Okeedokee. You want to be hard headed. Go right ahead. Be my guest. I will probably never read about it, or hear about it, but if you maintain your current attitude, sooner or later you will get tapped. My only regret is that you still don't seem to get it. I will unsubscribe myself from this thread after this, as you are obviously too upset to really hear what I'm trying to convey. But for those of you who are listening, I will share with you a bit of wisdom. You can take it, or leave it,....There are two kinds of people who handle hots. Those that have been bitten, and those that have not been bitten,... {YET}.

I will say this. I am sorry if you were offended by anything I said. It was not my intent to hurt your feelings. It was my intent to get your attention. But you asked for it. So I have no regrets. However, if you do not accept the advice we have offered, no matter how it made you feel, YOU may have some very serious regrets of your own some day when that mamba or taipan is latched onto you, and you feel yourself slipping into a deaths cold grip. I hope not. All the things I said, were designed to help you NOT to go down that road. But in the end, the choice is yours. Good luck! Your going to need it!

As far as anyone seeing the pic, or you having a negative effect on the herp scene, well,...maybe not this time. But when you get tapped we will all feel the reprecussions. Maybe not directly, but it will continue to erode the freedoms we enjoy. Their are a lot of people out there who would love to stop us from keeping any kind of snake all together. And every time some body gets bit, or releases a big burm into the wild, or scares somebody, or uses hots to guard their dope, or does anything with a snake that would send chills down the spine of the general public, it makes us all look bad, and it's just one more nail in the coufin of herpeticulture. So please don't let this mess get you into a tizzy. Just close your eyes, take a deep breath, and listen to the sound of your own heart beat. Then reflect on how good it is that you can still do that. And on how nice it is that we can all still keep snakes. Again, good luck, and please think about it.
T.

Actually the picture has nothing to do with the media. What people are trying to tell you is that when you get tagged it will be very bad on the industry as a whole. And being careless will cause you to get bit.

I have read what you're writing too and I don't think you're comprehending anyone is saying. You keep harping on how that picture didn't harm anyone. No it didn't harm anyone. Yeah, only 16 people saw it. No it wasn't in the newspaper. If you had been bitten, then it would have been headline news.

It was the FACT that you chose to hold it in your bare hands that's the problem. The reason people believe you're going to get tagged is because of the picture. That snake's face was in the palm of your left hand. A completely careless act. Man, all it had to do was yawn and you could have been bitten. So what if it was cold, whoopteedoo. Someone got bit by a dead timber's bodiless head, I bet it was cold too.

oh i comprehend all right . but i think ( and i cant say for sure because unlike so many others on here i dont even pretend to be able to read other peoples minds) your missing my point . or points

i dont mind so much when im gettign jumped all over for somethign that i did do . hey i did it and i admitted it and i cant change what was done in the past .

but i keep gettign thrown in my face accusations of things that MIGHT happen . no matter how much you THINK ( and i mean a collective you ) you know whats gonna happen in the future . you dont . no one does

im not saying ill never get bit . hell i seriouly hope i dont . and im gonna do all i can to avoid it .

the personal slams . theres a world of difference between " what you did wsa stupid " and "your stupid" . even a smart person can be known to do stupid things now and then . if you ( again i mean collectively , no aiming at the person who wrote the post to which this is respondent) cant understand this . well ill jsut leave it at that .

the badgering . i answer one accusation and then the same person tries to find somethign else i did or said to pick at .

the second guessing . im so sick of hearing people telling me what i think , or know , or feel , or about my "attitude" or what im goign to do in the future . as no ta damn one of you knows me NO one is qualified to make these guesses. and jsut about every single time its done there dead wrong .

hey what i did was wrong . ive never said it wasnt . i honestly didnt think that people would focus on that aspect of the picture .my mistake .

so you have 2 halves . what i did wrong . and if

if this happens ...
if i get bit ....
if frogs had wings they wouldnt bump there ass when they hopped

i have no problem problem admitting what i did wrong .

but ill be damned if ill sit here and take flak for if

now i hope that y'all are done and we can let this drop . im spending way too much time on this which can be better spent reading posts with something posative to be gained from reading them . :scatter:

ok..im not going to sit here and bash you...

but i must agree with gregg and everyone else 100%

handling a venomous snake no matter what it is, shows an enormous amount of stupidity..just because you see irwin on TV free handling mambas, or king brown..does not mean you can to...mocc may not have a vemon toxicity as high as a mamba, but it still deserves to be respected and treated as though it did, free handling one just to show off it's colors is completely idiotic, was there even anyone there with you?, probably not..

all snakes should be respected, venomous and large boids being at the top of the list, both can kill..and there are many careless owners out there, who have no supervision while handling a hot or a 22ft burmese python, no matter how "tame" the snake may be, it can still kill

there was a guy in i think..either california or florida, who had a female burmese python for 6 years, kept it in his basement, he went down to feed it in the morning, the snake struck at his arm, he them proceeded to take the burm out of its enclosure, which was a huge mistake..the snake wrapped itself around the ownder, and he was dead in 15 minutes.

his mistakes...going down alone, while your on the floor, whos going to put alchohol on the snakes face..or pour hot water on the snake to attempt to get the snake off of you

feeding without pliers or tongs, the snake sences and see's the heat of the arm. and the food item, if the guy would have used tongs..the snake would not have grabbed ahold on his arm..accosiating the heat from the prey item, to the cold of the metal tongs or pliers

the point here being that all snakes are unpredictable, so the next time you decide you want to show your venomous snakes coloring...dont hold it in your hands...

gregg, or anyone else, let me know if' ive left anything out..6:00am..havnt gone to sleep yet...lol

How dare you use a means of factual basis for your argument. That's just outright cheating! Cottonmouths are deadly because (with completely disregarding other possible reasons or factors that could've perpetuated the death of someone bitten by a cottonmouth) people have died from being bitten by them so that justifies them as deadly.

A city allowing bee permits is totally justifiable because bees make honey and hospitals have epipens.

Only unlicensed dogs kill people. Licensed dogs don't actually kill people because licensed dogs are domestic and the government says domestic animals are ok to have as pets because the government is looking out for our best interest.

In my city you can't have any reptile because you can possibly run the risk of getting salmonella and not know how to treat it properly and die so really the ban on all reptiles is justified because they could carry salmonella and kill lots of people so technically all reptiles are deadly and that is totally not a stretch.

So you should stop with using facts as your argument because then arguments that don't use facts appear to be wrong and every argument that doesn't use facts is actually right.

Wait have I missed something? When did PETA and the humane society become experts on reptiles O_o?!?!

Those stupid laws, ah yes you mean that the laws are stupid because they are UNCONSTITUTIONAL. So why are so many people in the herptoculture shaking in fear not willing to stand up against laws or ordinances that have no justifiable means that prohibits us of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

Don't blame alcohol. Alcohol is never the problem and there you go with those factual merits again.

Would it be justification if showing that free handling certain individual venomous snakes of certain species show that they really aren't as horribly terrifying and utterly dangerous (if the right precautions are taken) as the uneducated majority think they are? You know the same people that call them poisonous snakes and agree to have them bannen on the basis of expertise knowledge or is it more realistically fear?

Wait so being bitten is nature's way of getting rid of bad genetics? Well what about all the "responsible" keepers that have gotten bit or even zookeeper who have gotten bit? Should venomous snakes be banned in Zoos?

Venom labs that make antivenom free handle venomous? Shouldn't they be scrutinized as irresponsible keepers?

So if a person can free handle venomous snakes without getting bit wouldn't that constitute a a level of true expertise? How is that arguably not an expert? I mean most snake handlers not even venomous handlers could pin a snake and choke it without getting bit. Handling venomous is definitely not for everyone and of course it should not be taken lightly with carelessness. Wouldn't the experts know what you can and cannot handle? The means of how to go about free handling without getting bit takes a lot of time, knowledge and skill? How do you argue that? On a hypothetical basis? What if, well what if this and what if that? Should we never drink water because what if a person drank too much water well hell it'd kill them. Well then the right to have firearms should be banned because what if you accidentally shot yourself. What if a sober person gets in a car accident should they never be allowed to drive a car ever again?