An Honest Look at Hunting

Every so often I find myself caught up in a discussion with a hunter about hunting and gun control. I would like to mention a few of my ideas and conclusions because I’ve come to terms with a few truths about the extreme sides of this issue.

Many people have made gun control a big issue when debating with hunters and I don’t see that as valid, so let’s break down this argument and get on to the real issues. Aside from it being an absurdly unrealistic concept to try to make guns illegal, it is unconstitutional and violates the fundamental principle we claim our country is based upon: personal freedom. Well, some may say, guns are tools of death and when something can be established as unequivocally bad and dangerous to a society, we should supersede personal freedom and stop it there. Wrong, on two counts! First, by design guns may be tools of death but they are not unequivocally bad. Nothing is unequivocally bad. As a matter of fact, no inanimate object in and of itself is bad at all; it’s what we do with it that injects the good or the bad. Take a gun for instance: I can go outside and shoot at cars driving by and that would be a bad thing. On the other hand, I can use it as a paper weight and it serves my purposes great and is a good thing. Without either of these two interactions by me, the gun itself assumed no moral or ethical bias whatsoever, it was just there. Secondly, personal freedom absolutely should never be superseded unless physical harm is being done to the person or property of another. Simply owning a gun does not constitute physical harm to your neighbors or their property. When physical harm really does happen and we put all of the emphasis on the object, the gun in this case, we remove the person using the object from the equation - the person that actually did the harming! In doing so we have created a society with an extremely weak sense of accountability. Let’s put it into perspective. If guns can be made illegal because they harm people when used irresponsibly, then just about any household item can be made illegal: rakes, shovels, electrical cords, blenders, washing machines, lamps, knives, bicycles, etc. The only possible argument is that guns are specifically designed to do harm and the other items aren’t. So what? In a society with no desire to shoot each other, guns would naturally become extinct. I would like nothing more than for guns to have never been invented so as to remove the possibility of their misuse, but the sad truth is that we are still researching and designing new weapons today to kill more efficiently. You cannot simultaneously outlaw one medium while preparing another when the application is the same. The bottom line here is that gun control, like many other attempts and successes at stifling personal freedom, has been brought about by the frustrations we feel when we realize that we can’t stop people from being bad. So we foolishly attempt to label objects as being bad and by doing so cast aside our fears of dealing with the real problem: each other. Guns can’t pull their own triggers…Enough said.

Now, onto the hunting issue. I’m not real big on hunting. As a matter of fact, I’m firmly against the majority of hunting that goes on today. I don’t think it should be outlawed, but I do think we should closely evaluate the mentality of the typical hunter. The mentality I’m talking about is the one that thinks killing is sporting, rewarding, or fun, usually all three. Reality check: any time killing a sentient living thing is regarded as sporting, rewarding, or fun, there is a dangerous problem. First of all, I can’t think of any sport where one of the contestants not only doesn’t know its playing, but also doesn’t live to realize it lost. Get real, hunting is not a sport. Secondly, what kind of reward is there in bringing home a body part? And finally, can we ever escape our barbaric past if we continue to promote the idea that it is fun to kill things? Pleasure can be derived from a lot of unlikely places but killing should not be one of them. At this point you may be tempted to immediately flame me with a reply simply because I’m speaking against hunting. To save you the hassle and keep my mailbox clean, I’ll go ahead and list the common responses because I’ve heard them before and they are as predictable as they are unfounded:

1. “I hunt for food!” This argument is by far the favorite of hunters I’ve talked with. They go on and on about how good deerburgers are and how they save a lot of grocery money eating deer. And oh, that squirrel casserole is outstanding topped off with some quail gravy. The reality is that with a few exceptions, this argument simply isn’t true. I’m not saying there aren’t a few hunters out there who kill for food, but they are a minority. And of the others that do keep “some” of the meat, they are not driven to hunt by their desire to put food on the table. The concept of the hunter that hunts for food is pretty much a farce these days.

2. “I’m saving the starving deer!” This argument comes in a close second and shows an attempt by hunters at showing genuine concern for their prey. But the attempt falls very short when the concept of “mercy deer killing” is put into perspective. The hunters who have used this line of reasoning would have me believe that they honestly invest all that time and money into “saving” the starving deer. Starving is much worse than being ripped apart by a bullet, they say. Not having firsthand experience with either, I won’t argue with that logic. (Actually, it’s not logic at all. Who can say which is worse without experiencing both, which is impossible because either one will kill you.) Applying the same “logic” to starving humans, should we not invest some time and energy into them, or at least give them the same concern the deer are getting and put them out of their misery too? Could I possibly be suggesting shooting people who are guilty of nothing more than hunger? Well, if applied to people, that’s what the “mercy deer killing” theory suggests…

3. “It’s the way people used to live: by the land!” Finally, an accurate statement by the hunting community, but extremely misguided. People did used to live by the land and hunting was a way of life. But it was a way of life by necessity. Most of the essentials from clothing to food were derived from hunting. The hunter that hunted for fun was a minority at best. It’s a fundamental part of nature for animals and humans to live off of each other, but amusing oneself at the expense of another species is not. If anyone wants to live off the land and hunt by necessity that is absolutely their right, and I’m not arguing against them. However, I haven’t met a hunter yet that fell into this category.

Once again, let me state that I am absolutely against making hunting illegal. Even if it were possible, which it is not, it would violate the same issues I defended when talking about guns, and even more importantly it would violate fundamental laws of nature. However, I do think we have a long way to go in changing attitudes and educating future generations that killing is not an admirable act in any form. Sometimes, in self defense, it becomes a necessary evil at best. And for those hunters that disagree with me on this point, at least be honest with yourselves and society and admit that maybe the driving force behind your hunting isn’t putting food on the table, or saving the starving deer, or living a prairie day renaissance. It’s the rush you feel when you exercise the power to whisk the life out of another living creature in an instant. I understand that rush. I’ve never acted on it, but as unhealthy and dangerous as it may be, I think it is a somewhat natural impulse. One that could stand to be faced and dealt with in an honest fashion.

-mm