BowChilling
Senior Member
So the Covington News has a new sports editor from California. Apparently he has a problem with being forced to run pictures of kids with their deer harvest. Just what we need is a kid sports editor from Cali telling us how wrong we are. Hope Josh Briggs has a short stay in the South!
http://www.covnews.com/news/article/15031/
What if the hunted was the hunter?
Imagine if you were sitting in your car in the drive thru at McDonald's and all of a sudden, you get shot in the neck. How bad would that suck? With about 15-30 seconds of life left in your body, you manage to look over to your right and see a whitetail deer holding a rifle.
If I'm going to run deer hunting pictures in my section, I can at least give my take on it, right? Fair enough?
Once upon a time, not anymore, we needed to trap, hunt and kill wild animals for survival. Then, we learned to be farmers and ranchers. Then, we invented the rail system and had the ability to ship goods. Eventually, we no longer had a need to kill wild animals. Yet for some reason, a lot of people feel they still do. Because being the perverse species we are, we turned it into a sport. And while I thought a sport was something two parties voluntarily knew they were playing, it appears I'm wrong.
Everyone I've met who hunts deer eats them after the kill. Personally I've tried venison on several occasions and don't enjoy it. Of course if that's all I had to eat, I would eat it and be fine. Relax, this isn't a PETA campaign. Those people are nuts. Instead I'm questioning the need. The reason. Even, the rules at which we play by. Yes, we eat meat. Chicken. Beef. Fish. Most of it is raised. Some of it (fish) is hunted. But let's stick to sport hunting for the sake of this argument.
When you are at war, it's you or your enemy. You look for the upper hand. You find an elevated position, sit for hours or even days on end and wait. That's fine. At least your enemy knows you're out there. OK, maybe sometimes it doesn't (special ops get a bit more liberal with how the Geneva Conventions are interpreted). But a deer has no clue. When you sit in a tree stand and wait for a deer to come through your baited area, it's just a matter of time. At least when I hunted, I walked the terrain. I walked around. I tracked deer. I looked for signs of bedding or tracks and went off of that to try and bag a buck. Not a doe because killing female deer in California is illegal unlike in Georgia (for some reason. What? Population control? Humans need population control more than deer). Hunting from a deer stand with a rifle was illegal too. Even if it weren't, I would have never done it that way. Where's the sport in sitting your lazy butt in a tree stand and waiting for a deer to pass by?
I used to hunt, though I never killed a deer. I had a pellet gun when I was younger and would kill birds sometimes. For no reason. Because I didn't know any better. Then I went into the military, learned how to kill people, and everything made better sense to me. Now, I own an AR-15 and am prepared to use it. On unsavory humans. Not helpless animals. Unless necessary. I'll use if for what it's intended for. Survival.
Morally, hunting deer for sport is no different than hunting people. It would be more interesting if deer could shoot back. Then maybe I'd say, let's go hunting. Unfortunately, the only species that has that ability is man. So, if that's the case, what if we hunt each other? Or at least the bad guys, right?
You see, everything is screwy. Taking a life should only be done out of necessity. And then there's still a moral dilemma. What makes your life more valuable than an entity trying to take yours?
If you hunt, do me a favor. Watch "The Deer Hunter" this weekend. If you've already seen it, watch it again. Hopefully then you'll understand that hunting is nothing more than a senseless need to fulfill some sort of primal urge that is buried in all of us. And then maybe you'll see it the way I now do.
http://www.covnews.com/news/article/15031/
What if the hunted was the hunter?
Imagine if you were sitting in your car in the drive thru at McDonald's and all of a sudden, you get shot in the neck. How bad would that suck? With about 15-30 seconds of life left in your body, you manage to look over to your right and see a whitetail deer holding a rifle.
If I'm going to run deer hunting pictures in my section, I can at least give my take on it, right? Fair enough?
Once upon a time, not anymore, we needed to trap, hunt and kill wild animals for survival. Then, we learned to be farmers and ranchers. Then, we invented the rail system and had the ability to ship goods. Eventually, we no longer had a need to kill wild animals. Yet for some reason, a lot of people feel they still do. Because being the perverse species we are, we turned it into a sport. And while I thought a sport was something two parties voluntarily knew they were playing, it appears I'm wrong.
Everyone I've met who hunts deer eats them after the kill. Personally I've tried venison on several occasions and don't enjoy it. Of course if that's all I had to eat, I would eat it and be fine. Relax, this isn't a PETA campaign. Those people are nuts. Instead I'm questioning the need. The reason. Even, the rules at which we play by. Yes, we eat meat. Chicken. Beef. Fish. Most of it is raised. Some of it (fish) is hunted. But let's stick to sport hunting for the sake of this argument.
When you are at war, it's you or your enemy. You look for the upper hand. You find an elevated position, sit for hours or even days on end and wait. That's fine. At least your enemy knows you're out there. OK, maybe sometimes it doesn't (special ops get a bit more liberal with how the Geneva Conventions are interpreted). But a deer has no clue. When you sit in a tree stand and wait for a deer to come through your baited area, it's just a matter of time. At least when I hunted, I walked the terrain. I walked around. I tracked deer. I looked for signs of bedding or tracks and went off of that to try and bag a buck. Not a doe because killing female deer in California is illegal unlike in Georgia (for some reason. What? Population control? Humans need population control more than deer). Hunting from a deer stand with a rifle was illegal too. Even if it weren't, I would have never done it that way. Where's the sport in sitting your lazy butt in a tree stand and waiting for a deer to pass by?
I used to hunt, though I never killed a deer. I had a pellet gun when I was younger and would kill birds sometimes. For no reason. Because I didn't know any better. Then I went into the military, learned how to kill people, and everything made better sense to me. Now, I own an AR-15 and am prepared to use it. On unsavory humans. Not helpless animals. Unless necessary. I'll use if for what it's intended for. Survival.
Morally, hunting deer for sport is no different than hunting people. It would be more interesting if deer could shoot back. Then maybe I'd say, let's go hunting. Unfortunately, the only species that has that ability is man. So, if that's the case, what if we hunt each other? Or at least the bad guys, right?
You see, everything is screwy. Taking a life should only be done out of necessity. And then there's still a moral dilemma. What makes your life more valuable than an entity trying to take yours?
If you hunt, do me a favor. Watch "The Deer Hunter" this weekend. If you've already seen it, watch it again. Hopefully then you'll understand that hunting is nothing more than a senseless need to fulfill some sort of primal urge that is buried in all of us. And then maybe you'll see it the way I now do.
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