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2005 Winter Issue
Selected Articles from our
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The C.A.S.H. Courier
ARTICLE from the Winter 2005 Issue
DEC Solution to World's Ills: Lower the Hunting Age
BY ANNE MULLER
It’s soooo predictable! Every year before the start of deer “season,”
likely at the behest of game agencies, the same tired reporters reshuffle last
year’s article.
It usually has the following elements: demonize the deer; bemoan the
declining population of young hunters and the dead and dying old-timers; blame a
“high” deer population on the fact that kids don’t hunt at an age when they’re
learning hand-eye coordination; support state laws to reduce the hunting age, regardless of how young the current legal age is (conception they MAY agree is too young); recite how safe it is to supply young kids with guns (so long as they take a hunter education course), blame problems “caused” by deer on anti-gun folks and those who post their property.
This year, however, lowering the hunting age is going to be a tough sell. Reporters finally are hinting at a possible connection between possession of guns for hunting and their incipient suspicion that it could lead to
the reckless killing of humans.
This surprise connection comes from the current case of David Ludwig who shot his girlfriend’s parents to death at point-blank range.
Described as a “nice guy” by his friends, David’s blog reveals another side to both
him and them.
C.A.S.H. ferreted out the photos on his blog and we’re publishing the
most disturbing ones.
[As an aside, while beer isn’t evident in these photos, there were
others photos that flowed. Please realize that it’s not illegal to drink and hunt,
it’s only illegal to be drunk! With the thousands of game agents in the woods enforcing this
law, the public is safe, we think. Wrong! NYS has only about TWO encon law
enforcement officers per COUNTY! When there’s a budget crunch, environmental
conservation law enforcement budgets are among the first to be cut.]
Most recently, Michael Risinit, a reporter for the Journal News, which
covers several counties in southern NYS quotes a 20-year old owner of a gun
shop: “I get the old-time hunters coming in, not many young ones...It’s because
everybody’s anti-gun. It’s a shame, because kids who hunt and fish usually
stay out of trouble.”
The DEC and hunters are once again pushing the legislature to allowing
14 year olds to hunt big game with high powered weapons and “adult”
supervision, i.e. a 21 year old. They say New York is uniquely denying
hunting opportunity to its young. “That would provide New Yorkers with the
same opportunity available in every other state,” DEC spokeswoman Maureen
Wren said. “Early involvement and participation of young people in the
hunting tradition is the best way of recruiting new hunters who can be
expected to contribute to the long-term management on New York’s deer
population.”
This fresh push to lower the hunting age mimics a previous one in NYS
in 1998. It was that year that then Assemblyman, Michael Bragman, was on
the verge of getting his bill passed that would have lowered the hunting
age.
Dramatically, during the final days before a vote, two young hunters
massacred their classmates and teacher in Jonesboro, Arkansas. While the
fact that they were hunters was underplayed by the media, Michael Bragman,
failed in his attempt. A serious effort to lower the hunting age has only
recently been revived.
If you recall, the two young boys, Andrew Golden, 11 years old, and
Michell Johnson, 13 years old, who became killers of people were child
hunters.
Andrew Golden lived with his grandfather who was a game agent, hunter,
and kept an arsenal at home.
Claims that violence toward animals reduces violence to people is to
assume that young hunters (or old hunters) can in all circumstances keep
the two species in two separate pigeon holes, so to speak. It assumes that
by letting kids vent violence on animals, they are dissipating violent
feelings that could emerge with people.
This theory doesn’t take into account the far greater possibility that
legal violence against animals could lead to illegal violence against
people. What is so hard to understand? Everything’s in place for it: the
weapons, the practice, and the desensitization. In April, 1998,
Richard Lacayo, a Time magazine reporter wrote: “Among the debris
discovered by authorities in the wake of last week’s rampage was Mitchell
Johnson’s hunter education card. It was part of fitting in. ‘Everybody at
Westside [school] knows how to shoot a gun,’” [said a 7 year old
classmate].
We urge you to stay aware of your state legislature’s efforts to lower
the hunting age.
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