Regarding firearms -- but mostly hunting

I happened to read the MSNBC home page this morning -- and learned that Facebook has removed several photos stemming from a big game hunt by a Texas teen in Africa.  A lot of Facebookers had protested the killing of at least one wild animal.

That Facebook would cave on that doesn't surprise me.  I was on FB for a couple of years and didn't like it.  I certainly wouldn't trust its "privacy protection policies" as far as I could throw our very substantial Idaho house. This is, BTW, the 17th anniversary of the purchase of our home.  John (Beba) and I had made the trip from North Dakota to effect the purchase.  I was intrigued by the fact that our realtor, a nice Mormon guy and a normal patriot-type, had no problem doing business on the Fourth of July.  It was our first cash deal ever for a house.

My credentials as a "gun person" and a hunter are, if I may, very solid indeed.  I was a bow-and-arrow hunter even before I received my first .22, a Winchester pump action, at age seven.  I have been a hunter-with-gun ever since.  I won't list my hunting accomplishments here -- hard to remember them all -- but they've been consistent and substantial.

On firearms:  I have had about 200 different firearms since my initial one -- via buying and trading.  I presently have six:  two big bore Browning Winchesters (45/70 and 30/06) and two big bore Marlins (45/70 and .444).  All are lever actions.  I have one single-barrel New England Firearms ten gauge Magnum shotgun and one .22 Magnum Ruger single-action revolver.  (I have, in the last two generations, given away a number of firearms to various members of our family and some good friends but I am definitely hanging on hard to my present, "core" collection.)

In all of those 200 or so firearms, virtually none have been semi-automatics or even bolt actions.  All were mostly pump action .22s, mainly when I was quite young and, as I grew a little older, the rest were lever actions of various makes and calibers and styles and various single-barrel shotguns of various gauges.  While I see the so-called semi-automatic "military style" assault rifles as being fully covered by the Second Amendment, they are as alien to my personal ethos as anything in the Universe could ever be.

I did have, as a high school kid, a very heavy barreled Mossberg .22 bolt action for target shooting in matches sponsored by our Northern Arizona Junior NRA rifle clubs.  Our Flagstaff High club won several of those contests.

Hunting is a natural and integral part of any human society and culture.  The reasons for hunting can be several, but food is a generally -- generally -- pretty consistent one.  And then you can have the "thrill of the chase" and also hunting as a way of getting into and enjoying the wilds or at least the outdoors.  There are people who hunt for trophies which incurs my scorn -- unless the trophy hunter also takes the meat home.  Many trophy hunters take only the head and adjacent cape of an animal, leaving the rest to carrion eaters.

Native hunting is virtually always very much for meat.  An added motive can also be a "coming of age" game kill -- but the meat is always taken home.  Native hunting always has a spiritual component which, in some fashion, involves spirit-direction to appropriate game and always involves deep respect for the quarry as a spiritual Life Entity on egalitarian par with humans.  It is not uncommon at all for the Native hunter to formally thank the fallen quarry for its meat -- and sometimes for its special gifts, attributes-wise and its spirit.  (While I am writing of Natives in the Western Hemisphere, it's likely all of the foregoing are found among tribal people around the globe.)

While it's likely few non-Native hunters would be motivated by a spiritual force, or at least couldn't recognize it, most of them always respect their quarry.

If almost all anti-gun people actually know little or nothing about firearms and certainly less than little about principled self-defense under dire circumstances, it's safe to say that the anti-hunting forces know nothing at all about hunting.  I say this "with all due respect" since I know good people who are in those two categories -- but that which I've said are, frankly, indisputable facts.

And the anti-hunters definitely know nothing about the "balance" of, and within, Nature itself.  Virtually all wildlife feeds on other wildlife in a fairly orderly succession of "feeds."  This keeps wildlife populations under control and food and water supplies available.  Most hunting and fishing within the United States is regulated by game and fish laws, mainly state level with some Federal in nature.  These laws are designed to prevent disproportionate taking of wildlife and thus upsetting the natural balance of things.  They are also designed to prevent overpopulation of certain species in some instances. Overpopulation in those instances would upset the natural balance.

A dramatic example of the latter involved the North Kaibab region of Northern Arizona over several decades beginning in the early part of the 20th century and extending into the 1940s.  The large North Kaibab region begins with the northern rim of the Grand Canyon and extends forest-wise well to the north, some east and some west.  The steep walls of the Grand Canyon's northern rim comprise a most effective southern barrier to any animal wildlife.  In the other three directions -- north, east and west -- the barriers eventually become high and arid desert.  Thus the very large North Kaibab setting is an eco region all to itself.  Among the basic animal life are mule deer and mountain lions.  The lions eat some deer and thus keep that population under control.

For many years, Arizona paid a bounty on mountain lions -- eventually $150.00. That fortunately ended about a generation or so ago.  But hunters in the North Kaibab killed almost all of the lions over time.   Then too, erroneous game policies occasionally blocked mule deer hunting in that setting.  The mule deer population expanded tremendously -- with resultant famine and disease and a drastic reduction in the deer population.  It took a very long time to straighten out that massive disaster.

Of course I, and almost all people sensitive to wildlife, support the protective extensions of formal and Federal Wilderness status into new areas.  We certainly support the protection of endangered species -- and a great many of us object strongly to premature removal of the wildlife involved.  That precipitous removal occurred several years ago with regard to wolves in some Western states.  There are presently moves afoot to de-list grizzlies but I doubt that will happen soon. (However, given the ugly nature of some of this country, one never knows.)  I'd like to see grizzlies imported in numbers into the Sangre de Cristo and Gila Wilderness regions of New Mexico and also into the Blue and Sycamore Wilderness Areas in Arizona.  

Hunter Bear


HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq / 
St. Francis Abenaki / St. Regis Mohawk 
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO

Check out our massive social justice website
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The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
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