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 ...
Good. Stay far away.
See post #211 above.
With deer season approaching there will be 'Hunter/Gun Safety' courses given in your area. Check your local papers, Fish and Game folks or C of C and they will give you the info. Sign the kids up! Heck, take the courses with them.
I lived in NYC for more than 55yrs. and although I had many opportunities to hunt, didn't go. Too many NYer in the woods with guns. I now live in a rural area as do you. I look forward to deer season every year. I don't go for the 'lore of the hunt' so much as I go 'grocery shopping'. It keeps my freezer full of venison which I truely enjoy.
Now, I'm an old batchelor, so child rearing is not my strong point, but I'll bet that you probably moved to that area to give your kids a healthy environment to gow up in. Let them partake of that environment.
With deer season approaching there will be 'Hunter/Gun Safety' courses given in your area. Check your local papers, Fish and Game folks or C of C and they will give you the info. Sign the kids up! Heck, take the courses with them.
I lived in NYC for more than 55yrs. and although I had many opportunities to hunt, didn't go. Too many NYer in the woods with guns. I now live in a rural area as do you. I look forward to deer season every year. I don't go for the 'lore of the hunt' so much as I go 'grocery shopping'. It keeps my freezer full of venison which I truely enjoy.
Now, I'm an old batchelor, so child rearing is not my strong point, but I'll bet that you probably moved to that area to give your kids a healthy environment to gow up in. Let them partake of that environment.
Cute.
Yes but it doesn't really do any damage any adult could easy over come the child.
LOL, good move.....it was a fair question, but a little like being asked "well, what reservations do you have about the Immaculate Conception?" by the nice young men from the Holy Office of the Inquisition.
Too, your Q & A reminds me of the scene in Hardcore in which George C. Scott's character, engaging the help of a young Southern California prostitute in finding Scott's daughter, who has been grabbed from a church-school field trip and forced into pornographic filmmaking (and possibly into an eventual "snuff flick") by a sinister character with the street name of "Rattan" (Rat Man, get it?), finds himself having a very unlikely conversation with the prostitute about the meaning of TULIP, the abbreviation that summarizes the fundamental beliefs of the Dutch Reformed Church, the church he belongs to back home in Michigan. He goes through all the principia while the prostitute sits there open-mouthed in astonishment that anyone could esteem such ingenuous beliefs as high principle and talk about them openly.
That was one of the more interesting "culture shock" scenes in Hollywood history -- and a film, by the way, that Scott wound up making pretty much on his own (with some key help from Peter Boyle), rather like Robert Duvall did with The Apostle years later -- only Duvall had help from Farrah Fawcett and Billy Bob Thornton and a church congregation in Louisiana. Scott had Boyle and his own wallet, and nobody in Hollywood would touch that film for years; and so Scott made it himself, much as Duvall did The Apostle and Mel Gibson did The Passion of the Christ.
I guess that scrubs Texas from my list of possible retirement sites. Too bad, as that is where I "was" hoping to retire, SPECIFICALLY because it seemed the state that was most understanding of the right to keep and bear arms, and personal freedom--compared to most of the rest of the US.
The idea that there is a SPECIFIC AGE at which one magically becomes "capable" of understanding firearms safety and use is simply ludicrous. I fired my first shots at age 5 (litereally with my father's hands over mine), and had my first personal firearm at age 9 (single-shot .410). Of course, I had "BB" and "pump" airguns before then--"BB" at age 6, and "pump" at age 8. Never had an accident, and never ever came close to having one, as I had been "safety and use" trained from 5 up.
My brother likewise (he was four years younger), except that his first firearm was a single-shot .22 rifle.
The earlier training starts, the better trained they will be.
Yep, looks like it still works.
Nothing wrong with that. Someone has to buy the meat!!
;-)
Similiar experience here. Know one time one of the local farmers slaughtered some of his chickens and got a few of us young' uns to help some years back. Some(who I thought were relatively rugged country folks) were absolutely apalled. Personally, I didn't see the big deal, but some have other opinions I guess.
Treeing a bear with dogs is unsportsmanlike. It is closer to an execution than hunting.
LOL!!! And there has to be some tobacco juice spitting - uh, I mean spittin' - involved here somewhere too, yes? :-)
I should tell you I'm from Long Island. And where I live, it's illegal to have chickens or horses and whatnot.
Heck, there are still some states that allow deer hunting with dogs. I agree, it isn't sportsmanlike, it's lazy as far as I'm concerned. Some hunting, duck for example, needs dogs. Big game does not. As far as taking the nine year old on a bear hunt, I think it's too dangerous and she's too young. You have to consider what would happen if the nine year old became separated with only the single shot 20 facing a bear on her own. It probably wouldn't happen, but the possibility is there.
Now for a mini-rant (not directed at you School): What is it with some of our Freepers who have assumptions about who a conservative is? Some seem to think that the word conservative means "just like me". Being a vegetarian does not mean being a leftist.
IMHO, it still is. Myself included, I know more folks who own firearms than those who do not.
The idea that there is a SPECIFIC AGE at which one magically becomes "capable" of understanding firearms safety and use is simply ludicrous. I fired my first shots at age 5 . . .
A specific age may certainly be difficult to define, but it is not ludicrous. Handing over a firearm to a nine year old or a five year old makes no sense. Others, such as yourself, disagree.
The earlier training starts, the better trained they will be.
And here is where we will never agree.
Since I no longer have little babies or grandbabies in the fold, it is a question for other parents with young children to decide. The most I can say is that on property I own outside Texas where hunting is sometimes allowed, I would NOT give permission to a party which included a nine year old cradling any kind of firearm.
So, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
And, what the heck, come on over if you want. Enjoy your visit or your retirement.
Our forefathers didn't claw their way to the top of the food chain in order for us to eat our vegetables. We're carnivores by design.
---
In fact, according to a recent documentary I saw, becoming carnivorous was an evolutionary advantage, for a couple of reasons. First of all, the meat-eating humans could move out of Africa to a variety of other locales, since "their food moved with them". Contrast this to the humans that couldn't because they could only eat vegetation specific to the area.
Also I believe there were nutritional benefits. There were a couple of other reasons I can't remember.
My husband likes to tease me that I am evolutionarily regressing as I am vegetarian. :D Oh well.
What about catch and release, fishing for fun? What about undersized fish which were mortally wounded when caught, but can't be included in your daily limit if you're fishing for food?
Civilization is nice, but nature is cruel. Unfortunately, it's nature that teaches basic survival skills. Is it that long after Katrina that, when it comes down to it, it's eat or be eaten?
Since you asked, SIA = Special Interest Arms, 07/C2 firearms manufacture and sales. http://www.specialinterestarms.com
I manufacture and sell all types of firearms, but lately I seem to sell more machine guns than hunting guns!
I never understood most 'net posters need to hide their identities, Richard is my first name, SIA is my company.
I'm easy to find, and not afraid to state my opinions weather they are PC or not.
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