General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: There's No Way To Poll This... So Let's Get Real... Why Do YOU Own Gun... If You Do... [View all]hunter
(40,794 posts)Hell, I don't even like fishing anymore.
I will eat animals my family or friends have killed, so I'm not entirely a vegetarian. (My wife is, and one kid's SO.) But I feel like I can't politely be vegetarian in my family. Dad caught this fish. Cousin shot this pig. Friend made this sausage. I eat it. It tastes good.
But we do thank the animal spirits, as much as we do the Great Spirit. Christian God if you like.
Thank you Fish, thank you Cattle, thank you free range Fowl, thank you Goat, thank you nasty, nasty dangerous destructive California feral Hog who doesn't belong here.
My great grandma was an amazing woman with a knife. She could cut up fish, fowl, or or any smaller animal before the wood stove was hot. It's one of my early childhood memories: Great grandma with a knife cutting up fish, chickens, and various small mammals for dinner.
Yeah, I know, I'm a hypocrite. My dogs eat old dairy cows and factory farm laying chickens in their dog food but I thank these animal spirits too.
"Guns??? Protection???" Yeah, right. The bad guys have more experience shooting people, and even when they don't they are far more reckless or suicidal than you'd ever be.
I've NEVER been in a situation where me having a gun might have improved things, and I've been in some pretty bloody situations where other people did have guns. A tumbling ricochet bullet past your ear is an unforgettable sound.
If you like target shooting, get an air gun.
If you like things that go "BANG!" experiment with rockets. It's win-win. When they fly you win, when they go "BANG!" you still win.
I like things that go "BANG!"
My best dumb-ass teenager experience ever was my brother picking shrapnel out of my back. We told my mom I fell in the brambles. She knew that was bullshit, but since I was the only one hurt by my own stupidity, and it was nothing worthy of the Emergency Room, she did not press the issue.