February 11, 2010, - 3:24 pm
Beware the Death of Hunting in America
As a religious Jew, I don’t hunt because my religion forbids hunting for sport, and kosher food, by definition, is slaughtered in captivity. That said, I’m glad my gentile fellow Americans hunt. And I’m saddened that less and less of them are hunting. And that the decline in hunting is markedly so among younger Americans.
America’s Survival Depends on More of This
The implications are bad for America on three fronts:
1) The strength of the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms declines when there are less hunters and, thus, less people interested in preserving the right to private gun ownership;
2) There will be more wild animals out there overrunning us and getting hungry for their own food; and
3) Think they’re not training their kids how to use guns in the Middle East? Think again. They’re training their boys younger and younger on weaponry. And we’re raising a nation of wusses and girlie-men, as we flee masculine activities for boys, like hunting.
Over a year ago, Sports Illustrated did an extensive article on “How the Decline of Hunting is Changing the Natural Order of Predator and Prey,” detailing the dangers this causes us all, with animals getting more and more brave in approaching human habitats as they search for food. States have to pay men to come in and hunt, in addition to extending hunting season.
This week, the Wall Street Journal had an interesting piece by Chicago writer Mark Yost, “The Outfitters’ Lament: Too Few Kids with Guns,” on the decline in kids who are hunters. It’s not a good thing, and he blames it not just on economics, but also the break up of the nuclear family. Single mothers aren’t exactly big on taking their sons hunting. That’s generally a father’s domain. The whole situation is sad, and not good for a civilized society. Part of being a civilization is eliminating the threat of the not so civilized, whether that’s the human lack of civilization coming at us from the Muslim world or the animal lack of civilization in the wild. Now, that wild is coming to us. And we must either kill it or die.
More:
The Eastern Sports & Outdoor Show is a sportsman’s paradise, but one where trouble is brewing.
There were lots of kids here with their families, walking the nearly 300,000 square feet of the State Farm Show Complex. They were checking out the newest fishing lures, gun blinds and camouflage clothing. But many of the outfitters who set up booths at the show and sell mountain-lion stalks in New Mexico, bear hunts in Maine and African safaris are worried that they’re in a dying business.
“Most kids wouldn’t know a deer from a dog,” said Jim Paine of Illinois Trophy Bowhunters, an outfitter in west central Illinois. “It’s sad.”
Indeed, many of the outfitters said that the majority of their clientele are 50-year-old men, a growing number of women, but very few kids. Most pinned the blame on one thing: video games.
“Why are they going to come out and freeze in a blind all day and maybe get one shot when they can sit in their living room and shoot all day long?” asked Brad Bowser, owner of a Linneus, Maine, guide service. . . . Video games are the easy villain, but the problem goes much deeper.
Since the 1920s, more people have lived in cities than on farms. There’s also the stigma of guns. In the 1950s, nearly every high school in New York City had a shooting team. Today, if you brought a gun to school you’d be expelled. Then there’s economics. . . .
Fishing is hurting, too. Tom DePersia, a boat captain from Marshfield, Mass., said that 20 years ago there were what he called “dock rats,” kids who hung out and begged to go out and work the charter boats. Many of them went on to become boat captains and deck hands as adults. Today, Mr. DePersia said, there are no more dock rats. “They’re all at home doing this crap,” he said, moving his thumbs and mimicking a video game controller.
He also blamed broken families. “A 10-year-old kid can go out and play baseball without his dad, but they can’t go hunting or fishing,” he said.
At his booth here, Mr. DePersia runs a continuous videotape of a 17-year-old kid hauling in a 1,000 pound tuna off Cape Cod, but the video is 20 years old. “We just don’t get kids like we used to,” he said.
The outdoor industry is aware of the problem and trying to fix it. Outfitters are offering father-son and father-daughter trips, but with little success.
It’s either the animals or the humans. Us or them. Without hunting, it’ll be only them.
Tags: America, America's survival, decline of fishing, decline of hunting, fishing, girlie men, hunters, hunting, Islam, Islamic Terrorism, kid hunters, lack of young hunters, Mark Yost, masculinity, Muslims, older hunters, predator, prey, Sports Illustrated, the outfitter lament, too few kids with guns, Wall Street Journal, wusses, younger hunters
Its hard work. The predators on our planet seldom bring down a prey animal easily. That’s why they have short lives. Humans used to face the same end as long as man was a hunter. Its sad to see an American ritual disappearing fast from our landscape.
NormanF on February 11, 2010 at 3:44 pm