In this new book to run for President, The Way Forward: Renewing the American Idea Republican Paul Ryan said his happiest moment after the loss he took with John McCain in 2012, was when his 10 year old daughter – who he said was “old enough to hunt on her own” – shot and killed a deer in Southern Wisconsin.
Guns are the central vehicle of celebrating violence in American culture. Followed by executions and beating the crap out of children.
Parents who teach these kids to shoot large military weapons for fun have been made sick in the head by the NRA. It’s disgusting.
The moment for me in this video was the little kid’s face looking in horror at his parent after killing the deer with a high powered rifle.
After coming home from several years in the military – where often as a range safety officer I had fired tens of thousands of rounds of most every weapon the US Army had so not to turn in the leftover ammo at the end of the day – I was on a lake duck hunting with my father. It happened to be opening day deer season in Wisconsin. Shots echoed across the lake which soon sent a nice sized buck from the marsh into our decoys. Several decoys tangled in his legs as he swam across the lake. My father started up the motor and pulled along side of it with me in the bow. SHOOT SHOOT! Dad yelled. I was perhaps 6 feet along side the animal with a 12 gauge double barrel full of BBs which would have done the job. The fear in that big brown eye pleaded with me to refrain. “Dad, I’ll go buy us 5 decoys later this afternoon.”
I kept bird hunting for another 30 years or so, but could never bring myself to hunt or shoot or kill a mammal again. On the bright side, few people hunt anymore and they become fewer and fewer as the years pass. The extreme rise in gun sales is primarily to take out federal agents, our troops, neighbors wanting our dried beans, errant co workers, movie goers and of course school children. 20, 40 and 100 rounds at a time.
Most hunting is an unnecessary act of violence handed down from parent to child. Just as we recently found the violence of beating the crap out of 4 year olds tell the same story.