WE have heard much comment recently about the sickness of America's gun-glutted society but, it seems, some of our own gun nuts are hardly less warped.

They were prepared to pay good money in the name of charity to spending a day shooting goats for amusement. This fund-raising effort for a branch of the British Deer Society has, happily, back-fired in a barrage of bad publicity.

So the sick hunters won't be getting in their sights the so-called nuisance goats that have gone wild on the Duke of Buccleuch's estate in Scotland. These creatures are said to be so tame that they can be fed by hand and this, apparently, is the big appeal of goat-hunting.

The animals are so easy to shoot that these sporting gun-freaks are much more sure of experiencing the thrill of killing something than they would be if they went after a truly wild creature like a deer. What gets my goat is that it is from these sicko shooting sorts that we get so much guff about the conservation of wildlife.

Yet here they are ready to pay at least £120 a head to kill gone-native farm animals for kicks to raise money for the raising of deer that they also want to kill for kicks. Such sports!

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