Quote:
Originally Posted by LM1313
I wouldn't say hunters deserve to die, but I don't think it's very surprising that one would, considering he's going off into the woods where he knows a lot of people are going to be discharging weapons. Kind of like kids playing on the railroad tracks. We have enough idiots on the road, now you're going into the woods where the same idiots have guns? (Not that all hunters are idiots.)
I don't approve of hunting because the whole idea behind it is that people ENJOY killing things. It's okay to kill for food, but to enjoy killing is a sin, IMO, whether you're going after a human, cow, deer, or ant. You're destroying a life; feel bad about it. My dad used to go deer hunting and after hearing stories from him, I have to wonder how he could bear to shoot anything. How do you shoot a deer down in a little valley that knows you're stalking him and is trying to hide by "crawling" out?
However, at least wild animals have a better quality of life than farm animals.
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I, too, was once very anti-hunting, but your closing statement here was exactly what got me thinking, LM1313. The life of a beef cow is idyllic...right up until she is loaded on a rattling, crowded contraption and hauled off to a stockyard. The beef we eat from the grocery store is easy on our consciences. We don't have to look the cow in the eyes. We don't have to take responsibility for the cow's death. How many people think of the cow when they cut into their steak?
When I eat game, I think of that animal all through the meal. I appreciate that animal's beauty and the bounty before me. I know where that animal lived, how it died; I can respect the life it led and the death it encountered. I know how the meat was cleaned, stored, prepared. And I have a whole new appreciation of the blessings of that meal before me.
IMO--if you eat meat, you are responsible for that animal's death. You may not have killed it, but if it is eaten, it was killed by someone for the diner's benefit. It seems more moral to me, cleaner somehow, when I eat game, knowing how it died, having looked it in the eye, than when I eat beef, having not seen the life or death of that animal.
We are hunters. We are not idiots. We never have shot anyone in the woods. We do accept the risks that there are those out there who are not as conscientious. We don't enjoy the hunt for the sake of the killing. We enjoy the hunt (primarily bird hunting) for the sake of working with the dogs, seeing the woods, seeing the wildlife, and appreciating the outdoors. The few birds we take each season are a blessing, and each is appreciated.
Many of our neighbors also hunt. They hunt for food, not because they enjoy the kill.
I know there are "bad" hunters out there, wasteful killers who make a bad impression on everyone. I used to think they were in the majority. But don't condemn a whole group of people for just a few bad apples. Most hunters are not like that.
It is a tragedy when anyone dies an untimely death like this hunter did--regardless of what he was doing when he died. In another week, more than a hundred thousand deer hunters will be hitting the Wisconsin woods for the gun deer season. Of those 100,000 + hunters, anywhere from 0 to 7 will die of gunshot wounds, mostly self-inflicted. More people will die on the roads in car accidents than in the woods during that time. Are there yingyang deer hunters? You betchya. Are they all yingyangs? No.
Sorry to focus in on your post LM1313, but there were just points in it that I felt needed addressing. I hope I haven't offended anyone, and I certainly am not intending to pick on you.
Different people from different backgrounds just have different takes on things.