Throughout the ages, we have accepted killing, violence, and violent behavior as just being a part of life – it’s time we change!
By: Frank L. Hoffman
The following letter was submitted to us by Susan Roghair of Animal Rights Online.
The author’s name has been withheld. There are some very interesting factors in this letter that we will discuss later.
I hunted for 30 years. For various reasons, mostly because my father did, and my grandfather did. Yes, we ate what we killed, but I never felt I was hunting TO eat, after all, I had food whether I killed anything or not.
I never felt I was hunting for “wildlife management”. I never picked up my rifle and said “Well, I am off to do my duty for wildlife management by killing an animal”.
I never did hunt for “trophies”. Whatever one describes that as.
I didn’t even consider my “milenias old roots”, though I occasionally did use one of my grandfather’s rifles, now 100 years old.
I guess I hunted just because I did. At first, killing was thrilling, then anti-climactic, then distasteful. Then you begin to wonder why you are doing it.
After pursuing elk for 7 years in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, I got an easy shot at a 6 point bull and passed. If he could elude me for that long, what business did I have to kill him and hang his head where people who had never experienced his world could look at him…..not in his magnificence, but in an artificially posed mount, supported by premolded Styrofoam. Would I have gained anything from the experience? Who would gain? Who would be better off had I ended the animal’s life?
I began to look at hunting differently. It certainly isn’t needed by anyone or anything…….most animals are not hunted at all, and do just fine. Hunters continually harp on deer overpopulation…..but deer make up less than 2% of what they kill. And there are now alternatives to hunting deer.
In November 1989, I was shot by a deer hunter, while on my own property. The irresponsible hunter left me for dead, and my twelve year old son loaded me in a truck and drove me 40 miles to a hospital. That didn’t dampen my enthusiasm, though, and is not the reason I quit, but it did give me a solid taste of what the animals endure.
I guess I just started to understand that the animal I was looking at through a scope was not just a target, but a living thing. A thing that suffered when shot, a thing that I had no right to kill, though I had the privilege to do so, by virtue of paying another person a fee for a license. Think about that. The animal is minding his own business when you go into a store, pay a fee and walk out with a license to kill the animal, what a deal.
I shot the last animal that will ever fall to my gun in November 1992. I hunted until January, 1997.
In five years, I discovered I could love the outdoors, and it’s experiences, which I still dearly enjoy, without killing. The guns stay at home when I take to the field now, though I keep the rust off them by frequent trips to the range to break clay targets or make little groups of holes in paper, and I have turned more to shooting competition for satisfaction and achievement.
Is hunting worse than factory farms? No. Does that make hunting right? No.
Am I responsible for the death of animals, even though I am a vegetarian, don’t use leather or fur? Sure. One only need observe the bugs on my truck grill to see that. But I have decided to minimize my impact on animals and work to help them, rather than kill them.
I have a lot of making up to do.
This man begins his letter with one of the basic reasons by which we sanitize violence in our society, we teach it to our children. He started to hunt mostly because both his father and grandfather hunted, and he was in the process of teaching it to his son. This family passed on a disregard of pain and suffering from generation to generation.
The true danger, the overpowering danger of what we are doing is expressed by this man when he says, “killing was thrilling”.
When will we stop shooting ourselves in the foot? When will we come to the realization that when we feel a “thrill” in the killing of one being, it isn’t far from feeling a thrill in the killing of any being.
But this man didn’t fully suppress the feelings of love and compassion that God has given to all of us. As he says, “At first, killing was thrilling, then anti-climactic, then distasteful. Then you begin to wonder why you are doing it.” He woke up to the harm he was doing.
Nevertheless, at least as of the date that he wrote this letter, he hadn’t come to realize that he is still promoting the use of instruments of violence. But, as he says, “I have a lot of making up to do.” He is beginning to make a difference. This is something we all need to do.
Go on to: CHURCH VIOLENCE: Is the Term “Christian Bullfighter” an Oxymoron? Return to: Shooting Ourselves in the Foot
