Guns in town and guns in the country
Entry posted by Hillscreek
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I lived in Chicago for ten years. I heard guns every night. People were shooting and killing each other. Everyday folks killed from fear, from anger, from need to beat rivals and rival gangs. The police shot to try and keep order.
I've lived in the back country for twenty years I hear guns every Fall and some in the Spring. Hunters are killing animals and birds. They hunt for the thrill of the chase, for food to put in the freezer, maybe for a trophy to hang on the wall.
This is an area where two generations ago you had better hunt for ducks and deer and rabbits and anything else you could find or you would be going hungry. That turkey for Thanksgiving was out in the woods, not in the supermarket.
Even today the nearest large towns are fifty miles away. The nearest convenience store is five miles from my house and the nearest supermarket ten miles - which is a long way in the winter. People still stock up. People can and freeze food in the late Summer and now in the Fall.
When I first moved out here I thought oh how cruel to kill Bambi - those great big eyes, those cute dappled little fawns dropped in the bushes that border my yard. I have grown to understand the hunting inheritance, to respect most of the hunters Angus and I meet. They are lovers of the forests and fields, streams and lakes, preservers of the wilderness where the wild animals still roam free.
Yes some come up from downstate to drink and play cards and bang their guns. They take the antlers to show what great hunters they are. They leave the body to rot in the woods. Not something a true hunter would do.
Pretty much everyone in this country has a gun. There's lots of ways to use them.
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