Dale Hagberg stared down a mouflon -- a wild sheep -- on a Texas ranch in June 2005, waiting patiently until he fired the shot that felled the game.

Hagberg, however, wasn't a typical hunting enthusiast out on the range that afternoon. He is paralyzed from the neck down and living on a respirator, limitations he has endured for almost 20 years after he dived into shallow water.

Hagberg had watched the ram through a computer monitor several miles away from the ranch, and fired the gun remotely by breathing through a tube.

It's hunters like Hagberg that John Lockwood said he had in mind when he created Live-Shot.com, a site where would-be shooters from the suburbs to the plains could log on, adjust the pan, zoom or tilt of a mounted camera, and fell game with a remote-controlled gun.

Hagberg shot his ram on June 16. On June 24, Gov. Rick Perry signed legislation outlawing sites like Live-Shot.com in Texas. Twelve other states have adopted similar laws, and 12 more are on the verge of doing the same.

Opponents of Live-Shot.com said it lacks the sportsmanship of traditional hunting.

"It's pay-per-view slaughter," said Michael Markarian, executive vice president of the Humane Society of the United States. "People can be sitting in their beds and killing animals with the click of a mouse."

Markarian's group has worked with other states on their own pending legislation.

Lockwood refuted an unfair advantage to the shooter. He said he was on-site that day, close enough to Hagberg's ram to see it with his own eyes, waiting to make sure it was a fair shot before arming the gun that Hagberg operated remotely. "The animals had the same opportunity to see a human, smell a human."

Lockwood said his site was meant to serve only licensed hunters who, because of physical disability or limitation, cannot fulfill the physical demands of staking and shooting game.

"Prior to the ban, we proved that with determination, practice, patience and perseverance, Dale, who thought that he would never have an opportunity to hunt again, was able to harvest an animal while bound to his ventilator in his room," reads a statement on Live-Shot's site.

New Mexico state Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, a Democrat, has taken aim at sites like Lockwood's, introducing legislation last year that would prevent similar cyberhunting sites in his state.

"I explain it as not the American way. ... It's not keeping with the traditions of hunting," said Sanchez, a one-time hunter himself.

Lockwood maintained that Live-Shot.com is simply the latest evolution of an interest that has witnessed several changes over centuries.

"You can say we should all go back to throwing rocks and sticks ... there's always been technological advancements," he said.

Live-Shot no longer provides hunting of live game, but Lockwood does provide remote-operated target shooting on his site, for a fee.