to feel quite sorry for Walter Palmer?

[TwistInMySobriety]

Not very sorry what with him being a humungous twat for liking big game hunting, obviously. But seriously, worldwide opprobium and trial by media for partaking in a legal activity (he claims his permits were legit) that is a significant income stream for an impoverished third world country?

Also, while I'm at it, the death of a lion makes headlines? When did you last see a headline about the deaths of six million people in the civil war in the DRC?

I don't care what is legal or not. Isn't there a moral issue here. Anyone who wants to pay to slaughter a beautiful lion is seriously fucked up.

I had always hoped that big game hunting had gone the way of penny farthings and polio, but sadly not, it's just another big business opportunity. So I don't feel sorry for him at all.

But...

I do have a huge problem with any online hate campaign, regardless of justification. It often seems like it's just an excuse for people to spew bile at what they think is a deserving target, and to feel righteous and on the side of the angels without actually having to put in ANY effort to earn that. If any of them are jailed/hounded I won't feel sorry for them either.

I get your point, but yabu. I hate him, I read he's gone into hiding, like the big coward he is. I hope he gets what he deserves.

I don't like online hate campaigns but neither do I much like this man. That poor animal, why on earth would anyone want to slaughter such a magnificent creature?

I don't feel sorry for this man in the slightest, he made a conscious choice to kill. He is reaping what he has sown.

I am equally angry that our media hides the needless slaughter of innocent people but that doesn't excuse what this man did. I hope he gets his arse handed to him on a plate along with all other rich tossers who get their jollies in this way.

YABU

Good point in today's Guardian:

"If you’re going to pay $50,000 towards conservation efforts by shooting a lion, then give the money and don’t shoot."

If you don't want to be famous or notorious in 2015 then don't do what Walter Palmer did.

YY get your privacy settings sorted unless you want the Daily Mail to just transfer your whole FB account onto their website.

I get that you are troubled by the "worldwide opprobium and trial by media", and I'm a little uncomfortable myself with how such matters can go, but can I offer a different perspective on that?

It's easy to accuse the internet and social media of hounding people, because many of us experienced the pre-internet world, where anonymity was the norm. But maybe living in anonymity is the real anomaly? It's really only post-WW2 that physical mobility become more usual, before that most people lived their entire lives within a small geographical area. Without media to distract and entertain you, you had more interest in what was going on around you. There were fewer people to know, so everyone knew everyone and every last shred of your life was known to all and sundry. Maybe the internet has shrunk us back to that lack of anonymity, back to the world where your neighbours knew all your business. And back to the world where you are made aware that your neighbours (next door or, now, across the globe) are judging you and finding you wanting. A sort of digital equivalent to some people turning their backs on you as you walk into the pub, and some others calling you out on your behaviour.

Sadly, fear of consequences seems to be as big a motivator as innate morality to many humans. Morality did not stop this man from doing what he did, so that leaves consequences. So, IMO, YABU to feel sorry for this man. He has done what he has done, and now must shoulder the consequences.

I don't normally respond in AIBU because I often feel its not my place to say whether you are or not.

But in this case, I think you are definitely BU!

He has brought every single part of this on himself. He may have had the correct permits (which I don't agree with in the first place) but this animal was lured from a place that is supposed to protect him, all in the name of greed and money and left to suffer, and for what?

The photos of him baring his fake disgusting luminous teeth while posing next to a slaughtered rhino / leopard / lion etc makes me sick to my stomach. He is so proud of himself and really he is an animal.

He has murdered animals before and he would have again if he hadn't been caught and then singlehandedly ruined his business.

It serves him right, every last bit of it.

Interesting perspective whereyouleftit. I guess in the pre-internet days, when everyone in the village knew your business, they might also know you were a good father who did old lady's teeth for free at weekends or whatever, and there was less chance of the 100 people who knew you including the kind of righteous vigilantes bent on revenge this kind of case brings out of the woodwork.

You can be a psychopath and feel entitled to Birds.

I'm normally horrified but the social media storms that descend on hapless people but I cannot get upset about this. Agree wholeheartedly. I'm actually not bothered about a lot of hunting. The First Nations here do a lot and eat what they kill. All licensed and legal.

The man has killed a leopard and a white rhino. There is not enough internet anger in the WWW to cover that. I've seen those wonderful animals in the wild, probably won't again because rhinos won't be here much longer. Thanks to idiots like these and tossers who think rhino horn will boost their health.

Or perhaps, Twist, as a villager I'd start to wonder if he was a good father behind closed doors, and what his true motivation for doing the old lady's teeth was?

Yes, I think you are being unreasonable.

Save your sympathy for the beautful animal that he so callously slaughtered.

There is the global dimension afforded by the internet but what he appears to be suffering in his home town is the judgement of neighbours which has always happened, for good or for ill.

From what I've seen, they are tarring and feathering him, they just don't want to patronise his business or be friends with him because they disapprove. That's allowed. I haven't seen any of his neighbours on the news baying for his blood. Some of them have been wryly amusing by making a shrine of stuffed toys on his doorstep.

Minnesota has a tradition of hunting so he might be okay. Or maybe most Minnesotan hunters disapprove of luring an animal out of a safe place to kill it because it's a magnificent trophy. He was convicted in a local court of cruel and unsporting behaviour about killing a bear, so maybe they do think that.

I too find my heart doesn't bleed much for him.

lady's ladies'

Sorry. I mistyped.

From what I've seen, they are not tarring and feathering him

I liked the calmly angry woman I keep seeing on Sky News who describes his behaviour as 'egregrious'.

I love that word and she's absolutely right.

OP, in the light of most of the rest of this thread, I wanted to say that I basically do agree with you. This man has - probably - done some pretty nasty things. But responses of "send him to the lions"/"he should die a 40 hour death", etc., are also pretty horrifying, as is the internet man-hunt culture. You're right that when a different sort of person (someone less easy to take a dislike to) ends up the victim of this, it's terrifying.

She looked a bit like Carol from Walking Dead so if I was him I'd be nervous at the next check up

Yabu. He is a very selfish and unpleasant man. He paid money to cruelly kill a beautiful creature and now the cubs will die too. He deserves all the backlash that he's getting.

He could have paid to go on a conservation safari, still providing employment but protecting the species rather than torturing and killing it.

Put him back in the national park, this time without his bow and arrow and no gun.

Is he worse than the woman who wrapped duct tape around the muzzle of her dog, and then strangled it with a lead?

She got a custodial sentence in the UK.

Mail link warning:
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3178269/Woman-killed-dog-using-duct-tape-lead-jailed-four-months-protesters-call-sentence-increased.html

The trouble is that hurting dogs is not unusual. That's terrible of course. But dogs are not endangered, that dog was not famous and he was not being tracked and kept in a conservation area. The public react to the extraordinary event not to tragic depressingly-daily inhumanity.

I understand the point you are making but to pretend that the only thing determining the publics outrage is the act itself is just not realistic.

If that woman had kidnapped and done that to the Andrex puppy I imagine the world would have been equally horrified

He is utter scum. I don't believe for a second that he thought his "permits" were legal in any way shape or form.

Shooting with a crossbow is specifically to prevent being detected through gun fire. Baiting animals off the land is a pretty big fucking clue.

He deserves everything he gets.