Huntress and Wildlife: The Milky Way.

Remember this: Everything is star dust.

It was reported over the previous two nights there would be a rampant meteor shower like no other. Last night I gazed out the window but no luck. Tonight on my way out the door I saw one of the last meteors to soar across the heaven above my house. I told my son that I had seen a shooting star. I should have made a wish. Maybe I can say a silent one now.  

Usually during the summer the one space anomaly I see nightly is the Milky Way. It hangs in massive size like a great eye watching the inner world. It has been woven into many a cosmological myth. Its glowing light looks like the fabric of the universe is tearing in two to let our Earthly plane leak out. There you stand unmoved but gawking at it for quite a while but the idea that many people do not see this celestial dance is even more worrisome.

I was either reading or watching a show on black holes. The information I was receiving was the concept that the Milky Way was a galaxy with a series of compressed black holes with a competing space in-between where the stars visually display its ‘squishedness’. These compressions formed that nice line of stars that we see in the Eastern sky at certain times of the year. I wasn’t reaching for becoming a Milky Way expert but I am sure there are other more accurate accounts of this. I will leave that to you for I am not doing a scientific commentary.

The one fact that struck me was as a viewer from Earth with our human eyes, we are gazing upon that glowing streak of stars from inside the galaxy of the Milky Way. We are not passing by it as outside viewers. As a part of a cosmos, if this fact cannot strike awe and wonder in your heart then you are a person detached from the reality of the universe and its effect on you.  We move throughout our daily lives taking for granted all the wonders around us. On some accounts we are tearing them apart for more useful or gainful employ.

What can the Milky Way illustrate to us in the realm of hunting?

I thought how a huntress and the game she chases are like the Milky Way. The black holes represent civilization, populations, space competition, industry, development and government. The galaxy of the Milky Way contains all those things that are viable creatures moving through some great mysterious composition: one chess piece at a time. The huntress and the game she oversees partake of a life of compression. With this life of compression there is always an amount of instability. The hunter feels this as well.

The space for wildlife and the huntress is not expanding exponentially. The space the huntress has to work with is ever shortening. The space the wildlife has to live and thrive on is becoming less. Both are compressed to allocated landscapes and are required to maintain a certain level of existence under the close scrutiny of government and populations living in developed areas. These developed areas discourage wildlife habitation. Developed areas also discourage the person that hunts by only allowing the endeavor of hunting to be performed in areas where wildlife have been pushed or contained. Yes, I stated the word ‘contained’.

Recently I have seen this with gardening. There are places that do not want people to garden in the front yard because it is not pleasing to the eye even if you are growing food to feed yourself. It’s more important how things are perceived on the outside of a property but someone else is making your decisions for you and enforcing them by way of the ‘law’.

To interject another story from the local news about coyotes becoming a nuisance in town the article dwells more on the new regulation being passed in town that require the weeds in a patron’s yard be no more than X amount of inches high. The penalty is a $250 fine. This lead me to believe it was more important to contain the weeds instead of the coyotes. Priorities crooked?

Boundaries and legalities harass us all. No one can really just walk anywhere unless it is down a street uptown. Even there the glowing signs of walk-don’t walk glare at us in a menacing fashion. If you go out to the country to walk around it better be on public land or you’ll have a landowner pointing a gun at you or confronting you for trespassing on his property lost or not.

I recently saw a conversation about a huntress walking in a public area but became agitated by strangers because they felt she and her hounds should be subdued for their natural inclinations. This is the kind of compression I am talking about.  I see women who hunt having to defend their natural inclinations to reach back into old times and walk with the mother but instead are pressured by outside forces to go against their nature. This is not about empowerment. It’s about being your most authentic and natural self-down to your marrow bone.  Being me, I would tell you to raise up and fight that like a bit someone is trying to slide into your mouth then break you out before the saddle goes on. That is just me though; wild as Hogey’s Hant.

It’s the idea of invasion of space and the ability to feel free and act accordingly. I would think it is especially oppressing when you are given the legal go ahead to do what you desire without repercussion but some people constantly feel they are an army of one with no real authority to act or even say anything. Sometimes I want to ask people like that who elected you the captain of my pirate ship. Out would come the plank, gun with one bullet and park that boat by the nearest oceanic sandbar for them to fend for themselves the best way they could.

The thing about invasion of relocated space is you can drive them right out or move along. Depends on whether or not you are the sole owner of that space or just visiting.

If you thought of it in those terms there are always fences around where you hunt even if you don’t see them physically. 

The huntress or hunter is no freer than the wildlife roaming on fifty acres of land where before it was 35,000 acres or more. Both are in a contained invisible boundary.

Even though this boundary can give the huntress and wild game some room to breathe the amount of distance given the area the drama plays out foreshortens the experience to an ever briefer moment. What would happen if finally the compression leads to a complete eradication of hunting? Or wildlife existence in a given landscape? How would the huntress cope if she were no longer able to act out a natural born inherent desire to act as a predator would?

Human habitation is growing in the perpendicular direction. People live horizontally above the ground in manmade structures that eventually are abandoned for different reasons. These structures are not removed to rebuild habitat. People also live vertically in an upward fashion in high rise buildings or apartments. People are even digging into the ground to make homes. The more the population of man grows the more it has to be accommodated for.

If the known universe is expanding while at the same time certain parts are living under a considerable compressed existence then eventually something will have to give. That compressed space will become thinner to the point of rupture or decimation. The glowing light from that galaxy's center spreads something  out in the universe in retaliation that will change and cause it to expand itself inflicting a form of compression on its surroundings.

If it is true, for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction, the hope still remains. Whether or not the role of wildlife and the huntress is one of compressed inevitability or there exists a chance the drama of the huntress slowly pushes back and expands to further the distance of her cosmological existence is something to meditate on.

Written by: W Harley Bloodworth

 ~Courtesy of the AOFH~

Feminism and Hunting: The Discerning Huntress

Remember this: Sometimes a person or group can call something by a defining label. Seek for yourself the definition of that group's concept before assimilating the message it holds as a part of your mystique. This message could start out clear, but become less clear, pointedly destructive, or misleading. It is not unknown for members in a group to branch off and distort the true goals and objectives for selfish, emotional, manipulative reasons. We, as people, must take care at all times.

For a while, I have seen commentary on women's invading role in the sport of Hunting. Even though my research on this topic is incomplete it does help me build certain viewpoints or perspectives on the subject; spectrums are like that.

As a point of interest, I perused a somewhat popular social page for relevant information to make some of my assessments. I will not divulge the name because it is not my intent to ruin the work the administrators of that page have generated. This page, I assumed, had a target audience geared toward manly men with a hint of class, style and elegance not teenage boys with raging hormones. Even though at times, I wondered if a teenager with raging hormones was at the helm.

Occasionally, I saw comments toward feminists. I could only imagine this was for that group tagged as extreme. What these said feminists brought to light, in a not so subtle way, was the true nature of the page administrators or their real beliefs towards women in the sport. I will note some of the feminists were huntresses. Family people sickened by the lack of consideration to their viewership and spoke up. The concepts being posted were at times confusing for the viewer. One post might have been a woman holding a gun attired with a bikini. The next day, there might be a post of a woman doing non-hunting activity but proclaimed as a mother, wife, huntress, etc. Yet again, a photo posted of women holding guns.

Granted photos can be misleading. Just because it looks like something doesn’t mean it is so. The photo is put there as a suggestion and leaves it up to the viewer to fill in the blanks without concrete facts.

That is the travesty of thinking someone is a person with unquestionable public standing. What they are conveying to you may not be a truth, only a misleading idea. Bad people build excellent reputations all the time with an appropriate facade. Not that I am saying this page was that way, but it is an idea to keep in mind.

Those objectified posts were far and in between but mostly the post of objectified women as sexual objects were more than available. Every once in a while, you would have an administrator make comments about the photos then the postings would change as would the viewership. I noticed the number at the top of the page for subscribers. There were 57,000 as a number but on days when it was strictly about hunting, regardless of gender, the numbers were around 25,000 viewers.

On days where there was what seemed to me a different administrator with posts geared toward objectified women, the number of viewers went down by 10,000. I watched this over several days and did much research on the affect negative posts had influenced viewership with rotating administrators.

Otherwise, I watched a page that I truly enjoyed become one that made me feel like I should avoid it and go elsewhere. I thought in terms of the page being a business or a platform for public relations, or product advertising. The idea, if you put it into terms of money, was on days women in objectified posts were put up viewership decreased. Those would be the days the business would lose money as women are consumers. Women are also avenues of word of mouth for a business.

Not having consideration for the female consumer would be damaging. How negligible this effect would have on sites where hunting was a topic but women were discouraged, would be up debate. That would lead me to believe that even though there were loyal viewers they tended not to take part in such posts. My other question was: if these viewers were women, what long term effect would it have on this page I considered wonderful at one time?

My disappointment deepened.

Even though my activities did seem like a strange sort of market analysis, things that can ruin a website or page, it was enlightening. One reason for this scrutiny was not to tear apart a page on the internet. In truth, I was reading a book I had checked out from the library about building a better website. I merely applied the rules the author provided inside on a known page to confirm the author was pretty spot on. The question asked specifically was: if you were the viewer perusing a page, what would drive you off?

With that I can say, if women are enjoying a page based on hunting but posts are put up that would discourage their partaking of the social aspect of it, then it is not geared towards all hunters united. There is always an exclusionary clause to these activities that is hidden amongst the fine print.

As to men that hunt and their view of huntresses, there are double standards everywhere. Women can view a hunting page but not comment or say something bothers them. Women can hunt but should not compete with men directly for an audience. Women can hunt but only in the term of a follower and not a leader. Women can morph into the hunting societies elite only if they have all the trappings and maintain a respectable distance as a viewer, not a participant. That is limited to how serious people treat you. Somehow, you made another person an expert and you had to convince  them of your relevance.

It made me wonder as a woman who hunts, why can’t I just be me? Why do I see the suggestion, to be considered relevant or acceptable, people have to live a certain lifestyle to be amongst other hunters? Why do I have to fit in with them? Why cannot they fit in with me? It was a funny set of questions.

WHY MUST I CONFORM TO SUIT SOMEONE ELSE?

I can see where people would feel they were applying for some fabulous job, only to find out the boss really is a beast.

I say when you have women that advertise themselves as an extreme huntress, you will find a person that has been limited at some time by this very ideology. This person will have taken things to extremes to be put in a position where the huntress herself has to fight for meat in a wolf pack.

The idea is to elevate one to a influencing position, where these concerns are no longer a consideration, generates others to seek your acceptance. The negative side to this is there is always someone vying for your spot even if you feel comfortable. After that, she might get respect but men will always hold her separate because of the thought she is not controlled or influenced for very long. Beauty will only get you so far, for so long, after that media is looking for a replacement.

Granted some men like beautiful things but women are not things or objects. Neither are men but women are learning from men as well. They can objectify a man in the blink of an eye or should I say an eye for an eye? This objectifying of men and women causes a chasm between their unities.

Men want women and women want men but the disconnect is so unbearable to watch you have to turn away from its ugliness at times. Of course, to limit my treatise I exclude same sex relationships for other posts.  I do not feel that same-sex relationships are any different than heterosexual relationships.

I also wanted to limit my mulish blinders on the prospect of objectified women. Truth be told, there are women looking to support themselves financially that have no other goal but to buy dinner and pay the rent with those checks. You can't hate an independent woman even if she's not on the band-wagon of feminism. I am sure there are feminists out there that wouldn't give a dollar to these ladies, so every woman for herself I guess.

I thought in terms of what it was to be a feminist. My understanding of feminism was a concept to promote equality of women within the realm of society. As far I as I know it didn't indicate that women were any better than men. It has long been held that even individuals are better at certain tasks than others but that is not so much a gender issue.

First, I would like to take a more magnified look at current feminists from a different perspective.

I really didn’t find a lot of information on feminism in terms of hunting. Hunting is a sport you chose to do that is open to everyone. It’s not like you’re going to the DNR to buy a hunting license and they are going to say no because you are a woman. No one is stopping a woman from hunting her dinner. The only complaint is objectified pictures or maybe not having prominent female role models representing women on the television or the news. I say don’t look at the man porn and move on: some woman is paying the rent off of a stupid man.

I was reading commentary on a young female hunter who wrote from the perspective of feminism as she saw it. Her stance was to be self-sufficient and take the attitude of doing it yourself. When you’re young you think you are a superhero but as you age and your body fails you. You begin to realize you can’t do everything for yourself.

I saw something else.

For a person to be self-sufficient they are living under the pressure to achieve without help from others. That person may also feel they can’t depend on another individual because of past experiences. Disappointment in humans came to mind.  People today are in such competition they no longer help others, for any kind of benefit, because it would take away or horn in on their goals.

People might help you if they see they are going to benefit in some way, other than that they will not bother with you. Hence the death of friendship exists. I question that friendship only exists when a relationship of mutual materialist exchange is present. There is no such thing as friendship anymore, only associations and symbiotic relationships that end eventually.

I also took into consideration the absenteeism of men in the lives of women or vice versa. I am not a man. I can't speak for them only assume or try to construct some explanation.

Women are finding themselves more alone than ever. For every man there is X amount of women. Woman and man are not really looking for the love of their life anymore just people to spend time with for the moment. If they are looking, it is with an inflated sense of what the other person should look and act like.

Could it be women are moving more into what is considered men's territory merely to be with them? To relate? To share?

Biology would explain that. It is in a man and a woman’s hard-wiring to breed. If you considered women posting pictures of themselves in alluring hunting gear to lure men and men post pictures of women in seductive photos, they are merely tell the other what they want. If you are not that perfect ideal do not apply. It's reproduction and sex simply put.

You know someone is serious about you when they don’t think of you in terms of sex all the time. They are geared toward something more meaningful. They are in it for the long haul, not a quick truck-stop fix. Let me say again, men and women are guilty of this.

How is that for equality?

Could the sexes be so far removed that this behavior is more like a symptom to a deeper problem?

It can be looked at from the terms of the 50s housewife sitting at home cooking. She waits for her husband to come home to spend time with her, but he's in the woods. What is she to do? Go to the woods.  It makes perfectly sense. If the story behind that, to make it more believable, is to be equal she can do that by herself. No, that woman wants to be with a man.

It just blows my mind. Men don't get this concept. This could be a reason women want the man to be with them that makes the difference. If a woman gets a whiff of the man just wanting her there for selfish reasons and not honestly wanting to share time with her, you are probably going to have a falling out. Disconnect ensues.

I will also make the statement as individuals, men and women both do have problems with intimacy in relationships at time. Could a man going out to hunt, not want to be intimate in that way with a woman? Does the man only want it limited to a bedroom?

I do take into consideration of family in hunting. I will save that for another commentary.

I have always been fascinated by the concept of at arm’s length and its destructive force in male/female relationships.

To cry feminism is really to project a sense of equality with the goal merely to share the same space with a man and to be with them physically and emotional. Unless the man is violent, women do like feeling secure even when there is no threat. That is our excuse to be with men at times. Not all the time.

Maybe I am incorrect with my assumptions? I do love to speculate.

I can honestly say, I limit things I see online when it comes to hunting. It puts me in a bad mood.

I do see a lot of problems within the hunting community. These problems between people are born from misunderstandings, misconceptions, and a quick unintelligent response in a reactive way that is negative. Think before you react or keep your mouth closed.

When I review what I have wrote, I think in terms of decoys. When you take topics and look at them you begin to see a pattern of decoy-ism. There is an issue that when you look closer, it is not the issue you considered being the main problem. As a huntress or hunter, spotting the decoy in the issues you purport to fight against or support should really be assessed. 

You don’t want to be foolish in the bush chasing a ghostly deer that doesn’t exist.

When you view someone as feminist take a closer look. Listen to them. The true issue may rise to the surface if you are willing to understand another person’s perspective. Who knows? Maybe one day someone will extend that same courtesy to you.

Written by: W Harley Bloodworth

~Courtesy of the AOFH~



Imagining Wildlife Abundance.

Remember this:  Always keep this in mind. We are always competing with wildlife. We are always competing with each other.

I like to compare and contrast.  I also like to read old books because no harm ever came from reading a book. This gives me a better sense of the topics and subtopics I tend to meditate on.  Various points in time especially because you can evaluate the specifically different events on a timeline and see just how much in denial or ‘the dark’ you possibly could be living.

I have recently become enamored with this mental vision of life on the North American continent before immigrants started their Exodus from Europe and other places, even if it was based on general curiosity, greed, religious persecution, or being exiled based on law-breaking.

Most of the books I have been reading are accounts from the 1700s or the 1800s. My readings are filled with articulated journalists that wrote honest non-biased (?) accounts of that particular moment in time.

In the current century, much of these honest commentaries are tossed to the wayside because certain ethnic groups complained competing ethnic group were writing a history for them that wasn’t true. What are people to do? Say we know nothing then make a story/history up for the sake of using another fabrication to uplift a group? A lie is a lie no matter who tells it or for what reason.

You are probably wondering what exactly does this have to do with hunting. If you have done any online observation of the coverage on hunter’s guilt in regards to old timers shooting buffalo or over-killing species to the point of decimation: it’s kind of along those lines.

My curiosity is the amount of game that was actually available because I can’t seem to picture this number in my head based on the reports in old documentation. Really it is mind-blowing when you compare it to recent numbers and the wordage on explaining the current population of species as ‘healthy’.

I was reading an account on the passenger pigeon from Charles Mann’s book, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus.  After reading the passages on the passenger pigeon you could easily visualize a snippet from Alfred Hitchcock’s movie The Birds. In summary it stated how the passenger pigeon was so plentiful the people living at the time would hold hunting parties to kill them and feast.  To quote Mann’s text it is stated, “In Haudenosaunee lore, the birds represented nature’s generosity, a species literally selected by the spirit world to nourish humankind.” (Mann p. 355) Given there could have been some revolving environment or ecological disturbance that made the conditions right for the passenger pigeon to populate in large numbers it does make one think. If the passenger pigeon could grow in number with lack of human habitation encroaching on their environment, what about the other species of huntable animal? 

I read on where it was stated the number of passenger pigeons actually exploded after the immigrants came. I then thought, maybe it was because there were a wider variety of agricultural goods such as whole grains like wheat, barley, oats, and other vegetables. Hence the change in the passenger pigeon diet and the readily available seeds increased the numbers excluding breeding season trends. I looked for accounts of a passenger pigeon ‘mass extinction’. Something to the magnitude of bird littering the ground dead would make even the discerning Pilgrim carving his Thanksgiving turkey take notice. I found none unless my researching skills are lacking or the information is locked away in some weathered disintegrating journal.

The passenger pigeon’s story ends with that bird species becoming extinct. There lingers a very questionable belief that indigenous people and immigrants didn’t hunt them to extinction. The last bird died in 1941. Here you have a huntable bird that went from being bountiful to being a poster child (as is the bison) for generational hunting guilt that happened many years ago.

I was still imagining ‘wilderness abundance’ as it was called. In the ongoing drama of life, where does man stand on the stage of the natural world versus his fellow players?

That place man stands is one of subtle competition even from the employ of managers of limited aspects of Nature. Man cannot control a hurricane or a tornado but man can control X amount of acres and what lives or grows on that acreage.

In times past, indigenous people or immigrants competed for food (both plant and animal) on the natural landscape with wild game. One would have to imagine the Scales of Life. Man hunted wildlife to eat them but lowered the number of competitors for natural growing food. There was also agricultural based food.

Agriculture was in the New World. Corn was one of the main cash crops for ancient man. Indigenous farmers probably practiced the same habit of discouraging wildlife from eating the crops they hoped to store for the winter.

I see this now where farmers will kill off a herd of deer to safeguard their harvest with the mentality that there are deer elsewhere for people to hunt.

With this view of human competition with wildlife for food, because space was not an issue, it would seem how did it play in with my visualization of wildlife abundance?

As to my original obsession with herd numbers I read that the naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton tossed out these estimated numbers:

·         60,000,000 Bison

·         40,000,000 Pronghorn

·         10,000,000 Elk

·         10,000,000 Mule Deer

·         2,000,000 Mountain Sheep

Can you imagine standing on a slope glassing for something respectable to shoot at and seeing that many of one species in one place? How would you feel if you didn’t have to walk around for a whole week, then go home empty handed with no luck, no money, and no meat to eat? Could you imagine what a hunter, from back then, would do or say if he were to come to the present time and have to live the way we do? He would probably have a nervous breakdown and think he was in a hell that didn’t exist yet. What would this hunter of old say if he were forced to watch a hunting show on television?  I can only laugh with the thought he would sit on a rock to cry, then kill himself from disappointment and grief but that is being dramatic.

If a hunter from today went back in time, I am sure they would have to take a diaper. If that hunter saw 40,000,000 pronghorn, he would lose all bodily function and make a mess of himself where he stood.

I watch the Sportsman Channel for one show, otherwise I am not watching. You can surf the channel there to peruse a pronghorn show. I watched one where the hunter sat in an outbuilding near a watering hole. He only saw 2-3 pronghorns but finally killed one returning to drink. How do you think that hunter would feel if he were sitting in his little outhouse with 10,000 pronghorn running around him? That would probably kill the fun of it because you would think which one do I chose. Again you could be thinking, “Oh my God. There are so many I can kill a bushel and a peck. It wouldn’t matter.”

Mann throughout his book, lobbies the fact the early North American continent was a series of manipulated landscapes by indigenous people for the management of wildlife habitat with respect to their mutual benefit. Even though agriculture was somewhat different from European farming, the management of wildlife away from farming locations seemed to be a trend by archaeological data.

Here you might have specific wild game the indigenous people would hunt locally to discourage competition with wild game that would eat their crops. They would kill off local populations and encourage those same populations further away to propagate. Given the concept of space and time, these wildlife populations would not be very far away due to the concern of meat waste, time or effort. When a person is trying to survive you take all aspects into consideration.

I then tried to wrap my mind around the concept of human populations, industry, and civilization.

Everyone knows prior to Columbus and his sailing ship of jollies, other people had indeed traveled to North America. DeSoto and his merry men documents vast amounts of indigenous people, cities, but not vast herds of animals. A different explorer documents large numbers of wild game but no people.

Both spread European diseases. I read in one account that the indigenous people held mass burnings to stop the spread by eliminating the dead body instead of performing ritual burial or rite.

If the indigenous hunter was no longer on the landscape then the prey he chased would explode in mass numbers such as the bison. The concept here is because of much earlier European contact, the spread of disease, and the effect of indigenous death on hunting herds made them increase. When the following wave of immigrants boated over viola: you have epic populations to stand in awe of because there was no one to curtail them.

Comparing the introduction of European agriculture that possibly made the passenger pigeon populations explode, killing off the indigenous culture made other huntable species increase as well. Life is always a delicate balance and you never know what is going to turn the tide or tip the scale. Truly Life does hang in a delicate balance.

Throughout reading the passages the writer reiterates the idea that because of the lack of wild game bone remnants left in indigenous homestead the actually number of specie populations were questionable. Where there really that many? If so where was the evidence?

Back to the concept of human populations, industry, and civilization, hunters look back on these events as reminders on what not to do.

In respect to governmental agencies reporting herd numbers as healthy, if you went by previous herd numbers or observations documented in history you would think current information to be anorexic if not misleading as a positive thing. Given this information is based on space and division of limited numbers across that space with regard to competition.

I also took into consideration how much of the information documented from antiquity could be a good salesmen spreading the word to inspire adventurous travel for the contemplation of making a fortune. If the antiquated adventurer who is really in the business of making money, finds a spot to start a fabulous new life for all at his behest, would he not spin that story with the most positive description he could muster? Later when people show up in droves then have to eat their friends/family on the Donner Pass that would-be instigator is long gone. I have read many accounts of non-descript historical women, who thought they were coming to a new life only to become depressed because it wasn’t what it was made out to be.

In closing, my thoughts linger in my mind on a place that is void of man-made structures, property lines, human ownership and vast landscapes with wildlife inhabiting places yet unburdened by man’s footstep, presence, or influence in number.

Can you imagine that kind of wilderness abundance?

Could North America ever return to that ideal? The lone archaic hunter standing on a slope high above a massive herd wondering where was he going to start and not worrying about his impact in the greater scheme of things.

As I reflect it would be nice to be just a regular person with that same hope.

Written by: Angelia Y Larrimore

~Courtesy of AOFH~

Sources Cited:
Mann, Charles. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. New York, NY: Random House LLC, (2006).pp. 355. Print.

16 Years Old: First Time Shooter Experience.

 

 

Remember this: Opportunity loves opportunity.

This evening I had planned to take a couple of the boys shooting. My son was a little down because he didn’t think his friend Stan would come over but much to his surprise a different friend that lived next door showed up unexpected. His name is Roger as I have introduced him in a previous post. Both of these boys were first time gun shooters, 16 years old and myopic (near-sighted). These boys never experienced recoil before.  My son came to me and asked if we could go shooting. I was right in the middle of working on a project and almost decided against it. I saw a little hope there because I asked my son before which he turned the offer to practice shoot down.

I took my opportunity.

I got the Wingmaster Supermag and a box of shells. We loaded into the truck and headed down to the 100 acre wood. Young boys seem to like riding in the back near the tailgate? I had also stopped to pick up a .22 squirrel gun with a scope and bullets. As we were walking out to the field I went over gun safety verbally. The boys went out to one side of this grassy field and set up four targets in the back and two in the front, evenly space by ten strides based on Roger’s height. Roger is a little over six foot tall and skinny as a rail.

I was standing over by the fence waiting for them to come back. I surveyed the fence which look like someone was trying to keep a dinosaur from Jurassic Park in instead of the deer out. After they cleared the field I scoped the targets to make sure the distance was good for them to be able to accurately focus and hit the dummies. I instructed them to pick separate targets so I could assess whether or not they hit the mark.

I showed them physically the different parts of the .22 rifle, the safety option, how to load the bullets then chamber it. I also explained it was an automatic and didn’t need to be manually loaded after firing but to watch for jamming. I explained body stance. I did not go over holding one’s breath because I wanted them to see the difference when shooting. They wanted to lie on the ground or kneel. I told them no. Stand up and shoot. Besides there were fire ant hills everywhere.

Roger told me he wanted to join the military. I laughed and said, “Son, I am fixing to teach you a life skill.” I doubt right now Roger or Quinton will know just how valuable this little endeavor the three of us were on would mean to them later down the road. Time would tell. I passed Roger the .22 caliber.

Roger was the first to shoot. I allowed them two bullets at first. Quinton shot next with his allowed two bullets. I instructed them to go out to the target and see how they fared. The objective was to hit the target not a certain part of it. Both missed. 

Roger asked me to shoot the gun. I wondered if he thought I was joking. I chose a target and popped a hole in it. I believe I convinced him that I was serious and could show him. I didn't shoot anymore because I was to engrossed in correcting form or giving my observations or corrections.

I then decided it was a good thing to communicate their experience and concerns. Listening was key. I asked Roger what he did before pulling the trigger. He stated he noticed when scoping the cross hairs moved a lot and he seemed to shake away from point. I asked Quinton the same thing. He concurred.  I told them to hold their breath, aim, and pull the trigger without lingering. I let Quinton shoot. I was a little amaze even though he didn’t have his glasses on that he hit the target: twice.  Roger took his turn. He smoked one shot and missed the other. He said it did help to steady his grip on the rifle by taking a calming breath, hold then aim.

I allotted them more shots. With the .22 both boys were less likely to hand the rifle over after shooting. It was less noise and recoil. I had them collect their targets and move to another clearing. I walked back to my truck to get the 12 gauge and box of shells. They were waiting in the field. I could tell both were somewhat intimidated.

I gave Roger the empty gun on safety and had him do several dry runs. My son had practiced this the day before with a tactical gun.

 I asked, “Who is going first?” Roger hid behind my son. I thought 'give him a good healthy shove Angelia'.My son was going to shoot but I told Roger to do it because he was hiding.  I reviewed the shotgun, how to maneuver it, the different tracking swings, safety, and loading/unloading. Sheepishly he took the gun, assumed the position and waited for the flying targets. The first one went back. He looked around for it. I laughed. I told him he had to pay attention to the target and when things looked odd to stand down and not follow or take the shot. I told him he shouldn’t wildly swing the gun around looking for Bugs Bunny like Elmer Fudd does at times. We tried again. He waited for it to be eye level then shot. He missed as he did on the second shot. Quinton was up next. Roger tossed off the target. Quinton shot then missed twice. My son was a little gun crazy for a moment because he wanted to keep shooting. He turned around and said, "That felt good." I laughed. It amazes me how much shooting a gun at a lifeless target can alleviate pent up stress because it focuses your mind away from what is bothering you.

It was getting late and I allotted two shells per teen because I knew they weren’t that great as first timers with their aim. I suggested practicing more with a BB gun or dry runs.

I did notice that when Roger shot the 12 gauge he handed the gun to me. I wondered at this. It was like he wanted to distance himself from it or was the gun making his discomfort unconsciously obvious. Power will do that to someone who is not used to having it in his hands.

We collected all the empty shells and casings, picked up the targets and went to the truck. We cruised down the road to push the golf cart because it was sparking on one of the battery wires. Those two kids gave me a laugh because I was ribbing them about being weak and not being able to push a golf cart long term. Oh they hated it but it was funny.  I told them to eat their Wheaties or do some push-ups. They'd never get a girlfriend without some muscle.

We left in the truck to go check out the 12 acre. I told both boys if they wanted to camp or play airsoft down there they could. As we were leaving out down the dirt road I thought this was the perfect time to ask Roger and Quinton a couple of questions about their experience (being first timers). Most adults don’t ask these questions and if they do the minor will tell them what they want to hear to please them unless they are just blunt kids.  

Remember both are 16 years old.

Roger told me that he had never shot a loaded gun before. He said he was more comfortable shooting the .22. When it came to shooting the Wingmaster he was pre-exposed to stories of recoil and thought the gun would kick him hard or knock him down. Imagery. I think he imagined the gun was like a hand cannon where just as soon as he pulled the trigger he would go flying back like a leaf in the wing. After shooting it, he said the reason he handed it back to me was because he was not use to shooting a shotgun. It was a little intimidating but he got a rush of adrenaline.  Oh first love, how it confuses us all. He was excited and not sure what to do about it. I can only think this is like being a first time driver out on the road by yourself hoping you don’t wreck before you get to your destination on the first go round. The unexpected can do that to you but you have to work through the hesitation in your mind to pass consciously through the barrier to learn there is no barrier there or anything to hold you back. This is what builds confidence and I was working on building two peoples confidence: to which I succeeded.

I asked both did they feel like they had just taken part in an aggressively violent activity?

Both replied that they did not feel that way. As far as Roger’s emotional state he pointed out that he felt less stressed or over-anxious. Quinton agreed but said he wanted to shoot a machine gun. I rolled my eyes. I could tell by the smiles on their faces that they felt like they had moved a little more toward being manly. I then thought it doesn’t occur to adults that sometimes the teenagers don’t lack confidence in themselves but in the adult. They may question the adult’s ability to pass them safely from point A to point B. Some children stand silently by wanting to move forward or engage but being respectful or unsure do not move from the spot unless you've a trained eye that they are frozen with some invisible mental obstacle.

In regards to them feeling manly, I wondered how far that would get me because it was a female doing it. I wondered how adept I was at being a unisex amoeba. Being the male and female to a child is very draining because you’re doing double duty with no one to help you especially when you have no prospects or connections. It is also somewhat of a dubious task to extend your already exhausted self out to teach and instruct children that are not yours biologically. I did ask Roger how he felt that it was not his parents teaching him this for the first time and if it mattered. I think he was taken aback by this question but I felt like it was relevant. I wasn’t asking to boost my ego or make myself feel a little condescending.  I wasn't asking to hurt Roger either. I honestly wanted to know how he felt personally. I have seen this kid just being alone, wondering around if you will.

I asked him how he thought his father would react.

Roger explained to me that his father did indeed hunt but because of his schedule working on the coast did not have time to spend teaching him how to hunt. As he was from the city, learning to do such things was improbable. He was excited he was getting the chance in general regardless of who was demonstrating shooting or offering it. It didn’t matter to him that much as he spent more time with his mother than his father. I could understand this as this was the case with my son.

I asked Roger did he think this would help his relationship with his father.

 He said yes. I told him it probably would help because if his father were too busy then in the meantime Roger could learn to shoot and hunt with no pressure to appease his dad. When the time came they could go hunting together with Roger pre-exposed and taught the safe way to manage a gun. This would make his time with his father more of a bonding experience instead of a learning experience fraught with frustration.  I would be rendering his frustration and lack of knowledge mute by intervening on his part to ensure education would enrich the hunting experiences he was yet to have with his father. I was satisfied with that.

I asked Roger did he think he could see shooting as a once a week activity he would look forward to?

He responded that he felt like he could do it every day.

After questioning Roger I think his answers relieved him even more because he actually thought about the meaningfulness of his first shooting experience. Young kids always like to have their little accomplishments celebrated. To many times milestones are passed by because of time crunches, distracted parents, or just for lack of giving a first time accomplishment any value.  I dug their first .22 bullet leavings out of the dirt along with their first two shells. I told Roger to write the date and where it was done. He needed a memory and so did my son.

As far as my son’s experience I had helped him work through his trauma from childhood by being exposed to the sound of a shotgun going off by his head thanks to my uncle. I wondered if he was ever going to shoot but I tried not to over push the idea and waited it out. With my son, it was his fear of the blast/recoil but once he shot that Wingmaster he didn’t want to give me the gun back.

I did reiterate to the two boys that when they were shooting the idea to focus on yourself and others in relation to the business end of the gun was important. After shooting, the tendency to aim carelessly or without scrutiny was slightly elevated.  They had no problem when actually aiming the gun and pulling the trigger but afterward was when I felt the responsible adult should be vigilante because teenagers at times can be attention deficit due to some kind of ‘disconnect’ to the actual gun. There 'disconnect' is false security because of it being on safety or 'empty'. I told them to always consider it a loaded weapon.

 After I was satisfied by the question and answer from a 16 year old's perspective I felt somewhat accomplished. The two boys looked pleased and accomplished themselves. It is not often that adults ask the opinion of the activities they engage youth in. It makes the kids feel like they matter, what they are doing matters, and your opinion of them is expanded because they feel a little closer to being an adult or validated. The child feels a little closer to you or at least accessible.

As with most things, children or teenagers live under the regime of parents or other adult rules.  They are rarely asked for their input other than to be given instruction on what or how to do something regardless of whether they are comfortable with what they are being asked to do or not. Kids at times do not feel they can say no or if they even have a choice.

After reading articles on other peoples speculations as to the feelings of minors where shooting and hunting is concerned the child is basically left without a voice as to whether shooting or hunting is something they actually want to do. They to have a voice but at times are excluded in lieu of someone making decisions for them instead of at least asking their input. This usually leads to feelings of helplessness and victimization. If we are going to raise functional adults we have to at times let them get a taste of responsible decision making and articulated input where their rights/abilities are concerned otherwise they are the invisible unheard well of insight and clarity.

Later as I wrote this I recognized that I didn’t care if I had the  respect of my peers (known or unknown), if any adult person wanted to share in my love of guns, hunting, or shooting, or where I stood in the greater scheme of things. The only thing that mattered in those two hours was the positive experience I could nurture for two young first time shooters so they could possibly find a lifelong love. Two young boys had the confidence in me to teach them the way while I found the confidence to know I could do them justice. Being there for someone when they are developing is the best endeavor whether they are related by blood or not. They are all my children to teach. I just have to teach them right and well.

 

Written by: W Harley Bloodworth

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

Watching From This Side Of The Pond: A Perspective.

 



 

Remember this: A Stone in the water makes a ripple over 'there'.

Today I was doing some prescribed burning on the pine plantation. I took a break and began to meditate over a controversy that seemed to be brewing across the great pond, far away from my little speck of the world.

The problem originated with W.H. Smith’s ban on hunting and shooting magazines that could no longer be purchased by children under the age of 14. This sounded fairly odd.  After reading comments on the outraged nature of shootists in the United Kingdom I decided as a great neighbor to the British to take a closer inspection on this new change in buying magazines. I wondered if they would outlaw any book to the nature of learning to shoot, hunt, or fish? It reminded me of Hitler and his book burning escapades.

Let us delve into this. What do we know as a ‘fact’ in the UK?

 

·         There is no minimum age for applying for a shotgun certificate.

·         One must be at least 18 years old to own a gun.

·         Children under 14 must be accompanied by a responsible adult.

·         Any criminal activity in lieu of using a weapon by a minor is archived with the authorities.

    

After reviewing this information it seemed pretty straightforward that the law had things covered much like here in the States. So what was the problem really?

I researched further to find that an animal activist group, Animal Aid, had published a report earlier this year labeling that country sports magazines as ‘pro-violence’ and having a ‘corrosive, long lasting effect on impressionable young minds’.

W. H. Smith reported they were doing responsible business practices by putting a till or age requirement on the magazine purchases with shooting , hunting, but surprisingly not everything gun related.

I then wanted to know exactly who was this Animal Aid and how did they get the power to write a report that would make a store change its age requirement policy by implying the store, magazine purchaser, or random citizen didn’t have the common sense to be morally able to judge for themselves or their families on whether such a subject in a magazine was appropriate for their lifestyle?

This is the link I found on the purported ‘report’:

http://www.animalaid.org.uk/images/pdf/booklets/gunningforchildrenreport.pdf

 

The list of objectives in short:

 

·         Put magazines on the top shelf out of sight and reach of children under the age of 14.

·         Requiring children to be 18 and over to purchase the hunting/shooting magazines which would categorize them with pornography (sexual explicit content) and tobacco.

·         To have the Secretary of State ensure there is no form of gun promotion in schools.

 

This also extends to youth organizations. Then you have clipable copies of magazine photo-ops of random people during some form of shooting, hunting, or just the dead animal in less than spectacular positioning. Death ain’t pretty.  It never is. This report also states that it targets kids but if they are not 18 years or old can’t necessarily buy a gun. What rhetoric!

The report eventually stops referring to minors as children then goes on to designate the minors as ‘young blood’.  Animal Aid makes hunting/shooting groups sound like a gang living in the barrio that punches you in so you can go take part in crime and sale street drugs.

It’s all in the wording. We learned it in school when you are trying to write a persuasive letter to get something that you want for right or wrong reasons even if manipulation is dripping between the typeset. Then there is a quote by Jeffrey Masson to lend psychoanalytical credence to their argument when no child was reported as to being ‘shrinked out’ by a licensed professional on whether or not the child was mentally traumatized (even though this is still on a case by case theory).

Further reading the Animal Aid digresses that shotgun certificate ownership is declining every year but yet they feel compelled and threatened by the owners of guns for hunting and shooting to write a report belaying the point? Was this a couple of more nails in the coffin for the UK shootists? I wondered.

On I read. It stated the gun lobby research reported that if a person doesn’t ‘go to gun’ by age 14 then the child to adult is less apt to take to gun activity. This was a clear indicator Animal Aid was trying to circumvent the spread of shotgunning by intercepting the education of the UK’s youth by making the literature semi harder to acquire. What next? The library? Online googling? The list could go on……but really it’s just to cause a controversy and bring sensationalism to their causes. With that said I on occasion do take a second look at situations where I feel like there is undue killing but again it’s a case by case basis.

Using the term ‘recruitment’ makes it sound like the UK is building a secret army of children soldiers. If an adult enjoys the sport and endeavors to instruct and extend the option of partaking in the sport itself then recruiting is a far cry of a word to use. You can give a person an option but they must make the independent decision on whether that is something they are willing to take part in, short term or indefinitely.

Eventually they get into the specific magazines and the thought crossed my mind that Animal Aid was not sued for loss of livelihood because of the negative press the magazine, who should sue as a collective, bring ‘bad business’ to their door. If Colin Farrell can sue for his sex tapes ruining his career why can’t a hunting magazine sue for loss of readership, annual income, and intentional wanton attack on publisher morals and reputation? There has got to be some miss-step in there on the part of Animal Aid. Probably a few.

Animal Aid has no problem immorally using children to promote their stance.

Animal Aid documents in pictures, the magazine name and the issue month year. Anyone can go to back issues to see who these children are. If it’s a disturbed mind, could hunt that child down and kill them just for animal activist reasons. Hereby Animal Aid put a target on a child’s back and put the child itself in harm’s way. Who is worse? The magazines or Animal Aid?

I felt like a little ‘pot calling the kettle black’ was going on here.

After this controversy that child is going to need to learn to shoot to protect himself from unwanted advances.  It always boggles my mind when someone thinks they are doing a noble act for the greater good of some cause only to find after closer inspection that they are doing just as much or more damage as the one they are lobbying against. Now that…….is insane. Two crazies do not make you mentally competent.

With all organized endeavors there is always the opportunity given to engage youth to a different form of social or physical outlet. For every child that you might find shooting there is probably one in the street or vice versa. Responsible adults or parents are always worried over their children. Who are they hanging out with? What kinds of friends do they have? Are they involved with the wrong crowd? Is my kid being menaced on the internet by pedophiles?

Parents have enough on their plate raising their offspring. If the parent finds an outlet that procures the traits of an adult that can become a productive member of society, not to mention if war breaks out and they have to be sent into some terrible country to help fight for freedom, other people’s lives, or their very own: would it not be worth it? I say yes.

Onward into this ridiculous report I find they are admitting that there is lessons, education outlets, and some form of conservation or animal husbandry going on with a plan that is reasonably organized.

Animal Aid states the BASC is reaffirming the tradition of countryside life. This educational information was based on lifestyle, conservation, education and safety. But this is a bad thing to promote?

I began to wonder what crack pot wrote this because it is a sympathetic plea rather than a thought provoking treatise on the pro’s/con’s of shooting let alone hunting. Made me glad I live on this side of the ‘great pond’.

As I had stated in previous blogs on over hunting I wonder how much of this are non-hunters or animal activist viewing the non-stop posting of dead animals? Not that I am telling people to not post their photos.

Think for a moment that you are a non-hunter viewing things on the internet and the ‘number’ of photos is a designation to the amount of carnage that they believe is actually happening even if the pictures are taken at different hunting season or even years. There is no differentiation in their minds. It’s the amount of perceived deaths and the toll is rising in their mind because they do not hunt and don’t immediately realize that a season ends, animals don’t always die, and hunters go home empty-handed.

It is like the old turn of the phrase when someone says about another person, “Its selective” hearing, seeing, or limited understanding or denial.  They see what they want to see and interpret it that way with biases to their own belief system but most people are guilty of this.

By the end of this report the Animal Aid reduces to name calling in regards to children that partake of hunting. This is less than admirable and certainly not something I would think would come from a free thinking morally based adult with their head squarely above the shoulders.

This report is purely emotion driven and any professional indication on the part of Animal Aid is mute.  They could do the same thing to a person who hit a deer with a car. Don’t let that person drive a car because that person might kill a deer with it.

 

The main thing that struck me about this little report was the way in which Animal Aid took it upon themselves to be the judge and jury on what they deemed morally fit or an outrage without other peoples input or even consideration. They made objectives, one of which was successful in W. H. Smith. Why is it that this group, Animal Aid, can somehow exclude everyone else and get their requirements met? Who made them, for lack of a better word, “God”?

It’s the total removal of everyone else from what Animal Aid wants. It can be read as Animal Aid deciding that normal adult citizens no longer have the long vision of a moral or ethical compass and thus must influence government or other parties through force, coercion, or less than noble means to get their objectives met.

Animal Aid is doing a slight of hand trick by taking the citizens right away to make decisions on their behalf by questioning morals, common sense, or lack thereof. To some degree it is almost like martial law. One day the government just takes over and you have no rights unless the government says so. Animal Aid is subjecting citizens to loss of what we call in the states ‘inalienable rights’   by replacing or influencing  citizens with their agenda by taking  YOUR HAPPINESS AWAY and YOUR RIGHT TO DECISION MAKING.

Animal Aid is also meddling into the structure and functioning of the family by questioning how you raise your child, if you are a competent enough parent for ‘exposing your child’ to violent behavior, and suggesting to a ‘higher power’ that the average citizen can no longer function as the decision maker or nurturer of future citizens.

A little frightening there because you wonder if someone in the animal activist regime or government has been planning a ‘Pied Piper’ move by taking the children and brainwashing them into believing this Unstable Mother Earth really wants them to hold hands and and sing Cum Ba Ya.

On things like this I don’t argue to far on the point of ‘but the other magazines have this in them’. That is just a waste of time.

I feel what needs to be done is set up one organization that is specifically targeted at this kind of animal activist behavior. You would need an expert on Public Relations, and a Strategist. You have to out think them and cut them off at the pass.  The nature of this attack should be delegated to people that are experts in this type of problem. The main thing is Communication.

There should be a streamlined avenue of communication to keep dialogue open to all individuals that could be potentially affected by this problem.

There should also be a set of guidelines and rules for handing different types of situations when they arise and who should be handling them and in what way.

A group of lawyers that can find a loop hole when there is no air to breath.

It should be militantly executed but keep the ideas of all the crazy things you wouldn’t see coming in clear focus to.

I am kind of appalled that the UK citizens are appalled that this is happening. The animal activist people have been working on this for a long time. They are chipping away at things. When you see a group of people broadsided by something and are taken off guard that means you’ve gotten a little to secure in your position and need to tighten up the ranks. The whole state of affairs where hunting and shooting as it exist in the UK needs to be reassessed for any kind of weakness or point of entry on the part of attack.

I also thought about perceived power on the part of Animal Aid.  When they got W. H. Smith to ban children under the age of 14 from purchasing the hunting magazine there was some influence or power there. Find out the point of this supposed power and diffuse it like one would diffuse a bomb. I am not saying be a internet terrorist but one can go the proper routes to undo such evil trickery.

If these kinds of things are in place one needs to question what is not functioning properly and address the weakness.

You have to be smart, pay attention, know when to act, and do it.

Otherwise, I’ll be watching from my lily pad on this side of the pond.

Written by: W Harley Bloodworth

 

~Courtesy of the AOFH~