"Such a description is as ludicrous as describing hit and run drivers as people who are often car enthusiasts who progress from driving on the street to driving on the sidewalk."

Well, aren't they? I can't seem to recall ever hearing about a public transit enthusiast who doesn't own or drive a car zooming down the sidewalk and taking people out like bowling pins.

People. People who kill people...are the luckiest people in the world. Er, wait. Crap, I just broke into Streisand there. What I meant to say was.. People who kill people generally stick to methods that they feel comfortable with. Most car killers love their cars and most gun killers have probably had an ongoing love affair with their gun. It just makes sense to use a method you know and like.

As for "progress", that's more dubious. First of all, it ain't progress, its regress. Second, it sounds like some anti-drug crap. "All Mary Jane users automatically move on to crack." I think a better analogy than the straight line is to think of a salmon. They don't all make it upstream. Many don't even make it back to the stream. At each stage, more drop off. (Target shooting - Hunting- shooting peoples posessions, cars, pets- joining the Army- etc.) Only a fraction get to spawn (Gun rampage at McDs carried live on CNN)

Joking aside, it has been pretty much established that torturing and killing animals, cats etc is a sign of the kind of mental illness that -if left unchecked- often develops into crimes upon humans. I've followed a few of these kids as they head towards tommorrow's front page news. If you want to consider hunting as killing/torturing animals, I suppose you could. I think it depends on what's going on inside the hunter's head. Is that deer really just the boss/ex-wife in disguise?