The Art of Killing--for Kids

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I don’t buy Seamus McGraw’s anguished handwringing after taking a doe, expressed in his opinion piece in the New York Times. If he doesn’t like killing deer he shouldn’t be hunting them. I have 40 years of upland, big game, waterfowl hunting and I’ve never seen that kind of introspective whining from a hunter, and I’ve met a lot of hunters in 40 years. His “confusion” following the shot and reaction to not getting an immediate kill are bizarre, at best.

I hunted with my dad. He hunted with his dad. I’ve taken my daughter hunting. She might well take hers hunting. A day in the field with a kid is worth hundreds of thousands of hours playing video games.

Westerby
 
Jerry_Westerby said:
I don’t buy Seamus McGraw’s anguished handwringing after taking a doe, expressed in his opinion piece in the New York Times. If he doesn’t like killing deer he shouldn’t be hunting them. I have 40 years of upland, big game, waterfowl hunting and I’ve never seen that kind of introspective whining from a hunter, and I’ve met a lot of hunters in 40 years. His “confusion” following the shot and reaction to not getting an immediate kill are bizarre, at best.

I hunted with my dad. He hunted with his dad. I’ve taken my daughter hunting. She might well take hers hunting. A day in the field with a kid is worth hundreds of thousands of hours playing video games.

Westerby
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Yep, some of my best memories from my childhood are days out hunting with my dad. I miss that.
 
manualman said:
I’d say Hal already substantively addressed your thoughts.
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99% of what he said was irrelevant, and we’ll see if he responds to my follow up query.
manualman said:
I can’t help commenting on one aspect of your post. You note that kids hunting isn’t new and back it up by talking about the legality of kids getting hunting licenses. LOL! Kids have been hunting with their father LONG before state bureacrats or feudal lords established regulations for it! What’s NEW is not kids experiencing hunting, but grown ups not comprehending the difference in moral substance between people and game animals.

Why do hunters feel pangs after a kill? Simple. Hunting is a primal reminder of the mortality of ALL living things. When the prey is killed, there is a sadness in recognizing the death of something beautiful. But death is simply part of life in nature and I suspect the larger part of that somberness is the reminder that we, too, are mortal and our eyes will one day cloud over and our bodies grow stiff and cold. Hunters come face to face with mortality and IMO most are better for having done so.
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But apparently, the sadness of death isn’t enough to prevent hunters from killing, which isn’t a sign of having any significant “respect” for the animal - despite hunter rhetoric to the contrary.
manualman said:
Hunting is an expensive hobby to get into, so I never have, but I went to school in Wisconsin where it is a near religion (next to Packermania). I think I understand the mindset (and I do catch and clean fish, so I’m not totally basing this on theory). I’m curious if my stereotype of you is accurate? You an urban dweller who perhaps considers meat to be something that magically appears at the supermarket and has watched too many romanticized ‘nature’ movies?
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That is not an accurate view, since I’m well aware of the suffering and cruelty that goes on in the meat industry. Hence why I don’t eat meat.
 
spencelo said:
That is not an accurate view, since I’m well aware of the suffering and cruelty that goes on in the meat industry. Hence why I don’t eat meat.
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You wear leather shoes at all?
You eat eggs at all?

Why do you have those meat choppers in the back of your mouth?
 
spencelo said:
… the sadness of death isn’t enough to prevent hunters from killing, which isn’t a sign of having any significant “respect” for the animal - despite hunter rhetoric to the contrary.
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.

I owe a clean death to any animal I shoot, this means good shot likely to kill immediately or ensuring death as quickly as possible afterwards. in the non-bambi world, these are hunter ethics.

on the other hand, I’ve wondered about the ethics of vegans, who brutally tear plants from the soil where they’ve thrived since they were seeds, living in harmony next to their brothers and sisters, and then letting them die slowly through heat exhaustion, drying out, roasting on a fiery grill, or boiling in water or oil.

Westerby
 
spencelo said:
I’m against those practices as well.
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Well then, I do admire your integrity.

Hunting though, is still not wrong. I don’t hunt nor will I ever (unless there is some sort of zombie apocalypse or something).

Seems cruel maybe to some…I get it. Doesn’t make it ‘wrong’.
 
spencelo said:
You can only believe this if you believe that the interests and lives of animals have negligible significance.
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What about the interests of plants? Why do you think their lives are of negligible significance?

Westerby
 
spencelo said:
Here’s one: hunting inflicts suffering, pain and death on sensitive creatures when there’s no need to do so.
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Guess I should have been more specific,I meant no reason within the Church rules.
 
spencelo said:
You can only believe this if you believe that the interests and lives of animals have negligible significance.
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Predators seem to not regard their prey very highly.

You are assigning animals the special qualities of humans.
It is the highest respect to regard animals for their intended purpose.
 
Armor_of_Light said:
Predators seem to not regard their prey very highly.

You are assigning animals the special qualities of humans.
It is the highest respect to regard animals for their intended purpose.
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Prey animals do their best to starve predators.
 
If hunting is wrong because is causes an animal distress, then fishing is even worse, as it hauls a creature into a medium where it cannot breathe, to die slowly.

Yet our LORD fished, and so it cannot be wrong, full stop.

ISTM that that would make hunting ok, too.

Or is your concern limited to beings with limbs?

ICXC NIKA
 
Jerry_Westerby said:
What about the interests of plants? Why do you think their lives are of negligible significance?

Westerby
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Plants aren’t sentient – they can’t suffer, feel pain, or experience any of the range of emotions that prey do when hunted down and killed.
 
Armor_of_Light said:
Predators seem to not regard their prey very highly.

You are assigning animals the special qualities of humans.
It is the highest respect to regard animals for their intended purpose.
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What are those “special qualities?”
 
After having read through this thread I recall an episode of EWTN’s show Faith and Culture where the subject of Animal Rights vs. Animal Welfare was discussed. I would like to site some information I came across since which I think will shed light on the member **spencelo’s **perspective:
ANIMAL RIGHTS VS ANIMAL WELFARE - What you should know

OVERVIEW

Animal Welfare supports humane treatment and use of animals and believes that humans have a responsibility for their care. Animal Welfare includes responsible care of animals used by humans for service, research, food, education, those kept in zoos or sanctuaries, and especially those animals kept by pet owners. Animal welfare is based on a principle of ownership of animals, a common sense approach that animals should be treated well and that animal cruelty is wrong. Animal welfare sets standards and guidelines for animal use and management based on sound veterinary and animal husbandry research and practices.

Animal Rights (AR) is a radical ideology that attempts to elevate species of animals to equality with humans by applying human interpretations of morality. A core tenet of animal rights philosophy is that no species on this planet is better than another; therefore, humans have no right to dominate over, use, breed, or eat nonhuman species.

Basic principles of animal rights philosophy are:

http://www.ncraoa.com/image2/bulletblack.gifThe ability of animals to feel pain and pleasure puts them on a plane of moral equivalence with humans. This moral significance of animals necessitates that we reject the use and treatment of animals as resources or as property. Use of animals for food, research, and entertainment must be abolished and not merely regulated. (Peter Singer) (1)

http://www.ncraoa.com/image2/bulletblack.gifAnimals have a life of their own that is of importance to them apart from their utility to us; therefore, logic implies that animals have the same right as humans to pursue their life without human interference.

http://www.ncraoa.com/image2/bulletblack.gifThe line between human and non-human animals is an artificial construct designed to facilitate and justify the exploitation of non-human animals. (2)

Source & further reading: ncraoa.com/AR_AW_WhatYouShouldKnow.html
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I grew up in a Central Illinois farm community and know many hunters, many are in my family although I’ve never hunted before. I 100% support hunting as I’ve been in multiple vehicle accidents involving deer, in fact I bought a new Honda Civic in 2001 and got hit by deer (meaning that the deer literally ran into my car while running across the road) three times within my first month of ownership. I refer to my mom’s GMC Envoy as the “deer slayer” as she’s been in three front-end-destroying collisions with deer over the past year.

That being said I am a fan of the A&E TV show American Hoggers and came across a TMZ article just today that speaks of how PETA is protesting the show due to the extremely violent nature of feral hog hunting. Personally if PETA has as much (if not more) of a problem with feral hog hunting as the people affected by feral hogs have with feral hogs, than perhaps they should assemble the PETA army and go to Texas and elsewhere where feral hogs are devastating the land and people’s lives so to deal with it the way they see fit. Although I doubt they’d leave their urban existance to do anything other than gripe about it over the internet, those pigs are probably to stinky for them to deal with anyway :rolleyes:

Read at your own risk: tmz.com/2011/10/22/american-hoggers-under-attack-for-ultra-violent-pig-slaughter/
 
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