The world's largest army? America's hunters

Redding.com ^ | December 6, 2010

[SJackson]

I don't spend my fall weekends tramping around the woods in pursuit of a buck, but a lot of my friends and neighbors do.

This blogger adds up all the hunters in just a handful of states, and comes to a striking conclusion:

The state of Wisconsin has gone an entire deer hunting season without someone getting killed. That's great. There were over 600,000 hunters.

Allow me to restate that number. Over the last two months, the eighth largest army in the world - more men under arms than Iran; more than France and Germany combined - deployed to the woods of a single American state to help keep the deer menace at bay.

But that pales in comparison to the 750,000 who are in the woods of Pennsylvania this week. Michigan's 700,000 hunters have now returned home. Toss in a quarter million hunters in West Virginia, and it is literally the case that the hunters of those four states alone would comprise the largest army in the world.

His point? America will forever be safe from foreign invasion with that kind of home-grown firepower.

Hunting -- it's not just a way to fill the freezer. It's a matter of national security.

[cripplecreek]

700,000 hunters have now returned home.

Many of those went home to grab their muzzleloaders.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Closely related thread:

What Good Can a Handgun Do Against An Army?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/2312894/posts

[SJackson]

If you’d like to be on or off this Upper Midwest/outdoors/rural list please FR mail me. And ping me is you see articles of interest.

[2ndDivisionVet]

"At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." ~Abraham Lincoln, Address Before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois (January 27, 1838)

[MasterGunner01]

Send them to clean out Washington, DC. Free ammo and no bag limit.

[loreldan]

If this were the 19th and early 20th century this would be a valid point. One hunter or a million with a 7mm against satellite guided missiles operated from thousands of miles away is not much of a defense.

[Viking2002]

God bless America's hunters.

"But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: for men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away, for his name is Obama."

[KoRn]

You could also easily add on those of us that own guns, but don’t hunt. If I had to guess, I’d say we are 25% of the overall total, if not higher.

There’s a reason why all of us combined are the most powerful ‘interest group’ in the country.

[buccaneer81]

Winning territory with those missiles is one thing. But then the invader has to put his boots on our ground, and that’s where it goes very, very badly for him.

[USS Alaska]

We have bigger problems with the communists that are running the demonRATs and congress than with the possibility of a foreign invasion.

Invaders would never come until their allies in congress changes the Second Amendment and they try to take our guns.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Bovine Scat! If 1 man with a rifle and the will to use it is obsolete, why aren’t we home from Iraq, Afghanistan and the Southern Philippines? How were two home-grown Moslems (one a juvenile!) able to terrorize Washington for so long?
Unless Mr. Obama has a death ray that we don’t know about, he has no way of overcoming such a force, short of thermonuclear weapons.

[piytar]

Not true. Those weapons are expensive, and you still need boots on the ground to hold land. We’ve sadly learned that against much smaller, similarly armed, and much less educated forces in the Middle East.

Any foreign invader would be shredded here. That is, if we as a people recognized it as such and acted...

[SJackson]

You could also easily add on those of us that own guns, but don’t hunt. If I had to guess, I’d say we are 25% of the overall total, if not higher.

Probably triple that.

[Rome2000]

Too bad about 5000 can’t go to DC and hunt some communists, there are scads of them all over the place.

[Vigilantcitizen]

Yep...and those goat humpers are nowhere near the marksmen American hunters are. Not even close.

[cripplecreek]

You could also easily add on those of us that own guns, but don’t hunt.

I was thinking about that myself. In my case I don't hunt anymore and don't own a weapon but can get and use one on short notice.

The number in Michigan would surpass a million pretty quickly.

[wtc911]

Bovine Scat! If 1 man with a rifle and the will to use it is obsolete, why aren’t we home from Iraq, Afghanistan and the Southern Philippines?

______________________________________

One man with a rifle? Is that what you think the enemy in these places is? How about thousands with mortars, heavy machine guns, RPGs by the thousands, IEDs and suicide bombers.

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

If the ability of a nation to drop buckets full of sunshine anywhere in the world doesn’t deter a foreign invader, I seriously doubt a few hundred thousand hunters with old-fashioned guns would....

[Uncle Miltie]

I have often said that North Dakota could take France.