Doc

I believe that my first hunting experience was at age 9 or 10 ..... somewhere in that area. I was hunting pigeons up in the hay loft of the barn with a homemade long-bow that I fashioned out of hickory with an old draw-knife that I found in Dad's shop. My Mother cooked up the harvest of three birds and I ate them.....lol. Legal small game and deer hunting was 16 years old I believe. I'm not sure because that was a pile of decades ago ..... lol. Actually, I don't remember any problems with that age. It was the law and simply accepted, and just like driving a car and voting, there was a certain age that you had to wait before you could do certain things. It was simply the accepted way of life. Things are a bit different today in that we find ourselves in competition for kids attention and incorporation into hunting. The future of hunting and game management population control seem to be at stake. When and where I grew up, hunting was just an assumed activity and it was just expected that you would be a deer hunter when you got old enough.

Well, first of all there is damn little that you can buy that is truly made completely, 100%, made in America. Second, we have adopted an attitude of profits first and quality second, where some foreign manufacturers have found that quality will eventually bring the profits. As far as cars go, I have always been a long distance commuter, living way out in the sticks. Being left along the side of the road at 4:00 am in a snowstorm got old in a hurry. So quality ranks right up high on the list of purchase criteria as far as cars are concerned. Electronics and other trinkets are generally built elsewhere or at least most of their components so "buying American" is not even an option. You can buy things with American brand names, but that does not mean that they have been built by American labor.

Sometime in the late 90's I decided to ditch the tournament archery and concentrate on hunting. At the same time, I began to recognize the fact that I had a wall full of bows, arrows, equipment, and drawers full of gadgets, gizmos and go-fasters most of which hadn't really added anything significant to my accuracy. So, in 1999, I bought my Mathews MQ-32, and shut down all future purchases. I still get deer, and still enjoy shooting, but I am living off the fat of years of past purchases. I have a collection of old aluminum arrows that is huge. I have a wall full of bows. I have a tackle box full of accessories. And I am very well equipped to shoot a deer. No more chasing after speed or any of the other things that I had always convinced myself that I needed. So in short, I have shifted the emphasis from buying success to simply enjoying using what I've got. Today, I literally spend absolutely nothing on my archery. I probably could have done this thousands of dollars and decades earlier if I had not gotten caught up in the tournament bug and all the advertising hype. Looking back over the years, the fact is that that old Bear Whitetail with the pulleys and cables all over the place and the clunky epoxy limbs that could be used as a crow-bar seemed to be quite an adequate and reliable deer-getter.

Well these jerks want to buy the cow and retire it to some kind of sanctuary that they operate. I say great. It looks like the farmers of their area have a new alternative market. The farmers of that area ought to flood these creeps with all kinds of cattle for them to buy. Break the suckers .... lol. Let them put their money where their mouth is ...... ALL of their money.

The parcel size has definitely shrunk as farms went out of business and the land got divided, and then divided some more and divided even more. Forested land has had a revival in financial worth as city dwellers decided they wanted a nice little place in the woods. I have been around a lot of years and watched all my hunting spots being built up. So what you are saying is true. And I guess we are both the cause and the symptom. I remember laughing at people who used to rant and rave about over-population. I'm not sure whether their vision of over-population was the same as mine, but I sure do agree with them today. There really are too damned many people infesting the U.S. these days. It shows up in every facet of life, and hunting is just one of them.

Deserted cemetery in Bristol Springs. Has since been restored.

“Those who forget or ignore the past are doomed to repeat it”. And never, ever forget or downplay any of the violent offenses against this country or its citizens. To downplay them is to condone them. Since this thread was about militias, it seemed to be important to remind people of exactly what those people are all about. Yes there are sources of evil all around us that have to be taken seriously and require vigilance. But this thread was regarding concerns relating to militias. And on that subject of militias, it bears repeating that they do have a record that shows that there is reason for EspressoBuzz to be concerned about them. Just because we have worse threats of greater scope and size does not justify or warrant ignoring all others.

I remember our driveway looking lie a parking lot when all the family got together for deer hunting. The air was full of stories (some of them true) and the strategy sessions, the joking and some of those meals that the ladies of the family would put on. I think that whole atmosphere is what really kept me in an anxious condition while waiting to get old enough to hunt. Hanging on every word, enjoying all the enthusiasm, it all made me want to be a part of it all. None of that happens when a kid's introduction to hunting happens in the absence of all that and at a time when all those characters are excluded.

This is one more step toward bringing in new people to hunting. Let's keep it going with other good thinking of this sort. Instead of just sitting back and taking a beating at the hands of the antis, we need a lot more aggressive thinking and actions. We are fighting a cultural battle with technology, and while we don't want to stifle the interest in technology by our youth, we need more actions like this proposal to stem their obsessions with technology to the exclusion of all other things that could be in their lives.

I am always amazed at how some people continue to enjoy their firearms while at the same time bad-mouthing the very organizations that are out there trying to save their right to do so.

I have one hell of a huge collection of his records, tapes, and CDs so Merle will always be alive through his music for me.

Your right. It is time for lunch and I'm gone.

What exactly bothers you about that attitude? Why are you shocked or scared about that kind of attitude toward law enforcement. We hear it almost every day from some individuals on this forum. We have our resident anarchists who would dearly love to topple our government. They live for revolution and they somehow call themselves patriots. You need to pay attention to this forum and understand the mentality that exists in some corners of it. Militias can do no wrong. Never mind what these people would replace it all with or how they would control any transitions. There first desire is to bring it all down and then try to sort it all out later. We have our own homespun jihadists right here and they seem to pretty much get a free pass from some. Yes you are absolutely right to be shocked and scared. Apparently you thought that all threats to our way of life came from abroad. Well, turn around very slowly and look at we have grown while nobody was watching. You've got two fronts coming at us, and unfortunately there may be a lot more allies in there pocket than most of us ever realized.

Those that want to treat militia terror any differently than over seas terror to be exact.

No, some of your asinine statements have gotten me pretty stirred up though and I don't mind telling you so. When I start hearing statements that when discussing U.S. based militias that some how the Oklahoma City bombing is off the table. Then someone is trying to whitewash the actions that militias are capable of doing. And I am here to say that we do have domestic terrorism and they are quite effective. And those that want to stick their head in the sand and pretend that these creeps are a bunch of harmless people that like to play paintball in the woods, had better pull their heads out of the sand or wherever it is stuck and understand that we have terrorism on two fronts. Foreign and domestic. And don't be telling me that the 20 year old bombing that took place doesn't matter, because to me it does matter. We don't need people that will turn their backs on terror that exists openly here inside our borders simply because it is convenient to do so. I will never forget 911, but I also in spite of everyone's wishes will never forget Oklahoma City.

That is simply ridiculous. There is no way that you could possibly in your most wildest imagination come up with anything in this discussion that would even hint that radical Islam is manageable. Now if you want to make sensible arguments, then let's hear them, but that line of illogic is too foolish to even respond to.

Absolutely none of that warrants the hero worship of McVeigh and Nichols, and it makes me sick to even hear such talk. In some of your twisted minds, because we are involved in Islamic terrorists, all home spun terrorism is excusable. I have never heard such crap. I have no idea what warped minds would even try to justify the killing of 168 innocent people and 19 children and then try to say but it's alright because look at what the jihadist are doing. My God... what gets into your minds?

Now wait a minute, where the hell are you getting any of that? I am not excusing any or the far east terrorist activities as you people want to excuse our own home grown terrorists. I HATE (and yes that word is purposefully chosen) all terrorist equally. I hate the demented attitudes that would even hatch up that mindset. And I don't have a whole lot of good feelings toward the apologists of any of them. If you people want to pick and choose which evil you can excuse and which you cannot I will proudly say that I cannot. Evil is evil and I can't condone any of it. Yes I went back 20 years to refresh your minds of the carnage that these militia groups are capable of because apparently a lot of you have selective memories and want to rank your evil according to place of origin. I can't do that, In my book nobody gets a free pass on terrorism. I don't keep score according to body count. That's not the way that I establish the right and the wrong of things.

I am just telling you that those two creeps represent the lowest that America has to offer. As much as may pain you to have me coming down on your baby-killing hero, I am not one to soft soap a filthy situation of evil just to spare the feelings of those that might regard that trash as their hero. And I will say that those characters and others like them have a love of terror and killing and have more in common with the ISIS creeps than they have differences. The numbers of them does not have anything to do with my feelings against any of them. Scum is scum, regardless of where they come from or what their base motivation is. I will further say that all those that have a hero worship thing going for Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols aren't really much of anything worthwhile in my book either. Anyone who can even begin to relate to those baby killers on any level aren't really anyone that I care to converse with and pretty much nauseate me.

As Paul Harvey used to say, "And now the rest of the story". I might be a little more strict as regards the meaning of "physical control" to ensure that they are in immediate positions of physical contact if necessary. I frequently see the lack of obedience to vocal commands between a parent and their child. Voice and sight from a distance, does not really mean physical control. But, that is really nit-picking. That is something I could support, and like I said, I would go even further and remove the minimum age requirement completely with the above mentor requirements.

It is hard to forget that just 20 years ago, a home grown, militia-spawned pair of local terrorists named Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols were responsible for 168 deaths of innocent U.S. citizens going about their day's work at the office along with 19 children at a day care center. Their victims were average ordinary everyday American citizens. They had a beef with the U.S. government also and felt that their rights were being violated. Yes I do consider home grown militias to be of the same mindset and the same resulting death and mayhem. Different motives, but still both with a beef against the U.S. government and both willing to accept death of innocents to avenge their perceived wronging's. Yes they both engage in terror and I don't see a lot of difference between the two in terms of their intent. They are both a blight on this earth and the world would be a better place without either groups.

It no longer depends on what is self serving or distasteful or whatever. It is becoming a case of using tactics that work. And we are getting our butts kicked by emotion-based presentations of animal rights groups. The animal rights crowd has found what appeals to humans and have found ways to pull huge support and finances out of people's pockets. They use all kinds of emotion-based tactics, fair or foul, truth or fiction, but they are all emotion based and they are all effective. We on the other hand rely on coma-inducing papers and research reports and lines of data that would put any audience under. We might as well save our breath rather than boring people to death and burying them under facts and figures that they won't even remember 5 seconds after they hear it. Send them away raving to their friends and neighbors about the sad image of a fawn starving to death because of a lack of hunting. Give them a jarring image of a staggering and drooling rabid raccoon. Let them choke on the putrid picture of a crusted nearly blinded fox with mange and explain that such animal health problems are exacerbated by todays attitudes toward trapping and hunting. Go for the cultural change through emotional awareness. That's what HSUS and their cohorts have been involved in. That is how they have made their advances. And I believe that it is those kinds of efforts that have changed our culture and is responsible for the constant negative slide of hunter numbers (adults and youngsters).

I guess I am looking for leadership from such sources as the DEC or the NYSCC or some major coalition of sportsmen's groups to spearhead lobbying efforts in the offices of hunting-friendly legislators. The article does not go into the details of how this was put into effect by West Virginia or he other states that have currents legislation pending. But I'm sure it was done on some higher level than just some minor organization of parents. Such an activity would have to have some muscle behind it. Perhaps it is time to call the bluff on some of these legislators who claim to friends of hunters.

As long as the fact that they are taking about heavily supervised and mentored hunting I believe that the minimum age should be abolished. However the idea and definition of supervised and mentored should be the bulk of the law. Words like "under strict control", and explicit definitions of what that means need to be stressed in any law that relaxes the minimum hunting age. Also the definition of the requirements of the mentors needs to be quite strict. If properly defined, the idea of a minimum age should be left up to the discretion of the parents with decisions based on the child's mental and physical preparedness and maturity. I do not want to see unsupervised 12 year olds running around the woods with rifles. This NYSCC proposal seems to be lacking that explicit wording and only casually mentions mentoring in a side comment.

We bicker because we strive for perfection. Anyone who believes that hunters cannot or should not disagree doesn't understand the concept of discussion, negotiation, and eventual resolution. Our methods and attitudes vary as does any other gathering of similar interests, and guess what.......we don't all march in lockstep and refuse to discuss some of the thorny issues that confront us. That wouldn't and shouldn't be human nature. Those whose opinions and passions wave around whichever way the popular wind blows are not doing themselves any good or the sport of hunting any good. And they will be of the least value when it comes to the fight against the anti-hunters. They are the weak-sisters who have no opinions of there own. They are the ones that lack any courage of their convictions. They sit silently and passively never concerning themselves about the issues that confront us. Yes they make for nice cordial and friendly and passive forum members but contribute nothing to the health and defense of hunting or the resolution of issues that confront the future of hunting. I worry more about a hunting community that would simply roll over on every issue in the effort to fake unity and solidarity. Are they people that you could count on as aggressive fighters in defense of hunting? I really don't think so.