I don't understand hunting. I used to detest the thought of it when I was little, and then during the past several years I started to come around to the idea. It wasn't for me, sure, but I started to accept the fact that maybe it was ok. Now I've sort of gone back to just detesting it. I watched a show with Rachel on TV late last night. It showed this family of hunters taking their little girl out to shoot things. She was so bubbly and excited after shooting a doe and then a bobcat, that it made me just sick. Why? I don't exactly understand why. But I have some thoughts.
First off, the hunters on this show set up some kind of a camoflauged box/lodge in the middle of the forest with little slits in the side to stick your gun out of. It was big enough to fit a father and his daughter comfortably. They sat in this lodge with a camera and a heater and light and food and drinks and binoculars and stuff and just waited. The girl sat there with this mounted gun pointing out the side, playing a pink gameboy and occassionally looking out the slit to see if there were any animals walking by. Then when one did, she shot it, fairly casually.
They showed the doe getting shot by the girl, and the girl was squealing with delight. The doe tried to bound away in terror, but it soon realized it couldn't and collapsed in its own blood and gore. All the while they played this victory music in the background. It sounded like license-free stock footage music they found online. They kept showing shots of the little girl screeching and smiling. They were doing that because they thought it was really cute, I reckon.
Then they did it again, but this time she shot a young bobcat who happened to be walking by.
What's the appeal in sitting in a box and pointing a gun at an animal, shooting it, and watching it die? They clearly weren't in any need of food or deerskins. I know they weren't planning on eating the bobcat, either. These were rich white suburbanites from Texas or some place that has an accent. I could maybe, just maybe, justify it mentally by thinking of hunting as a "sport"-- but where's the sport in sitting around and waiting for an animal to shoot? Animals versus humans; it's not an equal match-up to begin with what with our superior brains and problem-solving skills. Then again, animals do have speed, strength, superior hearing, etc. I can dig going into the forest with some weapon you built yourself, perhaps a bow or a knife or sword or something, and tracking an animal stealithy, then dispatching it alone. I won't say that it's morally right to kill for fun, but I could appreciate it as a sport if it were done that way.
But how can just shooting an animal be considered a sport? It's like watching a football game between the New York Giants and a severly retarded 4-year-old with no arms who's confined to a motorized wheelchair. Maybe a hunter doesn't sit in a tree or lodge or campsite and shoot stuff. Maybe he walks or drives around looking for things to kill. To me, it's still stupid because he's got a gun, which is a complex piece of machinery that no animal has any defense against whatsoever.
Really, though, it's not how the hunting is done that bothers me so much. It's the intent behind the hunting. The intent isn't for food or clothing or whatever the animals provide. The intent is fun. It's just a fun thing for hunters to do; to kill stuff. I have heard numerous accounts from my students in their essays about the thrill and the rush of shooting a deer and watching it fall. It's exciting, it's an adrenaline rush, but it's all a joke. You wouldn't sneak into a man's home, use special technology that makes you invisible to him, and murder him for no reason other than for the sake of proving to yourself that you can do it.
I'm not saying killing an animal has the same moral weight as murdering a human. But I'm a Christian, and I know that most hunters where I live are Christian, and this is why the phenomenon of hunting baffles me even more. In the Bible God says to Noah, in reference to animals, "Surely, blood shall not be shed, only for meat, to save your lives; and the blood of every beast will I require at your hands." Now of course maybe you take that to mean something else, or you translate it differently from the Hebrew or something. But I think the message of the scriptures and of Christianty preaches a reverence for life, overall. This is not exclusive to Christianity, of course, because I know Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism, to name a few, all believe in a reverence for all life.
When I saw that little girl shoot that bobcat and then start laughing, it just felt wrong to me. Little kids are supposed to be curious about and/or love animals. Watching an animal die in front of you, especially as a kid, I believe, is naturally shocking. I remember watching a cat get hurt when I was in 1st grade, and I felt like crying. It's true that children will sometimes hurt bugs or other animals unknowingly, but once you start to understand the concept of empathy in your youth, you don't want to intentionally hurt things. That's what separates the normal people from the psychopaths. Numbing that sensitivity takes time, and is a learned state. It's taught by hunter parents to hunter children.
I don't know if these people know any better, but they should. They do it as family bonding time, so the killing gets psychologically associated with warm, happy feelings in the children for life. Killing things for fun and excitement does not sensitize people to life. It's not a video game; this is the real thing. If you are going to get your jollies off of killing animals, at least do it in a more honorable way. Sitting in an effing tree and blasting whatever happens your way is about as honorable as a punch in the crotch (of nature).
