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Hunting is Murder on Animals |
| Part XIII -- Laying Down our Guns |
But if we were to ban these cruel, barbaric practices of animal abuse, I feel our human relations
would become less violent too. If we were to ban hunting, for instance, it would be much easier
to effectively ban guns. Disarmament begins at home. If we were to willingly lay down our weapons,
perhaps our leaders would follow suit.
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When the President of the United States celebrates his innauguration by killing birds, and observes Earth Day by torturing fish,
it shouldn't surprise us when he asks us to devote the vast majority of our country's wealth to weapons.
"Let peace begin with me" should be the motto of us all.
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This chart shows a conservative estimate of the death toll from guns in a typical year in the U.S. 176 million animals,
including 30,000* humans. That's over 5 gun deaths every second, 24 hours a day -- every day. In the time it takes
to watch this program, over 20,000 animals will have been killed by guns, including at least 3 humans.
This bears out the comment Ambrose Bierce once made that:
Among man's chief occupations is the extermination of animals, his own species included.
[*Note: Human gun deaths have decreased slightly since 1987 -- the year these figures were gathered.]
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We live in a violent society. Even our recreation and entertainment is violent. Hunting, fishing, trapping,
rodeos, bullfights... are all of course based on violent animal abuse. But we find this attitude spreading
into other areas.
In Rock concerts we see band members violently destroying their instruments in a mad
frenzy, and engaging in animal abuse. In one concert the heads of chickens were bitten off.
In another, the band demanded that members of the audience murder kittens before they would play.
At home, the average American placidly watches thousands of murders enacted on TV each year.
In fact, it's gotten to the point where many of us find programs boring if no shootings take place.
One recent children's movie features an act of violence every 29 seconds!
On TV, the American public accepts the sight of a man stabbing or shooting a woman in gory detail as acceptable
wholesome family viewing... But thinks the sight of a man making love with a woman is obscene and something
that children should be protected from seeing.
Somewhere along the line we've gotten it all backwards. We've ended up glorifying and enjoying the inflicting of
pain and death, and we are ashamed of giving pleasure. We've become a hateful and hated society because we've
forgotten how to love. We're so busy clamoring for our supposed rights to own guns and to kill, that we don't
notice or don't care that we're stepping all over the rights of others.
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Many misguided citizens sincerely believe that our right to freedom is crucially tied to our ability to own --
and carry with us whenever and wherever we want -- a death-dealing weapon.
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They tell us that gun-control would only keep guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens, and that
criminals would always have guns.
If ignorance were bliss I'd envy them their simplistic view of the world. Most of us have more difficulty
distinguishing the "good guys" from the "bad guys."
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Most of the human murders committed with guns are done by people who are not hardened criminals.
And the murders are not done in connection with any other crime. Most murders with guns are done by
relatives, friends, and lovers in a moment of anger when a gun is handy.
Since about 70% of the murders committed with guns are perpetrated by what the NRA would call
"law-abiding citizens," it's difficult to understand why they so stubbornly reject the idea of disarming
these citizens.
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The Second Ammendment to the U.S. Constitution does not grant any rights to individuals to keep and bear arms.
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The courts have consistently ruled, time and time again, that the Ammendment has nothing at all to say about private,
individual citizens, and applies only to a state militia (or as we would call it today: the National Guard.)
The NRA, of course, doesn't want people to know this, so it quotes only the last half of the sentence of the Ammendment,
conveniently wresting it out of context and ignoring the very subject of the Ammendment: namely the right of a state
to keep an armed military organization for defense.
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When I bought this gun at the beginning of the program, no check was made of my character or background.
All I had to do was show a picture ID and answer No to a few questions. Any of those No's could have been lies.
But here I am with a death-dealing weapon. It's as easy as pulling a trigger.
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