Why Do We Teach Our Kids to Hunt?

By Denny L. Vasquez

In many parts of America today, hunting is still considered a family tradition, a way of life. These families feel that youngsters who hunt learn valuable lessons from the experience. Critics of this practice disagree, saying instead that this is a dangerous practice that will have farreaching implications.

It is a warm September morning in a southeast Texas rice field and the dead doves lay neatly stacked in a little pileby the young girl’s side. She carefully takes the time to examine each one before gently laying it back in the stack. She is your typical 12-year-old, a 7th grader a the local Jr. high, a cheerleader, active in her church, loves Beanie Babies, loves to read and is a Girl Scout who loves the outdoors and camping. And oh yeah, she loves to hunt.

Learning to handle a firearm has been as natural to Elizabeth as learning to ride her bike. Well, almost as natural. When she rides her bike, her father doesn’t stand over her making sure that she does it right, not anymore, because she has proven that she is capable of handling the responsibility for this activity, riding safely while watching out for traffic.

However, when she picks up a firearm you notice a difference in the attitude of her father. He is constantly standing over her offering advice, “Be careful where you point your barrel.” “Ok, its time to load, take your time, do it right.” “Don’t put your finger on the trigger until you are ready to shoot.” “Check the safety, is it on?” “Ok, there he is, take your time, remember to use the right sight picture, ok. SHOOT!” Elizabeth doesn’t seem to mind. A father handing out advice is part of hunting. And hunting is part of life.

This is how many American families today see it. Yes, just like the rest of us they have read about kids with guns shooting up schools, grocery stores or one another. But they just don’t understand it. These are not the kids they know. Not the guns they know. These incidents are foreign to them.

In their world, kids that use firearms for hunting and recreational shooting are seen as a good thing. They know that when they see a kid with a gun he is learning responsibility, interacting with a new aspect of life, bonding with his parents or is connecting with nature.

All across America, hunting is a family sport. However, it is a sport in peril. These days fewer people are hunting and fewer kids show any interest in the sport. For example, the results of a recent survey by the National Shooting Sports Foundation found that only 25% of hunters were under age 35–down from 48% a decade earlier.

This trend delights the animal-rights activists because to them, hunting is a form of legalized cruelty that is no better than forcing dogs to fight for sport. These groups feel that hunting warps the impressionable minds of young kids because it teaches that it is OK to kill which makes them too comfortable with death.

Those who enjoy hunting feel that hunting is good for the family. As Elizabeth’s father states, “Someone who hasn’t shared the experiences can’t comprehend how we feel about this issue.” These same people let their 5-year-olds tag along to the duck blinds, buy their kindergartners BB guns and take their first-graders target shooting. They enroll their children in hunter education classes and when their 14-year-old bags his first buck, they are as proud of him as if he’d gotten accepted into Harvard. Teaching youngsters to hunt is one of the best ways they know of to raise good kids. As one mother told me, “Keep a baseball bat under their left arm, a football in their left hand, a fishing pole under their right arm and a shotgun in their right hand and they just don’t have time to get into trouble now do they?”

It’s opening day of dove season and Elizabeth is out in the darkened field with her older brother, granddad and father. The first thing that she notices is how quiet it is. The air seems to be alive, awaiting the birth of a new day. Her father has taught her that the early morning is a time of renewal, a reawakening of life. It is the beginning of a new adventure.

As Elizabeth and her granddad sit on their hunter’s stools in the tall grass next to a freshly harvested rice field, he encourages her to watch for the appearance of the first doves. In her camouflage clothing, she sits still, trying not to fidget while blending into her background. In her hands rests a Mossberg 500 .20 gauge pump shotgun.

“There he is, honey!” says her granddad, in a low whisper, afraid of frightening her or of disturbing their natural surroundings.

Elizabeth looks up into the predawn sky and sees the fast approaching shape of the shadowy dove speeding across the field. It will pass slightly to her left. “Get ready now,” granddad admonishes. Slowly she struggles to a crouch. “Shoot him, honey! Shoot him now!” Her gun is raised. She aims. Then slowly lowers the gun back to her lap. This is not a shot she can make, and she knows it. The bird has seen something unnatural and makes an abrupt turn to the left and flies out of range.

“Oh well, he’s too far away now, honey, but that was a good choice not to shoot. It means that you are learning to use your head and think before you pull the trigger.” Smiling, Elizabeth sits back on her stool, awaiting the next dove to come her way.

She is only 12, but Elizabeth is learning that patience is a part of hunting. At least, the kind of hunting that her father believes teaches his children values. His is not the egotistical sport portrayed by today’s mainstream media with their redneck stereotypes.

In his type of hunting you don’t intrude upon the woods, pop open a beer and blaze away at anything that moves. Instead you learn to have patience, hunt only what you are willing to eat, never shoot at an animal if you only have a chance of wounding it and make every effort to retrieve every animal shot at. It is better to come home empty-handed than to injure an animal and cause it any unnecessary suffering.

This is where hunting’s critics usually step in waving their banner with the bloody H on it for hypocrisy. Talk all you want to about ethics, they say, you can’t escape the fact that you are killing an animal or that you’re doing it for sport.

Elizabeth’s father responds, “You’re right.”

Even though there are some rural residents who do subsist mainly by hunting, most Americans who hunt don’t need to do so for their suppers. And most hunters admit that it would be easier and cheaper to drive to the supermarket and buy shrink-wrapped hamburger or bacon then it is to hunt. Besides, by going to the supermarket, you don’t need to think of the slaughtered cow that provided the hamburger or the pig that died to give you bacon. By using the supermarket you forget that someone else did the killing for you. Most hunters hunt because they prefer the taste of fresh game. They are convinced that game animals live better and die more humanely than those that have to endure the slaughterhouses in order to provide our steaks and our chicken nuggets and our morning bacon. This ideology is a difficult one to comprehend if you haven’t been raised with it, but these hunters insist they respect the animals they kill.

As Elizabeth’s father explains, “after spending several seasons pursuing one particular buck, days tracking him through the forest, crawling through mud, struggling over thorn bushes, constantly trying to outwit him, you gain a certain respect and admiration for the animal. You learn a lot about his world and to appreciate the venison he provides that much more. Somehow, unwrapping that Big Mac or Whopper just doesn’t give you the same sense of connection.”

Elizabeth’s father and granddad hope that hunting will give her an honest appreciation of how she plays a role in the scheme of nature. They know that she will learn patience and perseverance; along with respect for all that the creator has created.

Her father admits that he has a somewhat selfish motive for encouraging her to hunt. And that is the time they spend together while hunting. The talking and the listening, the waiting and the shooting, the sitting side by side learning whatever lesson nature chooses to teach them that day.

Yes, they could have the same quality time together while camping and Elizabeth could learn patience in other ways, such as bird watching. They could learn the lessons that nature has to offer while hiking and studying the great outdoors. And as the critics of hunting have always been the first to point out, children don’t need to pick up a gun to get fresh air, exercise or time alone with dad.

Elizabeth’s father admits that this is true enough, yet, the excitement and action of hunting provides us with a chance to feel as though we are a part of an age-old tradition. It’s an opportunity to contribute to the welfare of our family, even if you are just a 12-year-old girl.

“Now don’t get me wrong,” says Elizabeth’s father, “Camping and hiking are fun alright. But it just isn’t the same. I’ve always looked forward to hunting with my children and teaching them about the great outdoors. Just like my father did with me.”

In the still dim morning light the second dove of the morning makes it’s way across the rice field. “Get ready, honey, here comes another one,” her granddad whispers in her ear as he points out the incoming bird. Slowly she raises her shotgun to her shoulder as she watches the dove swoop low over stalks of the harvested grain. Just as it flares up to enter the tree line, boom!!, she pulls the trigger and works the pump of her Mossberg, but another round is not needed.

The dove swoops back out into the field, flutters, then banks and circles over the field once again as it tries to regain altitude before banking one last time and fades as it sinks to the ground.

“You got him! You got him!” her granddad cries as he gives her a big hug. Elizabeth just grins glad that all of that practice with her father has paid off.

Retrieving her dove she notices that is a small bird, light gray in color. Smoothing the feathers, she lays it down at her side. Blood speckles her wrist and palm, but she doesn’t seem to notice. Or if she does, she doesn’t seem to mind. Her attention has turned back to the field and the possibility of seeing more doves.

This is the point that bothers the critics of hunting the most. Even when they are able to reconcile the predator/prey relationship, many of them cannot comprehend that it might not be wrong for kids to be so comfortable with killing. Most states now require all hunters to take a 10-hour or longer hunter education class before being allowed to hunt on their own or obtain a hunting license. These classes cover such topics as gun safety, hunting ethics, conservation and wildlife identification. Animal-rights groups claim that “If you’re teaching kids that it’s OK to hurt and maim and kill animals simply for fun, what type of message does that really give them?”

Elizabeth and her friends don’t believe that it is OK to hurt or maim animals. But they do think it’s OK to kill them, as long as you plan to eat them. Death does not bother her because as she has been taught, the bible says that there is a time to live and a time to die. Animal-right activists claim hunting makes kids insensitive to bloodshed. Elizabeth’s father believes that the opposite is true. He believes that Elizabeth and her brother know that once a bullet has been fired it can’t be taken back. They understand that death, unlike in the movies and video games, is irreversible.

Just like her father and granddad, Elizabeth believes that hunting is a sacred responsibility and is not to be taken lightly or callously. It’s not all bang, bang, yee-haw grab the beer and let’s go kill us some doves. It is not the casual acts of violence that she and her peers see daily in the media.

Elizabeth stated it best when she said, “Some people think it’s cool to shoot someone on a video game and then watch them come back in the next round. Some people like the shoot’em ups that they see on TV and in the movies. But that’s not how it is when we go hunting.”

Elizabeth’s father said that, “hunters aren’t perfect either. Just like any other group in the nation, we are a cross-section of society today. Unfortunately, there are those “hunters” who are dangerous with a gun, just like there are people who are dangerous with an automobile, kitchen knife, crowbar or screwdriver.” An example of these kinds of individuals can be seen in Andrew Golden, who along with Mitchell Johnson, took the shooting skills he learned while being trained by his family to become a hunter and applied those when they shot their classmates in Jonesboro, Arkansas. This tragedy, and others like it, started many non-hunters to thinking it can’t be right to give kids guns. They should be mourning the tragedy of Bambi, not out in the woods stalking him.

Elizabeth’s father doesn’t agree, “Yes, some kids aren‘t mature enough to be handling firearms, but then neither are some adults. I don’t see this as a reason to close all the youth hunting or shooting programs. After all, the 4-H, Boy Scouts, NRA Youth Shooting Sports Fest and other programs teach youngsters the proper way to safely handle firearms while respecting them.”

To emphasize this point, Elizabeth’s dad, who is actively involved in youth shooting and hunting related activities across the US, drills his own youngsters in the three basic rules of gun safety; always consider every gun loaded, never point a gun at anything you don’t intend to shoot and always know your target and what lies beyond it. His own firearms are locked safely out of reach in his gun safe, but he trusts his children. After all, gun safety is just another household rule, like no TV until the homework and chores are done. Or if you want to participate in extra curricular activities, the grades had better be good. “It is like everything else in life you want them to know.”

The midmorning sun has begun to heat the countryside and the doves have all settled into the fields to feed while the rabbits have headed home after their early morning breakfast. It is time to leave. But Elizabeth and her grandfather are hesitant to relinquish their position in the turn row on the edge of the rice field.

Elizabeth knows that she is finished hunting for now and has to get back home to help her mom clean up the house. Between them they have killed twelve doves in two and a half-hour’s worth of shooting. “We got a lot,” she says, sounding happy, as she picks up the birds and puts them into the back of her hunting vest. Later when these are combined with the eighteen that her father and brother took they will help to feed the whole family for dinner.

While collecting their spent shell casings and loading up what’s left of their gear, Elizabeth and her granddad both smile at the experiences and feelings that they have shared today. “I had fun”, she tells her granddad who responds with a warm smile and says, “Me too, Honey, me too.”

As they turn toward the truck to meet her father and brother, she takes one last look back and the bent grass reminds her of the time that she was part of nature, for a while.

And by the way, if you haven’t guessed by now, Elizabeth is Elizabeth Vasquez, and yes, she is my daughter.