Murder Incorporated

With another mass murder in the news, it's time to address my relationship with guns.

I have used guns many times: 22s, a 30-06, a 30-30, a 45-70 (an “elephant gun” in the words of my dad). I have owned several shotguns, the last being a 20 gauge. With these guns, I have killed: crows, squirrels, rabbits, pheasants and a deer.

All of my gun experiences were related to hunting, and I actually enjoyed hunting for a period of time. From the time I was 12 up until I was around 15, my dad and I went deer hunting in season and hunted small game on Saturdays in the Fall. We had a beagle-basset mix, Fred, who dearly loved to go hunting, even if he didn’t know what he was doing. Untrained, he kept his nose to the ground, and if he came across an animal, he was just as likely to chase it away from you as toward you. Still, we knew when a small creature was close by the way when Fred's wobbly gait picked up speed and his WGM (wags per minute) hit 100 rather than the usual 50 or so.

Hunting with my dad was a bonding experience, and those Saturdays, all decked out in Woolrich, hunting boots, orange vests holding shotgun shells, and a goofy fluorescent hat, still brings back warm memories. We would leave early on a crisp Fall day, accompanied by the redolent outdoor “manly” smell of the hunting gear and a crazed Fred pacing in the backseat of our Buick, all in the name of shooting small animals with high-powered weapons.

I loved it, or maybe I should say, I loved the overall “non death-related experiences” of these outings.

But actually killing things, not so much. And what we killed, we cleaned. Also, not so much. And what we cleaned, we ate. I enjoyed that only slightly more, finding only pheasants and venison somewhat edible. That is, until I stopped and actually thought about how they ended up on the plate. And yes, I am carnivorous, but I choose to compartmentalize the deaths of living things I killed as opposed to those who died when another human slit its throat.

My hunting escapades ended one bitterly cold Monday in doe season. While on a watch (other members of my dad’s hunting cabin at this moment were drivers, meaning they walked through forested areas hooting and hollering in an attempt to spook the deer into the sights of the watchers), several scared antlerless deer scurried in front of me. I nervously pulled up my 45-70, sighted in, closed my eyes and pulled the trigger. I thought I missed, but a short time later another hunter from our cabin found a deer a few hundred feet away, writing in pain on the ground. He called me over and asked if this was the one I shot at.

“ I guess so,” I muttered, as all doe basically looked the same to my 15-year-old eyes. Seeing the deer in agony, he placed a 30-06 shell between its ears. The pain for this particular doe ended.

And so did any desire for me to hunt again. Furthering my sudden distaste for the whole scene was the moment that, during the cleaning, a handful of entrails were rubbed into my face by another hunter. Sort of an initiation moment, I guess.

Today, I don’t have a problem with hunting, as long as you use the meat. Sport hunting is another story. As is hunting with a gang who have been up half the night drinking and wake to go out early the next morning with beer and whiskey still on their breath – as was the case with the hunter who fired the death shot into the doe I had wounded.

Still, if hunting is one thing (and in theory it is), gun ownership for other reasons is something else. There is no real need for assault weapons, and to a slightly lesser degree, handguns either. This protecting the 2nd amendment nonsense and the actions of the NRA are disastrous for a civilized society. I will leave it at that.

And as for me, I like to think I have evolved past killing animals, and I am betting that God approves of such evolution.