Posted on 09/17/2005 9:08:12 PM PDT by neverdem
GREEN MOUNTAIN NATIONAL FOREST, Vt. - Chomping wad after wad of Bubblicious Strawberry Splash gum and giggling as she tickled people's necks with a piece of grass she pretended was a spider, Samantha Marley could have been any 9-year-old girl.
A couple of things set her apart, though. She was cloaked in camouflage from boots to baseball cap. And propped next to her on the seat of a truck was her very own 20-gauge shotgun.
Samantha, a freckle-faced, pony-tailed fourth grader, was on a bear hunt. Not the pretend kind memorialized in picture books and summer-camp chants, but a real one for black bears that live in the woods of southwestern Vermont and can weigh 150 pounds or more.
She had won a "dream hunt" given away by a Vermont man whose goal is to get more children to hunt, and she had traveled about 200 miles from her home in Bellingham, Mass., and was missing three days of school to take him up on his offer.
"Almost everything you hunt is pretty fun," said Samantha, grinning and perfectly at home with a group of five men, the youngest of whom was nearly three times her age.
At one point, as the group crossed a wooden bridge, Samantha's father, Scott, who had accompanied her - and had filled out her application for the hunting contest - teased her that trolls lived under the bridge.
"Dad," Samantha said with bravado, "I got a gun."
The dream hunt - all expenses paid, including taxidermy - was the brainchild of Kevin Hoyt, a 35-year-old hunting instructor who quit a job as a structural steel draftsman a few years ago and decided to dedicate himself to getting children across the country interested in hunting.
His efforts reflect...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Except for National Guard infantry divisions mobilized just prior to the war, most did not learn to shoot until after they arrived at infantry training. For too many, shooting was all they learned.
One of major complaints about infantry replacements coming onto the line was their poor marksmanship
You are aware that this is a Conservative site, right?
Thank you!
Now *please* explain that to my hubby!
[He jumps a half-foot out of his chair when he turns and finds me just 'suddenly standing there' as though I'd silently transported from another dimension]....LOL!
We live out in the sticks and laugh about it. I thought we'd be breathing lots of clean country freah air here. Well, it's clean but the "country fresh" is dairy farm. Greets you almost every morning. We like to joke about that along with the other country fresh scent... fresh skunk roadkill. No offense taken.
If people are afraid of guns, that's all right with me. If they are afraid of guns AND they try to mess with my Constitutional right to keep and bear arms that's NOT all right with me.
I submit that if you were around firearms and got familiar with them you would not fear them. A gun is not going to jump off a table or out of a holster all by itself and start shooting. You were probably unfamiliar with a steak knife at one time but I'll bet you eventually got proficient with that implement. A firearm is an implement that requires a little education to use properly, nothing more.
Yes I am.
>>Neither would I. I suppose if the kids get older and want to go hunting, I'd not like it (I would HATE it) but they could go.
People as nice as you prove there's plenty of room for both of us.
We have friends who owns guns and have 150 acres and are VERY responsible. We'll get hooked up with them to start.
Sure, if it's just for the purpose of mowing it down to kill it. But if it is to dress and eat it, well, I think that we used to encourage children to hunt to help put food on the family table. Maybe things have changed, but this is a skill that shouldn't be considered strange just because it is no longer commonplace.
Well thanks :-) Kids do have to make decisions for themselves when they're older and I'd hate for my child to become my enemy.
"...kids in WWII saved this country because they could shoot..."
Absolutely right. It was Americans with shooting experience versus Japanese and Germans who had none. That made a huge difference in the war. Read your history books and you will see that U.S. forces were ususally outnumbered in battle. Marksmanship determined the outcome.
O.K. that explains your view on this to me then. And the NY thing;O)
Yeah the NY thing *LOL*
Conservatives can be critter-loving vegatarians too ya know...:))
I used to eat no meat until I became carbohydrate intolerant and now I eat almost nothing but.
It wasn't a fun choice to make because I love critters but starving to death didn't appeal to me very much either.
I knew that only one of us was gonna survive supper time and I picked *me*...:)
[on the upside, I feel a *lot* better than I did when eating "sticks and twigs"]....LOL!
Damn it now you got me thinking about food. If I only had some Elk...
How 'bout it? We left the city for our homestead about 18 months ago, and I STILL cannot get used to the dead skunk...especially when the dog finds it on the road, brings it home, buries it, then digs it up and rolls in it a few days later!
LOL! I agree!
I have always hunted for the larder. You can't eat the rack.
I caught a lot of flack one year for filling my buck tag with a spike buck that had to move his ears before I was sure I could take the shot--legally, that is. A friend was helping me drag the buck up out of the ravine and said "Hey, change sides with me, I'm having trouble holding onto this antler."
I laughed and told him :"That is the big side." Good eating deer, though.
Probably the best decision you'll ever make.
A gun teaches a kid responsibility and respect *very* quickly....:)
What a nice attitude. Thanks, everybody, for keeping this thread so friendly and fun. I've really enjoyed it. There's been too many lately that have not been so enjoyable esp. on a topic as volatile as this one could be. Good night.
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