...Lewis has a really good post about his day of hunting. You should read it. He has a great philosophy on it.

...I agree with what he has to say.

...first let me say that the laws regulating guns in Illinois make no sense to me. I have to learn to drive a car before I'm given a license (after proving I can drive), yet I can just go out and buy a gun and use it. Sure, you have a right to bare arms, but you should be REQUIRED...it should be a LAW...that you HAVE TO LEARN to use it. I'm pretty sure that the cops aren't just given a gun and told to use it when they have to without training...so how come I can?

...as much as I love animals, you'd think I'd abhor (yes, I had to look that up...ONLY to spell it right) hunting. I think it's necessary, but only in the sense of putting food on the table and clothes or shoes on your body. Yes, I love my steak (filet mignon is my favorite) and my mocassins or those new boots they allowed me at work. Unfortunately, the way these animals are raised isn't a good thing. Some live in cramped pens all their lives, only to be slaughtered and prepared for market. I remember watching my uncle in Mississippi kill a chicken for dinner...the way it ran around after he cut it's head off...but at least it roamed free eating and being a chicken until then.

...I don't see the sense in putting a head on the wall. I wasn't there, but I never saw in pictures nor read in the history books that the Native Americans put heads of buffalo and antelope on their walls. What I did read is that they used everything on the animal that they killed. They also didn't spread new diseases like bird flu or mad cow. We and our technology, along with the rediculous ways we don't clean and stay clean, caused these diseases to run rampant. Who knows, maybe they were even developed in some lab because some fool could.

...as for the hunters...there are the respectful ones. These are the ones that kill only what they need to eat. If they wound an animal they will make sure they kill it because it's just bad to let it run away and become disabled and die a slow death. Like Lewis said, they respect nature, and are thankful for what it gives them.

...then there are the idiots. The Gomers. Also known as Dumbasses, Dipshits, and the list goes on. These are the ones that give rednecks and white trash (like some in my family) a bad name. They give hunters a bad name. They are the poachers, the slaughterers, the headlighters and the thieves, the fools that will shoot at anything that moves (someone I know was shot at while on their white horse; when he yelled that he was on said animal, the nut took off). These are the ones who have been known to kill another human being because they were caught poaching.

...I once watched a program that showed how conservation officers (cops in the woods) are trained. It was very frightening. These people are usually alone...in the woods...with no back up like a city cop has. One guy they were training was set up to show how he would handle the three men he found in their camp that had just been caught with carcasses of animals they had killed illegally. Just as he started to take a step towards these guys, the man who was training him told him he was dead. He said that he never saw the guy who came up behind him with a gun. One good reason why I changed my mind about becoming an officer.

...one of the most horrendous things I ever saw was a film that someone had taken while undercover as a hunter. He and a few other men, obviously with money to burn, paid someone to release a black panther for them to "hunt." I believe it was in Texas, and here were these assholes with their guns waiting for the door to come open on this beautiful animal's cage. At first it didn't want to come out. I can imagine that it probably knew something bad was about to happen. When it did finally come out of the cage, it was growling and screaming the way that they do...and I remember some of these guys were laughing...wanting it to run. Big time game hunters...how pathetic. (I also learned that they either filed or pulled the cat's fangs; I don't remember if they did anything to it's claws. Probably, but at least these guys got caught.) Unfortunately, the cat still got slaughtered. How difficult that must have been to be undercover and not be able to do anything about it.

...I took Fed for a walk in Pine Ridge State Forest. Apparently it's legal for someone to go rabbit hunting...with guns...while I'm in there at the same time. What sense does that make? No signs...nothing. I left after finding shotgun shells. There must be some big ass rabbits running around.

...to all you responsible hunters out there...be careful, don't piss anybody off, and thank you.
posted by Wanting at 9:57 AM