@Setanta,
I wonder whether snakey would state anything differently had these birds been, say BALD EAGLES that were attacking farm animals in, say, Delaware. (There are a number of court cases of just that. ) In those cases the USDI pays a loss fee to the livestock owners.
Ranchers in the Bitteroots are seeing the same results by not being able to destroy wolves. AT the same time they line up to collect their fees.
The issue is really about species protection, not guns. We have more guns per capita than any other nation except maybe Somalia and we have such laws that discourage slaughtering certain wild animals.