I Don’t Get the entire killing Bambi for fun thing …
Posted: February 2, 2013 Filed under: Gun Control | Tags: bloodlust, guns, hunting, politians posing with guns, Shooting 40 CommentsI think I was a natural born Buddhist because killing things for sport is something I have never understood and will
never understand. I do understand the need to eat. I understand that if you chose to eat meat you’ve likely had a butcher do your killing and it’s likely done quickly and humanely and with a certain knowledge of exactly what you’re doing. I just find that different than when you go out and stalk a living creature and you kill it just because it’s standing there and you’re out there having fun.
Here’s the kind’ve bloodlust I’m talking about.
Sarah Palin made sure her now-defunct “reality” show included the scene of her shooting a caribou, although hunting experts questioned some of the details and wondered why it took five shots to bring down the animal. Ms. Palin dismissed such criticisms, telling a Kansas City crowd, “I have caribou blood under my fingernails still.”
I can see Tina Fey doing that line on SNL, can’t you? That line is a little closer to psychopathy than I’m just putting dinner on the table. Still, we some how have gotten to a place where stalking and killing animals for fun is something politicians put out there for all to see. Why? Is it a way of saying “See, I’m a real man”? I also wonder how much the animal suffered given the five shots.
Once describing himself as a “lifelong hunter,” Mitt Romney had to backtrack, acknowledging that “lifelong hunter” meant shooting at “small varmints” now and then.
Rick Perry let it be known that he once went mano a mano with a coyote he said was threatening his dog, killing the beast with the handgun he carried while jogging. (Just where did he tuck that .380 Ruger on his morning run through the cactus and tumbleweeds, by the way?)
As a presidential candidate, John Kerry once borrowed a double-barreled shotgun and camo outfit to bag geese and an important photo op. (Wasn’t it enough that he’d pursued and killed an enemy soldier armed with a rocket-propelled grenade in Vietnam, where he’d been awarded a Silver Star, Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts?)
So, the President had to prove he has shot a gun and thankfully, for me, it was on clay pigeons instead of Bambi’s mother. I find it odd, however, that you can still sympathize with hunters given you choose not to actually kill something in the process. There seems to be still something primal and insecure in some men that they believe their right of passage is bringing home a kill. Republicans didn’t believe that a commie pinko, socialist muslim peacenik tree hugger could hold a gun so the White House released this photo.
The White House has released a photo of President Obama skeet shooting at Camp David from August, 2012, attempting to quell a controversy that arose when Obama said that he sympathized with hunters because he frequently went shooting himself.
“Attn skeet birthers. Make our day – let the photoshop conspiracies begin!,” former White House advisor David Plouffe tweeted in a message containing a link to a photo of Obama brandishing a shot gun and wearing ear muffs and sun glasses.Conservative critics questioned the veracity of the Obama’s claims of skeet shooting because he had never been seen publicly shooting a gun.
“If he is a skeet shooter, why have we not heard of this,” Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said in a television interview after Obama’s remarks were made public.
“Why have we not seen photos,” Blackburn continued. “Why has he not referenced it at any point in time as we have had this gun debate that is ongoing?”
Yup, If you’re an Amuriken politician, you gotta put those photos out there proving your man enough to kill–at least–a small “varmint”.
Although Palin, Blackburn, and other women in politics are joining men in touting their love of firearms (and women can now be considered for combat positions in the US military), it’s mainly men – just as it is with the question of military service, especially those who might have served in Vietnam but didn’t, including Cheney and Romney. (There no doubt are darkly psychological issues here too, but we won’t go there.)
Actually, I’d like some one to explore the “darkly psychological issues” that seem to imply our politicians have to know their way around guns, if not, explicitly enjoy killing animals. The discussion around the photo–taken back in August while he was celebrating his birthday at Camp David–is itself puzzling to me.
The notion of the president taking aim at targets flung into the air captivated some in the political and social media worlds at a time when he is pushing Congress to enact sweeping restrictions on high-capacity rifles and magazines.
Conservatives scoffed, comics mocked, a congresswoman challenged him to a skeet-shooting contest, a fake picture of an armed Mr. Obama circulated on the Internet, and the White House tried to make the whole matter go away.
“It was a surprise to a lot of people in the industry when we saw that and heard that,” said Michael Hampton Jr., the executive director of the National Skeet Shooting Association, whose 35,000 members do not include the president.
Mr. Obama is hardly the first politician to draw scorn for boasting of experience with guns. In 2007, during his first presidential campaign, former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts was ridiculed when he said, “I’ve always been a rodent and rabbit hunter — small varmints, if you will.” In 2004, John Kerry, then a presidential candidate and now secretary of state, was lampooned for showing up in camouflage to go hunting less than two weeks before the election.
The latest commotion has its origins in the interview Mr. Obama gave to The New Republic, now owned by Chris Hughes, a Facebook co-founder and former Obama campaign aide. In the interview, Franklin Foer, the magazine’s editor, referred to the fight over gun control and asked the president if he had ever fired a gun.
“Yes, in fact, up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time,” Mr. Obama said.
“The whole family?” Mr. Foer asked.
“Not the girls,” he said, “but oftentimes guests of mine go up there. And I have a profound respect for the traditions of hunting that trace back in this country for generations. And I think those who dismiss that out of hand make a big mistake.”
Mr. Obama went on to say that the reality of guns in urban areas differs from that in rural areas. “So it’s trying to bridge those gaps that I think is going to be part of the biggest task over the next several months,” he said. “And that means that advocates of gun control have to do a little more listening than they do sometimes.”
I grew up in the part of the country where hunting and shooting are considered a way of life. Neighbors brag about their latest gun attachments and the top spotting scopes they own like women brag about their new dresses or handbags. I live down here surrounded by folks that have to hunt and shoot things to put food on the table. I still can’t get used to it, which again, makes me thing I was a natural born Buddhist. However, putting food on your table out of necessity is a far cry from taking a huge gun–ala insane Ted Nugent–and then bragging about having caribou blood under your fingernails. Can some one explain this to me? Why do we want politicians with some degree of bloodlust?
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I don’t get it either. I don’t want politicians with some degree of bloodlust and the Bambi picture makes me cry.
Bambi always gets to me too.
It would be a sport if Bambi could return fire. When I was a kid I learned that I didn’t like killing things. I like it a lot less as time goes by.
Reminds me of the video Cows with Guns…………………..I’d rather go fishing anyday.
Thanks for putting this out for discussion. I know my opinion on this topic is far, far out of the mainstream. Let me just say that killing any living being isn’t a sport. The idea of “tradition” is also full of holes. In jolly old England, at the time the great migration to the New World began, only the landed gentry hunted – the peasants & merchants didn’t. Killing your food was not a tradition brought from the “old country”, contrary to the dogma we’re fed.
Natural predators kill the young, the old & the sick. That keeps the prey species stronger & healthier. Human hunters kill the trophy animals, thus removing the very animals that should be passing along their genes to strengthen the species. It’s unnatural. Elephants, a species which may be extinct in the wild within the next 50 years, are being decimated by poachers, yet King Juan Carlos who at the time sat on the Advisory Board of the World Wildlife Fund traveled to Africa & killed an elephant.
Many cultures have or had a rite of passage for boys to make the transition to manhood. For the Masai, a boy must kill a lion. These rites, themselves unnatural, are needed for what reason? My theory is because a girl becomes a woman naturally – she bleeds for the first time & is therefore a woman. So, in our patriarchal cultures boys must prove their manhood through a cultural ritual.
Killing your food wasn’t brought from the old country, that was here when the white people arrived. It’s a perfectly natural way for a hunter/gatherer people to live. For most, it’s not sadistic, blood lust, or a sport but simply a way of life.
I agree. And I also don’t agree that girls become women naturally. Most cultures that we know of throughout history have been patriarchal. Boys go through special rituals because they are seen as more important than girls. Boys must be trained to be “warriors,” which means they have to learn to suppress their emotions. Girls in most cultures are nothing more than vessels to be used for sex and childbearing.
When my grandparents and great grandparents got to the northern plains, they needed guns to feed their families and protect themselves. Minnesota and North Dakota were pretty wild when they got there.
According to my grandparents, my great grandfathers fought Comanche raiders for quite some time while trying to get a farm and a small ranch going. Life wasn’t too easy on either the northern or southern plains then.
It wasn’t easy. My dad’s father actually worked as a cowboy when he was young.
My great great grandfather was one of the Chisolm brothers than ran the Chisolm trail. My Dad grew up with his daughter in their house so she was one tough woman and told him all kinds of tails. I’m sure they shoot everything from coyotes to cattle thieves to cows. Life sure has changed, hasn’t it?
Here’s a picture of my grandfather in the tiny little town in North Dakota that my mom grew up in.
It looks like something in a movie Western, doesn’t it?
wow … that’s a nice thing to have! so kewl!!!
That’s really cool and it looks pretty cold. That town looks like the little town where I spent a lot of my youth. Places like that were really great for kids!
Life sure has changed a lot, largely for the better. But you know those crazy people that are really loud in their lunacy? Those people would not have lasted as long back then 🙂
Speaking of Chisolm trail……….my family married into the Charlie Goodnight family…they also fought the comanche, and later became Texas Rangers, and were known as the father of Texas Panhandle……………….They also were part of the Goodnight Loving Trail, delivering cows to the soliders during civil war…………Part of that ranch in Texas was sold several times, now part of it is owned by Pres. George W. Bush. There was a book out in 1973 called “The American Cowboy”……………
Having lived in a very rural area, and having mountain lions, and rattle snakes, and bear, I can honestly say we never killed deer, but did mountain lions and snakes. You had to.
Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove was a very loose dramatization of Goodnight and Loving. Even the part where Gus’s body was brought back for burial was based on Goodnight bringing Oliver Loving’s body from New Mexico back for burial in his ranch,
BB love the photo of your grandfather…………..It wasn’t but a few days ago that I put on the movie Fargo with Frances Dormand………..then I bundled up, went out the front door, looked at all the snow, and froze my buns, and said to the world, it’s a beautiful day, turned around went back inside, that was the end of my day. I am so glad it’s 40 degrees and sunshine everywhere I look.
Actually, I’m not so sure that the mass killing of animals for food in slaughterhouses is all that humane either.
I’m not against target shooting like what Obama was doing. I’m not against hunting for food either. I know that in New England there aren’t many predators left, and if deer weren’t killed for food, many would starve in the winter when the population gets out of balance with what predators are left. Not that I would do it myself, but I don’t have a problem with it. I guess it’s because I grew up in the midwest and have had lots of men in my family who liked to hunt.
What I find scary is people who are obsessed with guns as object in themselves rather than tools and people who accumulate guns for the purpose of killing other humans.
I don’t think most hunters over do it, but I’ve grown up in a part of the country where I’ve seen a hell of a lot of dead animals strapped to the car and you really have to wonder if all of that was necessary. I used to go fishing and kill fish and the bait. I don’t even do that any more. I get closer to going full on vegan all the time.
In most places there’s a limit on what you can kill, like one deer per person per season. When I was a young child in North Dakota, my parents and I survived for an entire winter on a side of venison they were given. They were really poor–my dad was in grad school at the time.
I eat very little meat. I’d like to be a vegetarian, but from time to time I do want meat. Most days I don’t eat any, although I do eat eggs, cheese and other milk products.
I don’t know if I could survive without eggs and cheese. The vegan substitutes I’ve seen just don’t seem the same.
Why would you drop the dairy? I eat yogurt every day. I don’t know what I’d do without that. Milk and cheese too … eggs I can do without.
My daughter in law is a vegan and dairy products are a no-no. I might survive as a vegetarian but not as a full vegan.
That whole gun fetish thing is spooky. Those assault weapons are not for hunting either.
Pictures of 9 US presidents holding guns in various situations.
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2013/02/02/look-presidents-holding-guns/WeN5Sjb7q6dMhhW1GX48AP/pictures.html
TPM: Report: Nebraska GOP Senator To Back Hagel
If the Democrats stick together, that’s 57 votes now.
A psychologist should also have to lecture you on the statistics about guns, suicide, and negligent/accidental discharge. And, hell, lets go the whole hog. If you want to own a gun you have to be willing to have a transvaginal probe shoved up you while you are hearing the lecture. Or, more likely, a penile catheter.
Still better, every gun dealer has to have a board-certified psychiatrist on staff with privileges at a local hospital, just in case the buyer needs to be committed right away.
Good stuff, Ralph!
Hunting. Well you know. It’s not my cup of tea, but it has many benefits. If some people enjoy it and they eat even some of what they kill then I’m fine with it. They are performing a service in that my part of the country is completely overrun with deer. Seriously there are deer everywhere. Dead ones on the roadsides that I’m sure have severely damaged cars and caused accidents. I’ve seen them run up my driveway and off through neighbors’ yards where kids are playing. I don’t live in the country, I live in close-to-the-city suburbs. This is not the place for wildlife. The recent cold snap caused the neighborhood lake to freeze over. Three confused deer ventured out onto the lake and fell through the ice. Rescue personnel were able to save two of them but the third one perished. My neighbor said she has lived on the lake for 22 years and has never witnessed something so horrible. The other thing to take into account is first you have an abundance of wildlife that so many think is so charming; then come the predators. I’m not kidding, we have coyote and fox that we can hear at night. People’s small pets and even small children (I’m thinking of a news story from when we lived in the Seattle area where an 18 month old was being dragged off by a coyote while mom’s back was turned on a suburban playground. She saved her child by throwing her water bottle at the coyote.) are in danger and some have disappeared (pets, not kids!). Another threat to our Seattle bedroom community was cougars. Every year there were reports about encounters.
Hunting as a tradition is dying off. There are fewer and fewer hunters partly because of the urban sprawl which reduces available hunting areas but also because fewer people have the time or interest in it. My MIL used to ban hunting on her land but now she encourages it. I can’t remember the last time I drove anywhere without seeing a mangled deer on the side of the road. I wish there were more hunters around these parts.
It’s the same here. I’ve written before about how moose have shown up in sections of Boston and wild turkeys are everywhere. Up north in New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont–and even parts of Mass.–deer and moose hunting are essential to keep herds from growing to the point that animals can’t find enough food.
Good point too about deer being killed on highways. I often see them when I drive out to Indiana and back.
We have nuisance gators but we trap them and release them deep in the swamps. They only allow gator hunting one month a year and only a limited number of them can be killed. Same thing with a lot of the birds down here. Of course, BP has killed more wildlife than any hunters down here. But again, people live off the land here and hunt, fish, and farm things for a livlihood. That’s not quite the same as going out there and just bagging any thing that moves. I have to admit that I always admired Teddy Roosevelt for the national parks and he wouldn’t have done what he did if he also hadn’t been a hunter. But, life is changing and are approaches to the things we share the planet with has to change too. We also have nutria down here that aren’t native to the area and have overrun the place and taken over habitat killing off other native species. They hunt and trap them endlessly down here to stop that. So, I guess what I look at is the less of the evils. If you’re saving others suffering, like producing food for hungry people or balancing the ecosystem–which is its own controversial thing–it’s better than just killing for the joy of killing. Think of all those assholes that nearly killed off the buffalo.
Deer can be real pest but know what’s worse? Roving bands of feral hogs! A suburb north of me had an invasion of the darned things last year which just destroyed lawns and landscaping in several neighborhoods over a period of weeks. The city hired animal control people to trap them and take them away. Huge mess.
We had a batch of those in city park but they all got killed off during Katrina. We have nuisance coyotes now besides the nuisance gators. My sister used to have trouble with nuisance mountain lions and bobcats in Colorado. A lot of that has to do with building houses in natural habitats.
If I were to guess I’d say the hogs were forced out of their prior environment in the mesquite scrub brush areas southwest of Austin by building going on there. So they wandered into a nicer suburb for awhile.
I have never seen one, but Idaho has wolverines………..and don’t want to come across one, they are the meanest animal alive. I guess they are that way for survival, but not many states have them now.
oh, i love wolverines … I saw an pbs special on them … they have the most curious way of running through snow …
Around here we have these vicious creatures called fisher cats. They’ll kill a good sized dog.