I don’t want this to be a political post. You guys may or may not know that in some areas I’m very conservative and other areas I’m very liberal and on most things I fall in a jagged line of middle ground. But recently, I’ve been thinking more and more about guns and some of the strange things I’ve heard lobbed my direction since becoming more active in Social Media.
I’ll be the first to admit, I grew up in California as a child, and gun ownership = gang members in my mind. And I watched Bambi in theatres and cried at those mean men with guns. I’ve come a long way since then.
So my children are growing up very differently from the way I did.
A couple years ago, I tweeted that my husband got a deer hunting that morning and I felt blessed to have that extra food. The response I got via private DM?
“If my husband were so cruel and heartless as to shoot poor innocent animals I wouldn’t be stupid enough to brag about it.”
Really? REALLY!? Let me explain a few things about guns, hunting, and life in the country.
Hunters are not Monsters
Do you think that somehow my husband enjoys killing animals? Nothing could be further from the truth. It gives him no pleasure whatsoever, but he’s glad to do it to feed his family. That year in particular was extremely tight, and by extremely tight I mean there were weeks we didn’t drive to church because then he wouldn’t have gas to make it to work before payday. So that year particularly, we needed every advantage we could get.
For example, the ability for our family to put organic, grass-fed, naturally lean meat in the freezer for $.19 per pound? Yes, please. Fill the freezer up with that. A full-grown white tail will dress out about 100 pounds of meat, give or take. And we process and grind it ourselves at the ranch. So the only cost is his tag and license and the cost of the one or two bullets it takes to drop the deer. If he does his job right, one shot.
Wildlife Populations Need to be Controlled
The other thing “city folk” may not understand about wildlife populations is that they fluctuate a great deal, and hunters help control overpopulated areas. Overpopulation leads to disease, dangerous road conditions, and starvation amongst the herds. Have you ever had a friend contract Lyme disease from a deer tick? I have and it isn’t pretty.
Have you ever seen a motorist killed by a deer crossing the road because the population was so high it was a veritable game of frogger out there? *raises hand* I have, and those four kids miss their mother tremendously. Hunting is a win/win situation when done the right way.
Hunting Comes With Responsibility
I’ll be the first to admit that it isn’t always done correctly. I was at a gas station during hunting season and heard an uneducated hunter bragging about “taking a sound shot.” Do you know what that is? That’s when you hear something moving in the woods and shoot at it. You know what I did? I set him straight really blasted quick about why that was completely inexcusable. I’m confident he won’t forget that day for a long time.
Hunting, as with all aspects of gun ownership, is something that should be approached soberly, wisely and with good judgement. It means being responsible with the outcome of your actions as well…shooting only for horns leaving the meat to rot? Despicable. No real man is willing to kill another creature for a “trophy” to hang on the wall.
Taking a shot you know you can’t make? Shameful! How dare you risk harming and maiming a creature who will only suffer slowly in agony and fear until it dies maybe days later. Deer aren’t easy to kill, and the worst possible thing you could do, in my opinion, is shoot it but not kill it. If you don’t know what you’re doing, find someone who does and be willing to learn. Or better yet, stay out of the woods.
But don’t try to tell me that I should be ashamed of serving food to my family. The best possible quality meat you can get, killed in one of the most humane fashions possible. Want to know what’s really cruel? Chicken farms. THAT is cruel and truly a torture to “poor innocent animals”. Because yeah – the woman who DM’d me that message confirmed she is not a vegan but buys her meat in the store where animals are killed humanely. Proof which one of us is ignorant.
This truck carried live chickens from the farm to the slaughter house. I rode behind it for several miles and it was clear that many chickens had already died. These are the humane conditions for commercially raised meat in the United States.
It is a lot easier to eat meat when you don’t have to think about what you are contributing to isn’t it? The fact of the matter is, knowing what we know about how animals are treated in commercial meat processing is the main reason why 90% of our meat we process ourselves.
Raise it, buy it locally, or yes, hunt it. It’s better for us. Better for the environment. And better for the animals.
Very well said Angela. A actually agree with everything you wrote and that DM you received is just laughable at how uneducated they really are & awfully arrogant of them.
You are spot on! My husband hunts and we have two freezers filled with wild game meat and a steer we purchased from a local farmer (we actually picked it out as a calf and helped pay to feed it and house it on the farm). When the recession hit and he didn’t work for over a year – we ate. When he fills our freezer he then uses a farmer’s deer tags to get more for locals in need of meat for their families. It has nothing to do with ‘loving to kill animals’ but everything to do with taking care of your family. A responsible hunter will do just as you described: make as clean a shot as possible, field dress responsibly, check in at the appropriate location, practice safe hunting techniques to ensure the safety of other hunters, and more.
For the many ‘city people’ that are truly ignorant and believe that what they purchase at the grocery store got there by humane practices – I believe it is people like you and me that can help educate them. And if they insist on remaining ignorant, we can be calm with the knowledge that should grocery prices escalate so that eating meat is not in the budget – we will have a steady supply for our families. The thought of going hungry is enough to make me thankful for my husband’s hunting skills.
I have lots of friends who live in the city who live int he city and are not ignorant of the truth. Or judgemental towards my family and our options for food. But there are some (city and rural alike) who are so clueless that they make assumptions based on a single factor (in this case “we hunt”) that are completely off base.
And yes – I never worry for lack of food. Ever. My husband would always find a way to provide for us.
Well done – I grew up in a family of hunters and actually learned to shoot at 11. Do I want that for my kids? Not necessarily – we don’t live in the country like I did as a child, but my respect for firearms and what they could do? Most definitely. Hunting is as old as time and necessary for many reasons – survival and population control are 2. It’s a sport for a lot of people – and if done well – licensed, safe and 1 man against one animal – I see no real harm. It’s not my chosen sport – my heart is too soft.
What we need are stronger and smarter gun control laws. And that has nothing to do with hunters or hunting. =)
Hillary
Hillary,
The gun-specific rant will follow next week. 🙂
I think the thing I appreciate most about hunting for my kids from their perspective is that I do not worry my 7 year old will pick up a gun at a friends house and accidentally shoot someone the way you read about kids doing sometimes. He KNOWS what guns are capable of doing because he’s seen it first hand and has that respect for the gun as a potential killer instead of only as “a game” or toy.
I cannot childproof the world – especially as my kids get older and are doing more and more away from my immediately line-of-sight. But I CAN gunproof my child.
Angela <><
We need to be cautious of gun control laws because licensing is the first step towards taking guns away – and that IS coming. Hunting deer with a bow is much more difficult and many who can feed their families with a rifle may not be able to do so with a bow. And I don’t know that you can hunt dove or any other bird without a rifle or shotgun.
When ARE we going to realize laws and government can NOT keep us safe? If laws worked there would be no crime. Since there is, we know laws do NOT stop crime. Fees, licenses and inspections don’t keep us safe – they just keep out competition from small businesses and individuals. We need to stop relying on others to determine what is safe for us to eat!
Excellent post, Angela. You make very good points, and I am so glad you brought up the chickens from factory farms. We don’t have a farm as you do, but we try to buy our meat from local farms who raise their animals humanely and sustainably. I think that many people are so far removed from where their food comes from that they don’t realize how inconsistent they are.
I don’t think that you could have said this any better than you did. People who are so hateful to hunters are often the same people who buy their meat at the grocery and don’t care WHERE it came from or HOW it was killed.
I don’t mind someone saying – that’s not for me. I do mind someone saying I should be ashamed of my husband feeding his family.
great post, ang.
Great Post I grew up close to the city in a hunting family. My father took it upon himself to teach a respect for guns and teach many of my brothers friends turning them all into life long hunters. (many of these men are now police respecting guns and the law) My father always told us how to handle guns and they were kept in very strong safe safe. Respect, was what we learned.
As an adult I married a man who hunts. We do not keep guns in our house, they are kept when he hunts. If our son or daughter is interested they will be taught respect for wild life. I would love to have a more wild meat in my freezer but my husband does not get out as much as he would like, not alot of land near us, plus he is always on the search for the illusive perfect buck.
There is a difference between hunt and have respect for a gun and someone who uses for violence against humans. Automatic guns are not used for hunting.. stricter laws
Well said! I used to hunt with my brothers. We also raised much of our own meat on the farm. Learning to harvest the meat we ate, and do it humanely were some of our biggest lessons. Letting an animal suffer was not an option. If one of the boys missed a deer while hunting he’d often spend hours tracking it, looking for signs of blood or injury to make sure he hadn’t left an animal wounded.
I’ve seen the chicken farms and the cattle lots. I don’t like them one bit. Poor animals don’t even have space to move about. And did you know that cows fed nothing but grain HAVE to be slaughtered within a certain amount of months or they’ll die of toxins?
My husband is a hunter and it’s a majority of the meat we eat. I didn’t as a child, had the whole Bambi thing going and all that. Over the years, I became more ok with it as long as the purpose behind the hunt was right.
We kill 6-7 a year for our family of 5 now. We share with friends and family in a time when our money is tight at times. When our world fell apart 2 years ago and we had no money for meat (we barely had money for basics), we had deer meat to eat. And generous family who read between the lines and “had extras” they just “dropped by.”
It’s not all what you see on TV with the cameras, the expensive equipment and the big bucks. In fact, the best deer isn’t a buck. It’s a doe. Many hunters are people just feeding their family as their food bills rise higher and higher and their paycheck gets smaller and smaller.
Carrie – my husband prefers young bucks or large does because the meat is a much better quality. I agree – it’s definitely not like on TV shows! He prefers, in fact, his Black Powder rifle or .22. He doesn’t even use a tree stand most of the time.
Good to see you have wise family, Carrie. I encourage everyone to “read between the lines” and share food. There are great ways to do that without making those you wish to gift feel uncomfortable or “less than”:
1) My chickens are laying so many eggs you would be doing me a favor if you’d accept some.
2) I just came from the Farmer’s Market and got a great deal on more than I can eat. Please let me give you some of these.
3) We have more meat in the freezer than we can eat so I’d like you to have some for your kids because it is way healthier than what you can buy in the store.
4) I made a huge pot of home-made turkey soup and put it in canning jars. It is just the thing for getting over the flu / healing up from injuries. Here are a couple for you.
5) My garden is overproducing and I don’t want anything to go to waste. Would you care for some tomatoes, okra, squash, zucchini, etc.
6) They had a great sale at my favorite store so I stocked up, but I realized I over did it and have more than I can store. I’d love to share this with you.
7) I was baking bread / cookies / cakes /pies and thought about how important you are to me so I wanted to bring you something to show my appreciation.
Even people who are very proud or don’t want to admit they need anything will accept gifts when presented from a pure heart so that they are doing you a favor.
(oh, and we do our own too….right in my kitchen…where I know who handles it and how it was put up) 🙂
Angela,
Having grown in up in CAlifornia i had kind of the same thoughts you did about hunting. In fact if you get to certain parts outside the cities, the grocery store magazine racks are lined with hunting and fishing mags. Until I read this I kind of thought people go out and just shoot animals for fun, which I I don’t think highly of. But, when you explain it the way you do, it makes plenty of sense. I think you’ve shown a different side to a story that generally gets spun in a different way
You are 100% spot on with this post. I don’t hunt, and no on in my immediate family hunts, but when I lived in the country, I was not above trading some produce in the summer for the promise of venison in the fall. I never got stiffed…not once. Country folk are honest, and if they promise you something, they will do everything in their power to get it to you. I gave someone chickens once for a promise, and he came to me hat in hand, offering to pay for the chickens because he hadn’t been able to bag enough deer to give any away. He needed it all for his family. Know what I did? I told him to come in, and I gave him a bunch of frozen vegetables I was going to give to my mother, who didn’t really need them. The next year, he showed up on my back door step with two huge venison roasts, and a beautiful necklace his wife had made from shed deer antlers found in the woods. Hunting for food is a tradition that goes back to ancient times. There is absolutely no shame in it. It’s the most American thing you can do. The next time someone says something like that to you, ask them if they think they would be here if their forefathers hadn’t hunted for food. I surely wouldn’t. My ancestors came here when it was wild and unsettled land, and although they were mostly farmers, they were also hunters. I have proud accounts of their hunting and providing food for themselves and their extended families. Screw the people who think it’s wrong….just screw them! When there is some horrible disaster and hunting is the only way to get meat, we will just let them eat weeds!
That’s a really interesting story. What an amazing thing that he remembered his promise years later and brought you the big roasts.
Thank you for that beautiful story, Deborah. THAT is what I mean when I encourage people to rebuild communities of people who do what needs doing and share abundantly.
People change when lead by example. They WILL do the right thing when someone SHOWS THEM what the right thing is by doing it first. Here is an example:
I walked into the little local bar which was the only place to eat near my ranch at that time. It was really cold outside – and inside – and a little neighbor boy wasn’t even wearing a coat – not even a sweatshirt or a sweater – only a thin shirt. He was obviously really cold. I asked him why he wasn’t wearing a coat to stay warm and he said he couldn’t get into his any more and held his arms as far back as he could put them to illustrate that his coat was so tiny he couldn’t even get his arms into it.
His Mom had tears in her eyes. She took in sewing to provide for him until her vision got so bad she couldn’t sew any more and she was too unhealthy to clean houses or do other physical labor and her brother wasn’t much help as he drank too much and worked too little.
The next day I drove by the Good Will and they had a big sign on the door: Bag Sale. I asked “what’s a bag sale”? They said as much as you can put in this bag for $10 I think it was. They didn’t have a coat but I found a down vest, and sweaters and sweatshirts and flannel shirts and pants. I filled up three or four bags and took them to her house where the wind whistled through the walls and it was as cold inside as outside.
She was overjoyed for him but tried to refuse because she had no way to pay me back. I told him I could easily afford it and the clothes were for him. I was just sorry they didn’t have a coat but I’d look elsewhere for one. I asked if there was anything else he had always wanted to have but she couldn’t get for him.
Her biggest wish was to someday buy him a pair of cowboy boots. We lived in feeder cattle country and ALL the kids wore boots but he had never had any. I took a bag and a pair of his tennis shoes and drew an outline of those shoes.
The very next weekend they had a sidewalk sale at the local western wear store and there was ONE pair of really good quality boots in among all the cheap junk. They exactly matched the drawing I had in my pocket. That is how God works. They were a whole $20. 🙂
I took them to her house and told her that she was to tell him they were from her. She didn’t want to take them because she couldn’t pay for them. I told her I didn’t want her to pay for them and reminded her that I had a job and it was a little bit of money for me – and that God sent them to her for her to be able to give him what he always wanted.
That night I stopped by the little bar and he was in there showing everyone his new boots his Momma got for him. He was so happy. And he told them I brought him new jeans and shirts and a vest and he had never seen so many clothes all at one time.
I made sure everyone knew that she had not asked for anything for herself or for him – that I had INSISTED that she take the clothes because she did all she could and I was able to help. (The boots were our secret, but no one asked how she bought them.)
Over the next few weeks he suddenly had a belt and a hat and a coat because other neighbors who had known them all their lives realized that she had never asked anyone for anything and had no way to provide even these few things for her son.
Different people gave him different things and I never heard who as they didn’t crow about it. They just saw they could make a difference – so they did.
Bravo. My uncle was just telling me a story about how he missed and grazed a deer and spent HOURS tracking it to so it wouldn’t suffer. He had tears in his eyes. Hunters are among the most compassionate people I’ve met.
Hunting for food I support; hunting for trophies I do not support.
This post tugs on my mind. It’s the eternal debate. Am I vegetarian? No. Am I vegan? No. If I had to kill my own meat, I’d certainly become one. I am not capable of killing another animal but I’ll eat them. I don’t even feel mentally tortured by it. I just choose not to think about where my food comes from.
It’s wrong, I know. And I absolutely agree that hunting animals for food is a necessity. Yes, it helps control the animal population. Yes, it puts food on the table. I can’t argue with that. I can only say that I’m appreciative that some people approach hunting the way your husband does. As a sport, it sickens me. As a provider of food, it’s a necessity and to do it as humanely as possible is all I can ask.
And by the way, I can totally see you giving that guy at the gas station a what for 🙂
Oh girl I TOTALLY did. I’m pretty sure part of the rant included asking him if he was going to support me and my children when he killed my husband because he was acting like a complete and utter moron. I asked him if he drove his car with his eyes closed. etc, etc. I promise you, he still remembers our little conversation. 😉
I used to say I could never do that. But now I know that I could if I had to. I’m just glad I don’t have to. Thankfully Sidney does that for me. We now hunt/raise 90% of all our meat…seafood being the only exception. It makes such a difference to our budget to have the buffer from spikes in the market. It makes such a difference to my confidence when I read something like hte recent recall of 30,000 pounds of tainted ground beef from earlier this month. I just click away and say – that doesn’t apply to me. I KNOW where my food came from.
Thanks for reading – I know it’s not your typical cup of tea. Your open-mindedness means I’ll probably never write a rant in response to a silly tweet you DM me. hehehehehe
Thank you. We have been conditioned to see all animals as pets. I am guilty of not wanting to personally shoot Bambie myself.
BUT that said, hunted food is often healthier because of what they eat and are not exposed to or injected with and not hunting deer causes overcrowding, reduced size, and eventually loss by disease.
Anyone can see that clearly by going to an area where deer are protected – like Fairfield, Texas where they jump inside the Big Brown Electrical generating plant fence during hunting season. There are huge numbers of tiny deer there.
We need to return to natural practices: growing food locally (or buying it from someone who does), hunting and fishing. We need to know our food is safe to consume – and contrary to media conditioning – locally grown, raised, hunted or fished is SAFER than factory packaged.
I linked the name field to my Food Rights post that has tons of information about all the things we’ve been conditioned to believe about what is health to eat that is just plain wrong. I hope you and your readers will check that out – and the many pages it links to because that post got so long I had to split it up.
I grew up with a hunter for a Dad – and then I married a man that my Dad took under his wing. This whole post is dead on (no pun intended!).
Good for you for standing up!
Love this!