Hunting....

It's been a bad week to be a hunter. According to the Ludington Daily News, some small newspaper in Michigan, a 64 year old hunger was shot when his hunting buddy mistaked an elbow for a squirrel. This sort of accident reminds us that old people should not be allowed to shoot guns if they are too senile to shoot them correctly. (The same would apply to old people driving slowly and doing anything else that requires acute mental power and quickness). Apparently the old man was treated and released, as the friend was using only a .17 caliber rifle. How a camofloged elbow could be mistaken for a squirrel is beyond me. Maybe the friend just needed his eyeglass prescription updated. The police are investigating, as they should.

Then, of course, there is the famous, or infamous, case of Chaney's trigger finger. While hunting with some acquiantances, the hunting party flushed out a covey of quails, apparently (according to the Yahoo! News article). While one of the party was walking to collect the quails (and without waving his hand to show everyone where he was), Chaney flushed another covey of quails and sprayed shotgun shells in the direction of his hunting buddy, hitting him in the face, neck, and chest. Ouch. Remind me never to go hunting with the Vice President. It's not like I'd ever get invited to, anyway. Chaney forgot the number one rule of hunting, which even someone like myself (I'm no hunter) knows: always know what you're shooting at. It's a good rule in other areas besides hunting, though it is harder to apply there.

When I went to Pennsylania this past weekend for my father's funeral, I was reminded that my family farm has a "No Hunting" sign on it. My father was not a fan of hunters. It was not that he was squeamish about death--as a farmer it was not uncommon for cattle to be slaughtered--but it was that he saw the nobility of the deer and the lack of nobility of the hunters and their tactics. I remember once, as a teenager visiting my father in the summer, that as we were returning in the evening from an outing (watching a movie, probably), we saw a hunter in our farm, trespassing, and hunting out of season. The hunter was using a spotter to try to freeze the deer in place to make them an easy shot. The practice is illegal, but common.

My father (and I agree with him on this point) did not consider this to be in fair sport. A hunter using wicked means to get an easy kill (and then, no doubt, brag about his prowess to his friends and talk himself up as a great and brave hunter) struck my father, and I (even at that age) as quite unjust. This is not to say that all hunters behave thusly (for those hunters who wait for hours and hours freezing in tree stands in forests, rather than farms, waiting for a deer to come within range, I respect the dedication, though it would be quite boring to me personally, not being able to keep silent or still for very long without extreme difficulty), but that my conception of hunting was formed by experience in hunters behaving poorly. My conception of many things was formed in that way--which is unfortunate but nonetheless my experience.

I am glad that my father insisted our 130 farm was a refuge for animals (except for groundhogs--whose holes destroyed farm equipment with alarming regularity), with special care taken to dogs, cats, cows, horses, hawks, and deer. I am also glad that he chased off the hunter from our land, even though the hunter was much more heavily armed than we were. If people do not stand up themselves for what is right, then they will see nothing but wrong committed against them. This is especially the case where people are careless and wicked with deadly weapons.