to hunting was a constant variable for all those interviewed. Mr Ward was conducting a report commissioned by hunters about hunters. The link to hunting is a given and proves nothing; you don’t need to be a professional statistician to reach this obvious conclusion.

In other words, if you’re interviewing a “randomly selected” sample of 780 hunters and trappers and you discover that 61 per cent have a less than perfect mental equilibrium, there is no way that you can reach a medically accurate conclusion with regards to the cause of said lack of equilibrium. Not without a tonne of further, medically monitored tests on the subjects.

So please, quit making this out to be some major medical breakthrough. We remain unconvinced.

 

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