a third of America needed to hunt to feed their families, and therefore gun control would starve the children.

I don't really see hunting for food as a common activity. Mostly I see guys shooting at targets, and at their asses in Walmart.

But perhaps if school districts would stop giving the first day of hunting off. It might not have such a focus and some real changes could be made. Just a thought.

Pistols are popular for shooting varmits, even fish in central city parks. Shooting fish in a barrel is "sport" too.

Just another rationale for accumulating more gunz and carrying them in more places.

Oh, long distance sniping at mountain goats is becoming more popular too.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=OTxwKzHE9mg#t=40

very much in sync with the NRA mindset that glamorizes the killing of any living thing, whether it be an animal or a human. The gunner mentality only recognizes a "bad shoot" as one perpetrated by a mentally deranged individual (this includes suicides) while all other injuries and deaths are either justifiable (SYG) or negligent (oops).

Just like the right-wing neoconservatives and the organizations which support them (NRA, ALEC, Koch Brothers) the Second Amendment extremists are attempting to put lipstick on their collective pigs by justifying their arsenals through the ignoble blood sport of trophy hunting. Those Americans who legitimately practice subsistence hunting are rare, and are by and large responsible and humane gun owners.

No matter how hard the gun nuts attempt to re-invent themselves, they remain responsible for making the United States of America the most armed and dangerous nation in the "civilized" world with the recorded statistics to prove that distinction. Those Republican/Libertarian gun fetishists who deny that they support the NRA and like-minded organizations, belie their true right-wing leanings when spouting the NRA mantra of "guns for anyone, and everyone!"

The lever action 30-30 was about the most common hunting rifle I saw back then along with military surplus bolt action rifles.

paladin: our Gun Enthusiasts are linking up with the natural foods movement, proclaiming (ad nauseum) that food which you "harvest" yourself is healthier for you, and much, much, much more noble than just buying some ground round at a grocery store.

Yep, that's the hunting mantra, mighty hunters putting food on their family (as an ignoble past president put it); but there are drawbacks to hunting they don't want you to know about, as they stand knee deep in a rainy marsh waiting hours for some mallards to fly over so they can get happy duck dynasty style by blowing a few mallards heads off.
.. buckshot has a tendency to get stuck in the flesh of the harvest, oftentimes attributed to why some gun-hunters have missing front teeth & other dental issues. Plus their families who partake in the 'foul' cornucopia.
.. then there's jakob kreuzfeld syndrome or malady, which results from improperly handled deer meat & other animals I suppose, not getting it refrigerated soon enough & letting the warm weather hasten it's deterioration such that the meat starts to spoil in parts & if you ingest it it can cause severe problems, like in the head, like what presumed to've happened to my uncle in the 60's when he ate some venison & suddenly developed a splitting head lasting for days.
.. and in the past 30 years at least I've never come across a grocery store or even private owned market which didn't have fresh meat on the shelves for reasonable prices, half of which I bet gets thrown out or given to employees instead of just letting it rot out.
.. then you gotta get a 'duck stamp' or deer (et al) license to shoot & bag them, imho more than the fowl most of em get is even worth. Five dollars a duck or goose a better way to put food on your family if you ask me, than standing in the woods for hours & having to walk around with a loaded gun. And recall that poor guy who was impaled when he was coming down off his deer perch on a tree, ow, count dracula somewhere is grinning (he impaled about 75,000 people, mostly innocents, ranks with hitler as per evil imo). And the inevitable hunting accidents which occur willy nilly throughout deer season.

.. then there's poaching, not as big a problem at least in USA where it's est'd 10% of the game which is eaten is from poaching, far less than the 50% worldwide estimate (including the awful habit of killing elephants rhinos giraffes lions tigers bears etc in sub saharan africa too.).
.. I'm not all against hunting, sometimes it's necessary, but I can argue either way on it & enjoy this side of the argument more.