ProfHoff
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206.69.151.16 On killing for fun and profit: January 9 2001, 12:22 PM


It is both the curse and blessing of being human that enables us to sit as judge and jury on the fate of those creatures with which we compete in the ecosystem. Unlike the organisms displaced, we humans have the power to decide that a shopping mall surrounded by forty acres of asphalt is more valuable to our ends than the wildlife cover it destroys in its making. It is the unexamined arrogance of power that sometimes causes us to thoughtlessly elevate our desires above the well-being of all other creatures.

Indeed, we feed the birds we like -- and then we kill those at the feeders which we deem to be a threat to our concept of jungle justice. I have never seen a starling do the horrible things described in Steve's article. However, I do know enough about Mr. Starling that I have taken it upon myself to eliminate every one I can. Likewise, Mr. and Mrs. Brown Headed Cowbird have convinced me that their way of propagation is an offense to my sense of parental responsibility -- thus they are welcomed under my crosshairs. Woe unto Mr. Rat should he ever appear in range of my airguns. And so it goes, for these and a few other species, I have set myself as the arbiter of their destiny. And I do so without sorrow.

That one can behave so dispassionately is not to say that one cannot have a twinge of guilt. Speaking personally, as I grow older and increasingly come to recognize the fragility of my own machinery, I reflect on the glorious complexity of living systems. Sometimes, at the moment of "thwack" I ponder the lack of compassion that would drive me to send a pellet through a pest species. And then, in an instant, the thoughts evaporate when another (arbitrarily condemned) target moves into view.

I try not to think much about the conflicts that rage within regarding my behavior as an avian assassin. I assuage my discomfiture by taking Mr. Squirrel for the stew-pot -- comforting myself by the unuttered and all-but-unrecognized fact that I have eaten him instead of Mr. Steer or Porky Pig. I dare not examine why I would kill the cowbird and eat of the cow. I really don't want to know that part of my being -- especially when another cowbird cruises in for a landing.

It is a simply brutal truth: Be it for competition in the ecosystem, or for nourishment, life sustains itself only by the taking of life. There is virtually no likelihood that science will one day synthesize a cheeseburger (or a veggieburger) from those dead elements listed on the Periodic Table of the Atoms that hangs here on my chamber wall. We are nourished and enabled by the unwilling sacrifice of that which was (or is) alive.

Alas, it's far more complicated than merely killing for food -- or hiring a surrogate murderer at the butcher shop to do that which we are too cowardly to perform for ourselves. To pluck from the tree and then crush a sweet apple in our jaws is to destroy living, respiring cells by brutally macerating them, thence depositing them in a bath of acid and enzymes so that the nutrients in the apple may become living, respiring tissue in our own machinery.

And so it is that the sanctimonious vegetarian is in no position to criticize the hunter of flesh. Like we hunters who are the sometimes-reviled members in the community of the omnivore, inescapably, the vegan shall be forced to meet heis/her need for protein by sacrificing peas, beans and lentils. These PETA-headed guardians of my destiny hear not the cellular screams of anguish when their digestive corrosives dissolve the tissue that sustains them. There seems to be little room in their pointy heads for a recognition of their own brutality. Yet, they would excoriate the hunter.

I have no quarrel with those who prefer tofu over a tenderloin. Nevertheless, I am unsettled and agitated to action and resistance by any who would -- wielding the club of guilt and intimidation -- opt to legislate their menu in my domestic restaurant.

So at the bottom line, each person must decide the extent to which he/she would intervene in what is euphemistically referred to as "nature's balance." Examined carefully, one recognizes that what is thought of as 'balance' is really a dynamic equilibrium that oscillates under the influence of humankind. We can decide what stays or goes. We can influence the fate of all creatures even as we influence the fate of our own prospects. It is an awesome responsibility that at least requires some quiet contemplation in the doing thereof.

I have no wish to upset those who think differently from me. I merely suggest that we give a little thought to the consequences of our acts when we unilaterally decide which lives are to be taken. As for me, I shall continue, to hire the services of surrogate butcher-shop murderers, I shall continue to take game for the table, I shall kill critters I deem to be pests, and I shall continue to be repulsed by roaches and flies -- and wantonly smite them, sans twinge of conscience or guilt. Yet in the doing thereof, I will more than occasionally ponder the consequences of my acts and recognize that I shall probably never understand the why of it all.

Regards,
ProfHoff

Let me see if I have this straight. You like to shoot starlings and rats, swat flies,stomp on roaches eat hamburgers and hate tofu? I'm pretty much in the same boat, except I love veggie burgers especially with a nice wedge of fresh apple on top.

dave@vabch

DEEP

and I have to agree 99.99% with it since it gives me .01% to back off which is a bad percentage

BUT

a true dilema writen in BIG terms

maybe: and just MAYBE he means what goes in your mind before you pull the trigger?? or after you pull it

did you hit it and feel good inside, did you miss and feel miserable, did you hit and regret it, did you hit it and thought about taking back that shot??

I am going to read it again, but before that I will make sure to be comfortable with what I shoot before I pull the trigger

don't want to regret after that

warren

God gave man dominion over this Earth. And dominion over the animals and plants here. He also expects us to be good stewards of the life He made so abundant here. I have no problem killing pests or food. But I don't take it lightly or mercilessly.
Rob

Let's begin with getting one thing straight. First and foremost, just because someone is a vegetarian does not mean that he belongs to the whacked out group of Peta.We see enough of the BS grouping with politics, there is no need for it here. I am a semi vegetarian who likes to hunt. I do not eat much game and usually give it away to someone who does like it. You want to eat greasy Big Mac's or ingest high levels of saturated animal fat then that is your business.If someone chooses what he thinks is a healthier diet of fruits and vegetables then that is there business as well. Breaking these comparison's down to making a choice to ingest the cellulose of a apple is getting out there.You want to attack PETA, or the Nazi's or whom ever then do so. But how about leaving the diet of some individual out of the argument.

Dave@vabch

Dave, I really was not joking about the applesauce on a Veg Berger I like them, It is a myth that we need meat.

Hay Rob perhaps not to bring the Bible into it, man only got permission to eat animals when Noah landed, and there is vegetarian quotations, confusing.

You could look on Richard Dawkins web site to see if there is any Darwinian answers, but I dont think that would work ether.

A unusual post for a airgun site, I think there was one like it on the BBS a long time ago. I like the sound of the big dollop of applesauce on Dave's V Berger though.

Was one of the deepest and most intelligent persons I have ever had the pleasure to call "Friend".

He died some time ago; but is writings are pretty much in tone with the eternal aspects of life, whether it was hunting or collecting, or devising a way to gel the diesel fuel I at some point in time used to turn an airgun specially constructed into the modern equivalent of a VL system gun.

Prof was a Chemistry Proffesor, therefrom his title. He started writing in the old AGLF (Air Gun Letter Forum) and was contemporary with Mike Pearson, Tom Anderson, Marty MacNaughton, Swinson and others that broke the limits of what then was the real cutting edge of airgunning. Tom Gaylord and his wife made a supreme effort to keep the old Air Gun Letter Forum open, but some personality clashes simply made it impossible.

It's nice to see one of his writings reproduced here.

Do read it all over again, you may or may not agree, Prof KNEW that not everyone had to agree with him, but that did not prevent him from voicing his opinions and concerns in the best, most civil, polite, gentlemanly and courteous way I've seen in a LOOOOOONNNGGG time.



Un Abrazo!




H�ctor

Quote from original post,

"I will more than occasionally ponder the consequences of my acts and recognize that I shall probably never understand the why of it all."

Now that's food for thought.
D

Barry, Yes a slice of fresh apple on a veggie patty makes a great lunch. I love a fresh veggi patty. However trying to describe this to someone raised on Hamburgers is not the easiest thing to do. Most folks want to experiment eating one as a substitute to a hamburger. This is where they begin the course of dislike. It is not a hamburger and not meant to taste like a hamburger.It is a vegetable course.personally I do not care what a person eats. However folks should keep a open mind to other menus. There are certain benefits to a vegetarian diet. One is you will feel so much better physically.I was a long time distance runner and coach, I made the switch when I found that my runners including myself would have faster times if they would not eat foods laden in saturated fat.In fact all run's races and training runs had significant improvements. The odd thing is the more you eat a vegetarian diet the more you find a distaste to fatty foods. For instance, once I switched to non fat milk, I could no longer even swallow whole milk as he seemed like drinking pure cream. Bottom line, we did not make the switch to "MAKE A STATEMENT OR TO BE VOGUE" we simply did it to run faster,run longer,have more energy and to feel better and have better recovery after hard workouts. That said, we did believe in moderation. In fact we recommended a small portion of tenderloin once a week as there were nutrients in the meat that were beneficial.

Sorry to go off on this subject, but when someone starts making conjectures and categorizing folks into extreme groups like Peta simple because they disagree with them on diet makes me a little upset.The good Professor ProHof would have done well by reading another Professor "Melvin Williams book on Nutrition for Health, Fitness and Sport by Melvin H Williams.Melvin Williams is the Director of Human Performance Laboratory at Old Dominion University, and has more than 30 years of lab research with a focus on the role of nutrition in sports. He has written and edited five books on ergogenic aids and the role of nutrition in sports -- By the way, Mel knew what he was talking about. He put his money where is mouth is. He was and still is on of the top distance runner's in his age group. He won his age group in the Boston Marathon and well as the Marine Corp Marathon and now in his seventies he still runs the hell out of folks more that half his age.

Regards
Dave@vabch

Dave I agree 99%

both with humans and animals sends its consequence into the future to take on a life of its own. we have no way of knowing the extent of those consequences. we have to exersize care and thoughtfulness in what we do. recognize, however, that we are not perfect. even my catch and release fly fishing has its consequences for the fishery i frequent. some hooked fish will die even when released. it is the nature of the sport. i do the best i can.

i choose not to hunt. that was not always the case. i did enough damage in my thoughtless youth that i can never make up for it. i am sorry for that. today, the thought of killing is repugnant to me. i will, however make an exception for spiders. strangely, i don't find the people who hunt to be repugnant. i watch hunting shows and come away from them finding the experience interesting. the process is interesting. she skillsets that those folks have are interesting. the final act though is not for me. but, it is ok with me for others to pursue it. i don't judge them. i can be friends with them.

for me, shooting is more of a meditative process. i made a comment to a friend yesteray at a field target match. i said, "this is one degree away from meditation". i hope that one day there will be no separation at all.

Another one I agree with, except for the spiders.

Larry, your quote "for me, shooting is more of a meditative process." I could not agree with you more! To make a good shot, you have to lose yourself. Get in touch with the gun, yourself, and the environment. When I shoot, I forget all my problems thoughts etc. Running was the same with me. I could run for miles and sometimes end up miles away from home and not even realize where I was. I really do not hunt anymore. In fact when I did, It was always the great feeling of being out in the woods that made me feel the calmness and beauty of life and nature.
I shoot a few starling every now and then, but hunting as a whole has no satisfaction. I do not shoot to hunt, but shoot to just shoot. That said, I appreciate hunters. I love the whitetail deer, which now because of good hunting conservation are at a huge abundance in Virginia. If hunters did not cull the herd, massive disease would set in and could very well eliminate the entire species. Maybe this is why I am happy with nice light springer's. For me, it takes every bit of skill to shoot at 15 to 30 yards as it takes to shoot a magnum at 60 yards. Shooting a very small dot, with my Baikal 61 or R7 is all the power I seem to need. JMO

Dave

In and of itself. You needn't wax long and philosophical in defense of your hobby. It's my belief that men have an atavistic urge to hunt, carried over from prehistoric times. Hunting appears to be built-in to humans just as surely as in to cats. I, personally, do not hunt, although that is a choice thrust upon me by the local authorities (nowhere to do it legally around here). I am not averse to culling starlings, etc. What I don't care for are those who seem to take a juvenile interest in simply killing for killing's sake, be it with air rifle or firearm. These are the "hunters" who gratuitously blast anything and everything with little, if any, regard for the quarry. Even if you are potting cockroaches, you should have at least a modicum of respect for the "game". Part of what you do reflects back upon yourself. And, no, we don't have any God-given right to kill whatsoever we choose. That's more or less in the realm of self-determination.

Hector, Larry, Barry, Rob are adding new dimensions to what ProfHoff wrote which are linear to what I am thinking, not that others are out of touch BUT

I have read this one more than once and find a mind that is not the Plain Jane in these forums not impliying you guys' are plain Jane's

this is a one of a kind mind writting about hunting with a philosophical down to earth tone many can understand

found the post interesting at first but after reading it again and again I was MESMERIZED

IF and IF I had this ability to write thoughts into posts like this I would not write like I do

brilliant mind is what ProfHoff WAS

warren

PS: someone chase the IP address 71.180.13.127 of the original poster on this one, PLEASE

and remember "it's 30% the gun and 70% the shooter"

scrutonize, v. "To conflate two disciplines at a superficial level so that dinner party conversations could continue in the spurious belief that matters of moment were being discussed while the port was passed."

bambrough, n. (1) A rare and umbrageous tree in the shelter of which all philosophical perplexity can be charmed away.

Where the bread fruit fall

And the penguin call

And the sound is the sound of the sea

Under the bam

Under the brough

Under the bambrough tree.

(2) (from bang-brow) A comment of such transcendent obviousness that were any hearer actually informed by it, he would smite his forehead with the heel of his hand. "Such a bambrough! Why didn't I think of it?"

I listened to a lot of Philosophers during the 70's.They would usually blow my mind to smithereens especially when they were blowing a lot of weed, n. pl. Pluralists. In the jargon of analytic philosophers, demonstrating the incoherence of a position is sometimes called blowing it to smithereens.

Regards
Dave@vabch

Wow! I cannot remember reading something like that in a gun/airgun forum in la looong time.I wish I was given the gift to master the words like he was.I find myself many times,wile hunting, having similar thoughts. I find no need to justify to me or others as to why I hunt(some refer to it as neddlesly killing).Some of us are born with it , like it or not.I accept it as I accept my own mortality. Truth is that I find peace when I am hunting, is a feeling of being part of the system in a more natural way that I can find anywhere in town.I eat what I kill and bring it to my table to share with others.I don't find the need to justify that.I am at peace with my actions.A great deal of people will desagree however.

I found it a bit verbose.

Verbose and Bombastic. I would not worry about becoming embroiled, he posted this stuff for debate. If you read carefully, he really did not have much to say. The subject of eating apples cells vs flesh has been out there for years. I think maybe he had a few cocktails and was trying to impress some young sophomore coed.

dave

Read some of the late 19th Century writings of certain big game hunters (can't recall their colorful pen names) and they were every bit as such.

Here Red, from one of my favorite characters in life. "Breaker Morant"


At The River Crossing
Oh! the quiet river-crossing
Where we twain were wont to ride,
Where the wanton winds were to sing
Willow branches o'er the tide.

There the golden noon would find us
Dallying through the summer day,
All the waery world behind us -
All it's tumult far away.

Oh! thoe rides across the crossing
Where the shallow stream runs wide,
When the sunset's beams were glossing
Strips of sand on either side.

We would cross the sparkling river
On the brown horse and the bay;
Watch the willows sway and shiver
And their trembling shadows play.

When the opal tints waxed duller
And a gray crept o'er the skies
Yet there stayed the blue sky's color
In your dreamy dark-blue eyes.

How the sun-god's bright caresses,
When we rode at sunet there,
Plaited among your braided tresses,
Gleaming on your silky hair.

When the last sunlight's glory
Faded off the sandy bars,
There we learnt the old, old story,
Riding homeward 'neat the stars.

'Tis a memory to be hoarded -
Oh, the follish tale and fond!
Till another stream be forded -
And we reach the Great Beyond.

are you related to ProfHoff LOL

I like your writing style and this part is absolutely brilliant:

"both with humans and animals sends its consequence into the future to take on a life of its own. we have no way of knowing the extent of those consequences. we have to exersize care and thoughtfulness in what we do. recognize, however, that we are not perfect"

that phrase you wrote is awesome and more

Red; what ProfHoff wrote is not a guideline for a hunter but his interpretation and his differences fighting inside himself and he came to a conclusion for HIMSELF not to discriminate between hunters and shooters or at least that is what I make of it

warren

PS: your gun or air gun is capable of many things but it is up to you to decide how to use it, load you gun, aim at paper or a squirrel and shoot, you live with the consequences after you pull the trigger

PS, PS and more PS: PAPER has NONE, shoot 1,000 times at a paper targets or 1,000 paper targets and it was an innanimated object

and remember "it's 30% the gun and 70% the shooter"

perhaps that bit of philosphy comes from 64 years of life experience.

Nah, that comes from reading too many books on flyfishing. LOL
Are you still thinking about getting rid of the HW50S?

James

i sold it recently. it was a great gun but one of the two that i wasn't shooting.