Shall we put together a trip?

What I won’t offer is a podium for someone like Krell to denigrate hunters, call us cowards and brutes, and offer nothing in the way of support for that argument except more of the same. That’s not discussion. This blog is my “house”, and anyone who can’t show some respect and manners will be quickly shown the egress.

You’re about to overstay your welcome. You’ve spun your wheels without moving your argument an inch. Your arguments are both uneducated and, honestly, boring. You haven’t said an original thing yet, and what you have said hasn’t changed a lick since the first time I “debated” with an anti-hunter, years before the Internet let people like you spread your lopsided “religion”. You propose an argument rooted in emotion and personal belief because you know that there are no right or wrong answers to it. It’s a long drag down a muddy road to get to the conclusion… and that conclusion is that I can’t “prove” you’re wrong. But here’s the kicker. You can’t “prove” you’re right either. You’ve got nothing.

You want to toss out “facts”, and then ignore my repudiation and suggest that I’ve ignored yours. Compensatory reproductive rebound is an interesting phenomenon, but it has almost nothing to do with the overpopulation problem facing a relatively small part of the country. It’s geographically limited at best, and where it does occur it’s usually linked to all sorts of environmental pressures which may include predation… but they also include habitat loss and human encroachment. Close your PETA/HSUS playbook (I’ve read their little “talking points” guides) and read some real research for a change. I’m not some uneducated redneck, Krell. You’re not going to overwhelm me with the same false data that’s been trotted out in this discussion for almost 30 years.

As far as “facts”. Yes. I insist on facts because what you want is to change my actions. I most definitely reject your ideology, so if you want change the burden is on YOU to prove that hunting is wrong. Calling it “hate” or “brutal” or any of those other loaded words is meaningless. You don’t have a clue about hunting or hunters, either our motivations or our methods, and you don’t want to get one. You know nothing about wildlife management, and what you think you know is educated only by the propaganda of anti-hunting organizations. I could recite your arguments by rote without your involvement. We’ve heard it all before.

Has MY argument been narrow? Yes. Because you haven’t even begun to challenge me here. There’s been no need to expand. All you’ve done is spew repetitive, inflammatory dogma. You’ve said a lot without saying a damned thing at all. So it’s time for you to take it elsewhere. Your trolling days on this blog are over.

I appreciate what you say, but there seems to be some rationalizing and inconsistency going on, as I read it. You’re fully aware that factory farms are a nightmare, so you don’t support the suffering involved by abstaining from marketed meat. Good. That’s what stopped me from eating meat. My personal “belief” was more important to me than a particular facet of my diet. (BTW, I too am not a “theist.”) But you also realize, and quite graphically, that being shot is horrific and admit there’s no sport in hunting, yet you personally perpetrate this horror you describe. In other words, you know better but still do it. If I may be frank, and with all due respect, it reads like some sort of attempt to assuage your conscience by denouncing one brand of atrocity, factory farms, but allowing yourself to practice the other, blasting animals. But both are animal abuse.

One might ask, if you cared that much about animals why not just stop eating them and of course stop shooting them. Obviously you’re not willing to sacrifice your pleasure. Instead you sacrifice the animal. Comparing factory farming to putting bullets into animals and blowing open their hearts and lungs, as you’ve well described, does not remove the latter’s abuse. Savage abuse. Simply cutting short the natural life of a wild animal is a kind of abuse. Then there are the millions of animals hunters wound and cripple that die lingering deaths, and those they throw into panics by chasing before shooting. Shooting an arrow into an animal’s liver and waiting a half hour for the black blood to drain until it dies in agony is not abuse? I’ve heard hunters recall shooting a deer in the eye and a pig up the butt and laugh about it. All part of hunting. There’s no difference between a pet duck and a wild duck that warrants murdering either one of them.

I also think you’re being very naive if you honestly believe there are “many” hunters who do not enjoy killing, aka “fun.” Would anyone take all that effort and spend the money required to kill wild animals if they didn’t enjoy it? Let’s be real. It’s only those who don’t hunt who truly do not enjoy killing animals, and the majority of them know they wouldn’t enjoy it. It takes a particular kind of person willing to put bullets into other living beings, and in that sense you CAN categorize hunters. Whatever’s in them that urges acting out this kind of violence does not exist in those who don’t hunt and certainly not in those who oppose it. Psychologically speaking, killers are quite different from non killers, though it may otherwise not be apparent. But amongst themselves, hunters share enough common values and views to be considered a type or group, like any other. One does not need to personally know a hunter or what he’s thinking when he pulls the trigger, or why. We judge others by what they do. The prime motive for almost all “sport” hunters is personal desire (pleasure in one form or another). Many do not eat the meat. You may do it to “inure” yourself, but that is no less a personal desire. You feel like doing it enough to do it. Should personal desire justify killing?

You mention not seeing the distinction between your hunting and any other predator’s. Really? Wild predators have no choice! You do! They must kill to survive, and that makes all the difference in the world. Are you saying that if someone or some thing commits violence and bloodshed then why not you? Is that a philosophy? Secondly, all wild predators ENGAGE their prey and often take real chances. Not from safe distances with guns. You agree with hunting being sniping. Is there honor in sniping what is not an enemy and means you no harm and cannot shoot back? What pride is there in that? In a court of law motive is often the difference between guilty and not guilty, is it not? You say you don’t enjoy killing animals and it makes you “sorrowful.” But you do it anyway! What the…? Tell me something, really hypothetical I know, but I wonder. If somehow your prey could convey to you “Please don’t shoot me I have a family,” would you show compassion and lift your death sentence? Animals don’t want to die either. But they can’t speak. You in your profession are a spokesman for the unfortunates who need a voice. This is what I’m talking about.

Let me reiterate that I have no need to “hone” what I write in the sense that I am not giving a sales pitch or trying to convince anyone to do it my way. I’m old enough to know I will not persuade a hunter to stop hunting. My purpose is simply the input I give and get. Nothing more. All that matters in the real world is what we do and not simply who we believe ourselves to be. Most of us believe we’re good people, right? But I know a psychopath who believes this too and rationalizes all his violent and destructive behavior. Has no conscience to get in his way…but doesn’t know he has no conscience. Is sure he does. Try and explain compassion to him and he’ll prove it’s his with answers that perfectly mimic the element of humanity missing in him. He could make a case for absolutely anything and should’ve been a trial la… I won’t say it. <:) Seems to me you are concerned about animals but not quite enough to refrain from ripping into them with bullets. Anyway, taking life should be a thoughtful matter to be considered by anyone who considers themselves thoughtful. In my opinion, if there is any possible way around killing, one should take that path. Unfortunately for all of us, too many things are finally realized only on deathbeds.

You’re dead wrong if you think this issue doesn’t compare to the historical clash between slave owners and abolitionists or any struggle in which beings unjustly dominate other beings. Not all ideals are of equal virtue. And sometimes the victims of certain “ideals” have no voting rights…or even voices. And just what are your “ideals” anyway as regards hunting? Does it by chance have anything to do with going into the woods and being a vital part of nature? It’s sort of spiritual, no? Am I wrong about that? Only problem is, guns are not a part of nature and never will be. They’re thoroughly foreign to it, which makes anyone using artificial weapons against nature an invader and not a part of it. If a gun is a part of nature then so is a tank and a jet fighter. Are they? I’ve also been told by hunters that they’re seeking a certain independent lifestyle in doing their own bidding. But how independent are they if someone else made/built their vehicles, their guns, cell phones, computers, watches, clothing, boots, you name it?

Speaking of “hate,” a word you’ve tossed around here, when you shoot animals you don’t need to shoot, is that an expression of love, or even respect? What worse could you do if you hated them? Love and respect are not conducive to killing. You know what they say: “People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” If you express “respect” that achieves the same result as an act of “hate,” then something’s wrong somewhere. Or do you think your bullet is doing a healthy animal a favor?

There was no “overpopulation” problem with deer until relatively modern times after hunters succeeded in wiping out most of the natural predators, and no problem before the advent of modern long range weapons with which one can kill easily and efficiently, like nothing existing in nature. If, as you claim, wildlife management is reducing deer populations, why then are there still always so many deer, and why are feed pots put out so deer will eat, grow and of course multiply. So much for the hunting industry’s concern for reducing game populations. Why would they be concerned? It’s against their interest. Nature has managed itself quite well for many millions of years. There are NO surplus animals in nature. Only through human meddling. To this day in this country they are decimating the few small wolf populations that cling to existence. Why, one might ask. Mostly to increase game animals for hunters. Revenue. Big bucks for the industry and antlered bucks for hunters, not to mention moose and elk.

I gave you some facts, such as “compensatory reproductive rebound,” knowing you wouldn’t like them. But it’s true and with much scientific evidence to support it. A comprehensive study in New Jersey of heavily hunted regions revealed, upon the autopsies of pregnant deer, the fetuses of twins and triplets not seen in non hunted regions and in numbers many times greater than in deer from non hunted regions. Other studies included show that a compensatory process takes effect when deer herds are drastically reduced through hunting. Overpopulation has nothing to do with hunting? It has everything to do with it. Much falls on deaf ears, doesn’t it. Frankly, your “argument” has been a tad narrow. I’ve made a number of “critical points,” but you want things limited to only “facts” in a discussion that calls for far more than that. Do you live only by facts? We’re talking about millions of innocent beings killed and wounded every year. But ya know what — and this may not mean much to you — compassion and empathy are far better companions to justice and goodness than cold facts.

Most of my friends are highly educated liberals. A small number of us shoot, a smaller number of us hunt. I can really only describe my reasons for hunting, though I believe that my friends feel the same. Before I get to those reasons, let me tell you that I agree with you that hunting is not a sport. Not by my definition. I am likewise sympathetic to your analogy of hunting to sniping. And I agree that the animal has limited recourse, generally none, except in the case of feral pigs which can be dangerous.

I used to be sympathetic to your panentheistic view that every creature is a being just like me. For a long time I held that view, until ultimately, I stopped being any kind of theist. Accordingly, I now reject the notion that hunting is needless killing. I don’t see the distinction between my hunting or the hunting done by any other predator.

I similarly reject the notion that all hunters enjoy killing. I don’t. I enjoy shooting. I like breaking clays and I really like the concentration and precision that bench rest shooting requires. But I don’t enjoy killing animals. I spend a lot of time thinking about how the killing is done. I think about what it must be like for an animal to have a bullet crash through its shoulder, take the top off its heart and destroy its lungs. It is sobering to the point of making me sorrowful

This brings me to the reasons I hunt. I do it because I eat meat. Several years ago, I became aware of factory farming and the cruelty built into its business model. A few PETA videos, a few articles in the Atlantic, some debates featuring Bil Maher and I decided that if life was going to be rendered into meat for me to eat, I would do it myself. Not to put too fine a point on it, I hunt so that I don’t foment factory farms. I don’t want to be the reason farm animals are tortured during their lives and deaths. I don’t want to be the reason immmigrants subject themselves to inescapable servitude in slaughterhouses. And I hunt because I don’t want to be inured to what meat is.

I think that if you cast around a bit, you’ll find that a lot of hunters take my view of things. I’m not trying to convert you, but I do want you to know that geralizing about a bunch of people you probably don’t know just makes you wrong in a fundamental and basic way and it places you at loggerheads with the people you want to convince. Better to hone the point, no?

Then you come back with the tired and weak arguments about compensatory reproductive rebound that have been fairly well disputed by scientists far more qualified than I. Simple note to that end, however… it was unregulated hunting pressure, along with rapid habitat destruction that nearly removed the whitetail deer from the southeastern part of the United States. It is turban sprawl, and the growth of suburbs (where hunting is prohibited), combined with commercial agricultural practices that have enabled them to return and overpopulate. And now, careful wildlife management, leaning for the most part on hunting as a tool, is creating a reduction in that population. It’s happening, and it’s documented. For most of the rest of the country west of the Mississippi, by the way, there is almost no deer overpopulation problem except in certain human population centers.

I’ve written about five years’ worth of posts on this blog, and a good many of them are directly related to a defense of hunting, both as a sport and as a moral and ethical action. Several of those discussions have centered around your very idea that hunters find killing fun. I’m not going to sit here and try to condense that into a single argument just for you. I’ve done that too many times already for others. Do your own homework if you really care that much. I’ll help… narrow your search by selecting the Category, Anti-Hunters from the drop-down box on the right side of the page. Every question you ask is addressed in these “pages”. And if that’s not enough for you, take a look at some of the other bloggers I’m linked to, and see what they have to say.

The more important thing to remember here, is that I don’t feel a need to shove my ideology down the throats of those who believe differently. I’m not trying to make you, or people like you, hunt. If you don’t like it, don’t do it. As long as you guide your life by your own moral compass, and live according to the ideals you claim to believe in, then I have no qualms with you. I’m not being evasive or closed-minded by telling you that I disagree with you, and that I’m not changing my life simply because you say I should. You simply haven’t made any “critical points”.