Cheryl Gives Son Gun for Birthday

[dawbs]

basically, yeah, she's going to have contact.

If I decided tomorrow to get rid of all of ours, I'd have to assume she'd still have contact elsewhere--unless we disowned all of our family and moved :)

(and, to be fair, there are guns in Mr. Dawb's possession, and some that will someday be in mine, that are left to us by family that have sentimental value. I know that sounds silly--this isn't a clock or a ring, it's a gun. But, at the same time, the stock that Mr. Dawbs' grandfather milled for him and then cut to his size when he was a kid and the rifle that my dad let me use when we went hunting together (that I always admired the kitchy metalwork on) are important to us.

Which does NOT make them toys, obviously, but makes it more than just a dangerous hunk of metal and wood)

[tigerchild]

I read your posts, but I asked because you said that your children are sadly not learning to shoot at the moment (or something to that effect) and I just thought "Whyy would you allow your children to do that". It's really none of my business I guess, I was just curious (okay, also a bit shocked).

I guess it's just something I don't understand, or a culture I don't understand, I'm from Germany. I don't know anyone who owns any kind of weapon, it's just so foreign to me. What would you say are the advantages of teaching your children about gun safety?

I said that my children had sadly not grown up hunting. They're divorced from what it means when they have meat on their plate. I can explain it to them, sure, and have--but they've never had to take responsibility for it. I think that we lose something as a culture when that happens. Though even I draw the line at trying to get my kids in to see a commercial slaughterhouse. All things considered, I find hunting to be less barbaric, but YMMV.

The main advantage to teaching my children about gun safety is that unlike you, I live in a culture where there is private gun ownership and often very hard to tell who owns guns by appearance or philosophy. There are nice, non-rabid, non-conservative people that own guns here, as well as nutcases. In any case, because they may be exposed to it, and I do not have (nor frankly do I aspire to) absolute 100 percent control of my children's lives 100 percent of the time, I choose to educate them about things that they may or may not ever be confronted with personally, but that I feel are valuable information to have in the culture in which we live.

Guns. Sexual abuse. STDs. Rape. Bullying (cyber and otherwise). Contraception. Self-defense (both in a personal sense and in a larger crowd situation). Drugs. Alcohol. I educate my kids on a lot of things that I frankly hope that they'll never really have to deal with personally, but I think they deserve to know about, and because they are part of the cultural motif that surrounds them, whether or not I like it. I frankly don't understand why other parents refuse to, but I can't do anything about that--I can only do my part for my own kids.

[NurseNell]

The Bontragers also gave one of their sons a gun for his 13th birthday. Am I overreacting to this because I did not grow up in an area with any kind of hunting culture, or is this something worth feeling uneasy about? I think what makes me uncomfortable is the way they explicitly tie guns to manhood. It reminds me of the news reports after Sandy Hook when they showed ads by gun companies that said things like "You just got your Man Card back."

I am not a hunter but my daughter and her husband are. Their 9 y.o. daughter has a BB gun and a bow. She will take hunter's safety when she turns 10 and will be allowed to hunt next fall on a special day that only kids can hunt. Each child is accompanied by an adult, only the child can carry the gun and hunt. She will probably get her first hunting gun when she's 13. It's pretty normal here for boys and girls. Hunting is not viewed as a man's only sport.

[NurseNell]

I personally find it horrifying and could never imagine buying anyone, much less a child, a gun. I find it hard to understand a culture where giving guns is a normal and acceptable thing to do - particularly in light of all the mass shootings/gun violence that seems to happen in the US. It seems particularly ironic to me that Kinder eggs are illegal in the US but guns are A-OK.

What are Kinder eggs?

[ViolaSebastian]

My husband tells me that when he was growing up in the mid-nineties, there would be the occasional child that would bring his or her hunting rifle to show-and-tell. (I would venture to guess that the practice has since gone by the wayside.) He also reports that in home economics class in middle school they made bright orange hunting vests and in wood shop they made gun racks. Wow...gun culture is :pink-shock:

[GeoBQn]

Thanks for the information, responsible gun-owning FJers. There hasn't been a gun in my family ever since my great-grandmother threw out my grandfather's service revolver from WWII.

[salex]

My husband tells me that when he was growing up in the mid-nineties, there would be the occasional child that would bring his or her hunting rifle to show-and-tell. (I would venture to guess that the practice has since gone by the wayside.) He also reports that in home economics class in middle school they made bright orange hunting vests and in wood shop they made gun racks. Wow...gun culture is :pink-shock:

In the 70s, half the vehicles in the school parking lot had gun racks in the back of my small town HS parking lot. Magazine selling or other school fundraiser contests often had a shotgun as a prize to a student.

We would never have seen it as 'gun culture' any more than the fact every house had a broom and every barn had a bigger broom meant we lived in a "broom culture."

[argypargy]

In the 70s, half the vehicles in the school parking lot had gun racks in the back of my small town HS parking lot. Magazine selling or other school fundraiser contests often had a shotgun as a prize to a student.

We would never have seen it as 'gun culture' any more than the fact every house had a broom and every barn had a bigger broom meant we lived in a "broom culture."

This is how it was where I grew up. "Oh you have a gun in your truck. Whatever." What I'd really like is for other gun owners and the people at the local gun store to stop thinking I am an Obama hating, tea partying, NRA supporting conservative. Just because I have guns doesn't mean I'm any of those things. I'm actually a very liberal woman.

[Marianne]

Where do you keep the guns ? In a place where someone who knows where they are can take it and kill everyone, or in a strong-box with secret code ?

All "I'm hunting with my child" is weird for me. I hunted for food. It was not a sport or cultural or whatever. If I don't ask my children to make the meal, I don't ask them to hunt. Hunting is not something for children.

[NurseNell]

Where do you keep the guns ? In a place where someone who knows where they are can take it and kill everyone, or in a strong-box with secret code ?

All "I'm hunting with my child" is weird for me. I hunted for food. It was not a sport or cultural or whatever. If I don't ask my children to make the meal, I don't ask them to hunt. Hunting is not something for children.

My daughter and her husband hunt for food. If their daughter gets a deer on her first hunt, or subsequent ones, the deer will become a freezer full of venison. They eat a lot of venison, and have a lot of recipes using venison.

[theCR]

Where do you keep the guns ? In a place where someone who knows where they are can take it and kill everyone, or in a strong-box with secret code ?

All "I'm hunting with my child" is weird for me. I hunted for food. It was not a sport or cultural or whatever. If I don't ask my children to make the meal, I don't ask them to hunt. Hunting is not something for children.

I have a 5 foot massive safe that the guns and ammo and important papers are all kept. And there are only 2 of us that know the code.

When you grow up in a family of hunters its something that you just learn to do. I was never pushed to hunt but it was something I wanted to do so I never said no. Our family has always used all the meat and it lasted until the next hunt. I still eat mostly venison and elk.

[Marianne]

Okay, we have the same system here. Do you hunt birds, like partridge ? Is there a hunting season ? Is hunting important in the USA, and if yes, in wich state ? Does fishing is also important ? This is just curiosity.

[salex]

Okay, we have the same system here. Do you hunt birds, like partridge ? Is there a hunting season ? Is hunting important in the USA, and if yes, in wich state ? Does fishing is also important ? This is just curiosity.

People I know or are related to hunt the following (most don't hunt them all, and it depends on the year and the region of the country)

Here is what my state allows. http://kdwpt.state.ks.us/news/Hunting/W ... s-Calendar

Each state will have different regulations. Most limits are based on game populations and may change from year to year or as needed. When we are over run with deer, it is easier to get a license to shoot one.

Most of the hunting done by people I know centers on pheasant and quail, turkey, dove hunting, occasionally duck. Also Deer. Some go out of state for elk hunting. There are people I know who enjoy racoon hunting, and in some areas, depending on the year, coyote hunting is a way to thin the packs if they are getting too agrressive with livestock, etc. I have farm friends who make sure that everyone in their family who is old enough has a deer tag, and each one gets a deer for the freezer, so they don't have to butcher a cow or buy meat.

Across our state, deer populations have increased. Deer can really damage a farm field, as they graze on sprouting crops. While people initially think that people see more deer / bears / whatever only because we are encroaching on them, the real numbers of wildlife has increased in many states, and climate change has brought species into areas they were not common to before. My father sells hunting leases on his land, as do many other farmers near where he lives. This means that one person will lease rights to hunt a particular acerage and no one else, including my family, will hunt there. It achieves a couple of things. It keeps people from trespassing on the land quite so much, as it is posted, and it keeps the land from being overhunted, which means a more successful hunt for the person who may have come from two states away to hunt and to keep a balance with how much wildlife is in the area.

As far as fishing, in areas with clean water, fishing for food is not uncommon. Again, limits on what you can fish for and how you can fish are in place. Fishing on your own property is generally unlmited, and many farmers who like to fish and have a pond, pit or lake will stock it with a type of fish they like. My sister's farm has a little lake that they keep stocked with fish that they eat from time to time. My grandparents did the same thing.

[Conuly]

Okay, we have the same system here. Do you hunt birds, like partridge ? Is there a hunting season ? Is hunting important in the USA, and if yes, in wich state ? Does fishing is also important ? This is just curiosity.

Yes, we have hunting season. Hunting is important in some parts of the US, mostly more rural parts and, if I had to guess, in the south and in the midwest. Of course, those parts of the country are more rural than the northeast and the west coast are, so that makes sense. Fishing is also pretty important in about those same areas, though it seems like it might have a slightly more general appeal, that is, that it might be a little more popular with people who live in cities.

Remember, this is a HUGE country, so opinions will be very different in different parts of it.

[RandomTrivia]

Okay, we have the same system here. Do you hunt birds, like partridge ? Is there a hunting season ? Is hunting important in the USA, and if yes, in wich state ? Does fishing is also important ? This is just curiosity.

Lots of birds are hunted - all kinds of ducks & geese, pheasant, doves, quail. Missouri is on one of the main migration routes for waterfowl, and I've got some cousins who are avid duck hunters (BTW, one claims that Duck Commander calls have tripled in price since they got famous). Not sure if we have partridge in the US, and I don't personally see the point of hunting quail, they're so small it can't be worth the effort.

There are hunting seasons and harvest limits for everything; I can't think of anything with a perpetually open season, but I'm not a hunter, so I don't keep up with dates. Seasons & limits vary by state, and sometimes by county - at least for deer around here, the limits are higher on does because we're sort of overrun with them, and some years there's a longer season if the deer population is high. There are also different kinds of seasons - for deer and turkey (the popular ones around here) there's a regular firearms season, bow season, sometimes a black-powder firearm season, I think there's a youth season, and I probably missed a couple. Fishing is also a big deal, but not as big as hunting. Missouri has a couple of very popular trout fisheries that I know of, the Department of Conservation runs some hatcheries to stock lakes and rivers with extra trout.

I'm not sure which states hunting/fishing is most important it, it probably depends on if you're looking at economics, subsistence hunting, or what. I know there are a couple of "reality" shows on TV about people living in Alaska, and hunting is very important for them in order to have enough food to make it through the winter - they'll hunt moose or caribou or whatever. In Missouri, deer and turkey are the popular seasons; pheasant hunting is more common in Nebraska (my dad goes to Nebraska for a week every year or so to hunt pheasant with some friends). And overall, it's a fairly big deal, at least locally - we have Bass Pro Shops, which are massive stores and full of everything you could possibly need or want for hunting and fishing - guns, ammunition, fishing rods, clothes in camouflage print, you name it. They're also "decorated" with taxidermied animals (is taxidermied a word?), and the local one has a massive aquarium with local native fish in it.

I do get the state conservation department's monthly magazine, it's not all hunting focused, and it's always got great pictures. Missouri does have a program where deer hunters can donate all or part of the meat from their deer to food banks, there are processors who will process it for free or at a discount if it's donated. In 2012, there was over 300,000 pounds donated. Deer and turkey were pretty rare in Missouri at one time - the 1920s I think - but the Conservation Department brought some in from other states and repopulated, very successfully, and I'm sure there were economic reasons for that (as well as the subsistence hunting reasons). They're trying to do the same thing with elk, which hasn't been as popular; the amount of pearl-clutching and hissy-fit throwing has been amazing to see.

[tigerchild]

All "I'm hunting with my child" is weird for me. I hunted for food. It was not a sport or cultural or whatever. If I don't ask my children to make the meal, I don't ask them to hunt. Hunting is not something for children.

Are you saying that you don't ask your children to ever prepare a meal? That doesn't seem quite right to me, so I must be missing something.

[Dysfundamental]

Marianne, maybe this will help give you some context? On farms in the US, children often (maybe usually?) start doing tasks related to sourcing food very young, whether it's helping weed the vegetable garden or helping feed the chickens. By the time their tween years roll around, a lot of children are taking part in "adult" farm tasks using potentially dangerous tools like tractors and harrows and balers. So hunting, another task related to sourcing food* that uses potentially dangerous tools, is often seen as part of the continuum.

Killing small predators like weasels or opossums is also another farm use of guns as tools, particularly for farms with chickens.

* Where I grew up, in rural Massachusetts, deer was an important source of food for many of my classmates. It was not unusual to hear kids complain about how often their families served venison.

[argypargy]

Around here, it's Elk hunting. We have deer, but they're Mule Deer and not quite as large as the White Tail deer in the Midwest. I love Elk meat. It is very tasty and not all that gamey.

As far as where guns are kept: We have a large 5'x3' safe that most of our guns are stored (rifle, shot gun and some handguns). That has a code and a key lock (you need both to get in) that only DH and I know and have. In our closet, bolted to the floor, we have a small biometric (fingerprint enabled) safe that holds a loaded handgun. Again, it's only programmed to our fingerprints and it's bolted to the floor and damn near impossible to remove without opening it first. The gun in the small safe is the only gun that is loaded. All other guns are put away unloaded with their ammo in a seperate safe with a different code.

[Marianne]

Wow, it's so different her ! and very interesting, thank you all for your answer. In france, farmers do not really want their children to become farmers and do not transmit their values ​​and traditions. Rural life has a huge rate of suicide. In fact, there is just biiiiiiiig farm owned by multinational and no one little farm. And hunting... When i hunt, i was the only one to eat what i hunted. It's just a sport. It disguts me. People just hunt for their pleasure but no for eating. You seems to have more respect of hunting. I have never see the USA as a rural country, or with a rural culture/tradition.

[Mama Mia]

Wow, it's so different her ! and very interesting, thank you all for your answer. In france, farmers do not really want their children to become farmers and do not transmit their values ​​and traditions. Rural life has a huge rate of suicide. In fact, there is just biiiiiiiig farm owned by multinational and no one little farm. And hunting... When i hunt, i was the only one to eat what i hunted. It's just a sport. It disguts me. People just hunt for their pleasure but no for eating. You seems to have more respect of hunting. I have never see the USA as a rural country, or with a rural culture/tradition.

Marianne, I think maybe people from other countries don't realize that the U.S. Varies greatly by state. In many ways I think it seems more comparable to the European Union. Also it is a huge land mass, twice the size as the EU, but with about 2/3rds the population. So you have some very densely populated large states, but also states that are extremely rural and sparsely populated, and many states that have a mix of urban and rural. Law a and traditions and culture vary a great deal. In my state, California, there are roughly 40 million people. The coast has many large cities, but much of the interior in very rural. Some other states have less than a million people. There is huge variance.

[theCR]

Okay, we have the same system here. Do you hunt birds, like partridge ? Is there a hunting season ? Is hunting important in the USA, and if yes, in wich state ? Does fishing is also important ? This is just curiosity.

There are hunting seasons and it varies state to state. I live in arizona and hunting is pretty large at least with the people I associate with. Fishing is still just as enjoyable

[dairyfreelife]

Marianne, I think maybe people from other countries don't realize that the U.S. Varies greatly by state. In many ways I think it seems more comparable to the European Union. Also it is a huge land mass, twice the size as the EU, but with about 2/3rds the population. So you have some very densely populated large states, but also states that are extremely rural and sparsely populated, and many states that have a mix of urban and rural. Law a and traditions and culture vary a great deal. In my state, California, there are roughly 40 million people. The coast has many large cities, but much of the interior in very rural. Some other states have less than a million people. There is huge variance.

Indeed, and never known people who hunt animals without any intent to eat them. I live in a small state in population, with about a million people maybe in the whole state. It is majority rural, largest city has less than 50k people. Lots of people hunt. Yes, rural areas are associated with high drug and high pregnancy rates, at least where I live. They have issues with prescription drug abuse and meth labs in the rural areas. The US is a very, very large country, in size and population and vast parts of it are sparsely populated. The cities make the news and are what's on the television, but lots of suburban and even more rural areas. Farming isn't so huge where I live. It's the coal mines that are in rural parts in my state, which is losing jobs by the day. But hunting a buck or two or more and having a freezer means a good amount of food for the winter and no need to buy meat, which is expensive, especially for the poor residents. And my state is second only to Mississippi in being the most poverty-stricken state. By law, guns are supposed to be locked away and with the safety on when not in use and preferably unloaded as well. Not everyone obeys this obviously, but smart people do. My sister's boyfriend is a hunter and not in use means safety goes on and it is locked in a gun cabinet away from any children who come around the house. I do not like the idea of guns at all in my house one day, but I don't have issues with other people using them for hunting and such as long as they are not dumbasses with them.

[Maggie Mae]

I live in a large state with a small population, and the second highest rate of gun ownership. It's not a "culture" thing as much as a "way of life" thing, depending on where you live. I'm not too familiar with life in the bush/rural areas/villages, although I have visited several. Many people fill their freezers with moose and caribou meat during those seasons, both in Anchorage and the villages. I met a kid on a plane a couple of years ago who showed me a picture from his first polar bear hunt, and he was so proud of how he and his friends and family fed the village.

In my area, hunting isn't crucial to life as I have the luxury of going to a store which I can be reasonably sure contains food. In other areas, food is much more expensive when buying it from a store. Which is why people get subsistence permits for hunting. Children under 10 can not get their own permits, so anything they hunt (big game, anyway) counts for the person who is supervising.

I've not known anyone who goes hunting and wastes the animal. My boss has very nice blankets made from bear that he killed. The meat on a bear is not always that great, but it can be processed into hunter sticks and ground bear meat for spaghetti sauce. Moose that are hit by cars are salvaged and the meat goes into someone's freezer - people on public assistance can get on that list and then they have meat for winter.

Anyway, I understand that it seems barbaric at first, especially if you are from a place that has been establishing cities for hundreds if not thousands of years. But my city is only 100 years old, my state 55 years old. I live in a city and I still see bears and moose in my yard. I can ski to work. People have guns for hunting and for protection from wildlife. There are the people who moved here from the south who participate in "gun culture" and proudly display their NRA stickers and whatnot, but the majority of people who have guns and educate their children about hunting are doing it because they need food to survive.

[tigerchild]

A lot of hunters I've known prefer game meat vs. supermarket meat, even if they could afford the latter (admittedly, perhaps because they also have tended to grow up in families that relied on it, or raised/butchered their own animals, and you *tend* to find comfort in stuff you grew up with). I've always found it somewhat stupid that non-hunters (who aren't vegetarians) tend to pearl clutch, like hunting is barbaric and horrible and being willfully ignorant of how much the chickens that were stuffed into horrible cages and slaughtered in the worst possible way suffered before being packaged neatly at Safeway. :P

Like others, I've rarely known anyone to waste animals they've killed personally, unless it was something like shooting a coyote going after chickens or an animal suspected to be rabid, ect. People waste bought food right and left though (I am guilty of this as well) which to me represents far more inhumane and barbaric practices than someone who hunts or fishes, with or without the participation of their children.

It's another reason why I tend to not like all-or-nothing viewpoints. All guns, all wrong, all the time, in all circumstances. Ugh. All guns, all right, all the time, in all circumstances. Double-ugh. :P

[dawbs]

tigerchild hit one of the reasons I prefer the venison.

I am a lousy shot, so I don't tend to go hunting myself often (I mean, I can hit the broad side of a barn, but I'm not incredibly good [i've shot one in my life]. And I dislike cold-- firearm deer season is in November in Michigan--it defines cold). When we buy a deer (we 'know a guy' who is an awesome hunter. We pay for his extra tag and the cost of processing and he shoots us one), we know it's humanely harvested/taken/killed/slaughtered (pick your word, none of them are quite right) in a way that I"m not at all sure the pork shoulder I bought at Meijer today was.

(when we had our power outage recently, I lost all the venison steaks we had left. Do you know how incredibly sad that is? If I would have been thinking, I should have gotten them out of the non-working deep-freeze and thrown them on the grill, but I wasn't thinking. Hell, the dog didn't even get them, which is extra sad...dog can smell cooking venison from miles away, I swear)

But I also understand why plenty of carnivores don't want to deal w/ slaugher and dressing and the like themselves!