[leadcounsel]

In my unlicensed psychologist viewpoint - it is sick and demented for anyone to take any real PLEASURE in killing a living creature. Even in war, or in self-defense, it is upsetting to kill. If one takes enjoyment in ending the life of a creature, that's a sign of a mental illness. Go tell 10 people on the street of all ages and genders that you enjoy killing living creatures and see their reaction. I bet 9 out of 10 will avoid you or think you are weird.

Now, there are a variety of reasons we humans (higher intellectual beings with rational thought, emotions, sense of right and wrong, etc.) kill.

Generally from most justifiable to least:

1. Self defense, self preservation, food and clothing, other necessity. Category 1 is IMO acceptable human behavior. It's not to be enjoyed. Enjoying the hunt, bonding with friends/family, nature in general, the skill of the hunt, is IMO acceptable. Enjoying the pain and suffering, even momentarily, that you cause at terminating life is an unfit reaction IMO. I don't feel elated about the death of the cow on my plate or the leather it provided for my clothing. I appreciate that cow, but I'm not happy it died. If I were attacked by a wild animal, stray dog, or rattle snake, I might take it's life. Again, not happy to kill it. It was necessary. If I came upon a wounded suffering animal, I would end it's suffering. I would take no pleasure in it. If attacked by a person, even an evil person wanting to kill me, I would act in self defense and may legally and justifiably kill that person. I would take no pleasure in it.

I eat meat and use animal products. I enjoy the products but take zero pleasure in the deaths. In a similar vein, I live in a nation where many people died, innocently, at the hands of greedy people. Native American, slaves, women, children, etc. I take no pleasure in their deaths, but I do appreciate them and the land.

These are facts of life.

I always try to buy free range animal products and non-animal tested products because I believe in the ethical treatment of animals. While I do agree that a bullet to the heart/lungs is better than what farm raised livestock get, it's still ending a life prematurely.

People can justify in their minds all they want (I'm saving this deer from a slow starvation death at some point in the future, or being eaten by a coyote, blah blah blah). The fact is that these arguments are invalid as it relates to say, for instance, killing a person. So they are equally fallible when killing a deer, coyote, whatever. (Yes I know the difference between the legalities of hunting people versus humans, let's not get sidetracked here.)

Question: Dear hunter can take only 1 deer. He sees a few deer in a field - large buck with big rack and some medium bucks and some does and medium and small deer, and a sickly old deer with missing fur. Which deer does the hunter take? It won't be putting this sickly old one out of misery or compassion. So that invalidates the humane argument from prior posts.

2. Accident. If I hit a deer with my car, I'm not happy that I killed it. If I negligently or accidently killed any animal, I would not be happy about it, or enjoy its suffering.

3. Amusement, humor, sadistic reasons. The sadists who dog fight, produce crush videos, cock fighting, lighting gasoline-covered animals on fire, electrocuting them, etc. In my mind, there is little different between the person who goes out and blasts 20 rats in the junkyard, coyotes in the forest, prarie dogs in the field, and the guy who abuses dogs in dog-fighting, or the people who make the crush videos.

Some hunters here either refuse to accept, or purposefully ignore, the almost daily glee that is posted on this forum from the entertainment killing that goes on. These sport kills should be beneath us, and they are detrimental to gun owners rights and perpetuate the dumb, unsympathetic, ignorant, hillbilly and redneck stereotypes.

I'm not anti-hunting and I love to eat game. That's not my message here.

Of course a lot of support for hunters is going to be generated on a pro-hunting and pro-gun website... Anyone here that enjoys the actual taking of any life, I challenge you to go into town and have a brief conversation with 10 actual strangers, and poll them or tell them that when you hunt, you enjoy taking life and watching it die. Report back with their response.

As enlightened responsible humans, and gun owners, it seems as though members here would be above taking actual pleasure in terminating life. Some of the attitudes on this forum, and others, is astoundingly ignorant. Relying on "this is how humans have always been" is a copout. Humans have evolved. We are an enlightened species. For example, human males USED to take women by force. We no longer do that. Granted, this is an extreme example, but it demonstrates the point that we no longer BEHAVE certain ways because we became enlightened and figured right versus wrong.

We now know that animals think, communicate, and feel pain and fear.