From: viking@iastate.edu (Dan Sorenson)
Subject: Re: Colorado Hunters under attack
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 07:21:06 GMT

In <1ia52dINNgdq@agate.berkeley.edu> sherw@ocf.berkeley.edu (Gregory Sherwin) writes:

>Look - I am no people-hating/animal-loving freak, and to me hearing the
>words "hunting heritage" made me laugh.

	Then you are simply ignorant or misinformed.  American has a hunting
heritage, this being a heritage of independence of the individual; hunting
removed the interdependence that the agrarian systems require, and made a
man dependent upon solely himself for food and some supplies.  Thus is the
hunting heritage born.  Some of us like to keep ourself rather independent
of others, and so this heritage has some meaning for us.

>  All I could envison are the typical
>hunting scenes (yes, i have been on a hunt or two) of people beating their
>chests in the name of "heritage" or "culture".  Yes, humans started out as
>hunter-gatherers...but back then we used bones and sticks and not AK-47s.

	We still don't use AK-47's for hunting, and again your ignorance
shows because is far more than simply encapsulated words.  Those words have
meanings that go far beyond what Websters would define; if you cannot
understand the language, then you are hardly qualified to judge the culture.

>If hunters wished to go back to their "hunter heritage" and resort to
>bones and sticks and refrained from frequenting their local Safeway - then
>I might see some purpose to all of that.

	Many of us hunt because we find it a more rewarding method of
obtaining food than frequenting Safeway, or tending a garden.  Still, this
is obviously lost on you, since this is certainly not the only reason we
spend hundreds of dollars and hours refining our methods and weapons.

>  Otherwise I think this claim
>to "heritage" is no more valid than slave ownership or clubbing our brides-
>to-be over the head and dragging them off by their hair as "heritage".  
>Humans evolved, society has evolved, and some things that people claim as
> "heritage" are no more culturally relevant than say the senseless killing
>of young black men in our inner cities over drugs is a modern day claim to
>"heritage".

	You might want to mention the latter to the other young black men
killing them, most of whom do not have Usenet access.  However, my heritage
involved burning large tracts of English and Irish villages and enslaving
those who lived.  I've not found that to be a part of my culture.  The
American culture is far different from the European, and 200 years is
hardly enough time to consider the culture as having evolved.  We're
doing rather well having banned slavery, let alone removing violence.

>>According to the
>>NRA, only 7-8% of Americans hunt today.  That makes us the most vulnerable
>>of minorities.  ARM groups can continue to chip away at the hunting
>>population until our hunting rights are gone.

>Well, you can also say that 7-8% of Americans go bowling too.  Hunting has
>lost its relevance to human survival and it only remains for sport.  SPORT.
>As in "Well, I'm tired of raquetball - what do you say we go hunting
>tomorrow?".  It was once a means of personal sustenaince, but now is
>just an outdated remnant of our societal past like legal slavery or serfdom.

	On the contrary, a far greater number carry their weapons for
personal protection, and hunting has not lost any relevance to human
survival.  Be it Sgt. York in World War II or Bernie Goetz, survival
is enhanced with hunting skills, and furthermore one would do well to
realize that owning firearms is not a right because of hunting, but that
it is a right because the purpose of the 2nd amendment is to ensure a
militia that is well-armed to provide a deterrent to tyrrany and to, as
a last resort, overthrow a corrupt or tyrannical government.  You can
try to ban hunting and say that we have advanced beyond that sort of
thing, but so long as you think of hunting only as a "sport" similar to
bowling you conveniently ignore the most basic reasons for hunting and
firearm ownership and usage being a right.

	Perhaps a quick skimming of talk.politics.guns, or the archives
relevant to that group, might provide some insight on these other
reasons for hunting, shooting, and owning weapons.  To be quite honest,
I feel you've overly-simplified the reasons and justifications.

< Dan Sorenson, DoD #1066 z1dan@exnet.iastate.edu viking@iastate.edu >
<  ISU only censors what I read, not what I say.  Don't blame them.  >
<  "Are you *SURE* he's worth a Harley-Davidson?" -- my grandmother  >
< to my girlfriend, about me.  "I'd better not say" -- my girlfriend >
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