Yet another reason to hate Nashville. Not only does the music suck, but the musicians themselves are morons:
Troy Gentry, who pleaded guilty this week in Minnesota to a misdemeanor charge of falsely registering a captive bear as being killed in the wild, said the ordeal has been "a humbling experience."
"I relied on the experts around me for guidance, and I regret that today. Not so much because I was fined and punished, but because it appears that I don't have respect for the law," Gentry, of the hit country singing duo Montgomery Gentry, said Monday in a statement.
"This has been a humbling experience for me, and one which I deeply regret."
Lest anyone thinks these so-called "experts" were ambiguous about exactly what was going on, there's this tidbit from a previous story:
Gentry told the court he bought the bear from Greenly with the understanding they would videotape a hunt inside the bear's enclosure, which was surrounded by an electric fence.
"Lee and I made a deal about harvesting this bear," Gentry testified. They also agreed to report it was killed in the wild 6 miles east of Sandstone instead of on Greenly's property south of the town.
Full disclosure: I've been hunting once. Infrequent commenter MacInFla brought me along several years ago, and I equate the entire experience to taking a 10-hour hike with a rifle slung over my shoulder. Had I seen a deer, I doubt I could've brought myself to shoot (at) it. Nor did I bother with the plentiful goats in the area.
Whatever your feelings about hiding in the trees and shooting an animal with a high-powered rifle that propels a bullet at 3,000 fps, at least most hunters don't go down to the zoo and plug the Malayan sun bear, which is about the degree of difficulty Gentry was working with. He also agreed to lie about the location of the kill, which seems less like "expert guidance" and more like "giving misleading information to the cops."
Under the plea announced Monday, the 39-year-old singer agreed to pay a $15,000 fine, give up hunting, fishing and trapping in Minnesota for five years, and forfeit both the bear's hide and the bow he used to shoot the animal in 2004. The bear, named "Cubby," was killed in a 3-acre private enclosure.
My bad, Gentry was hunting with a bow and arrow, which is how Ted Nugent and the Native Americans did it, after all. Though I doubt a couple of guys with Remington 673s were backing up the Chippewa. They also probably had better names for their bears.
Three acres surrounded by an electric fence. Ah, the cagey resourcefulness of the wily hunter.
Hmm, sure would love to see Hammurabi’s Code enacted here. Throw Gentry into a paddock surrounded by an electric fence, in nothing but his birthday suit. Then, turn in the hungry bear …
But, Michael, Cubby was a mouse. Everone knows you can’t hunt a mouse with a bow. It takes a carving knife.
See, if he’d really been hunting Cubby then it would’ve all worked out.