A Privilege ~ And A Right

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130 – May, 2021

By Chris Robinson

The more charitable among my investigative reporter colleagues over the years have viewed me as something of an oddity. Most of the others have made no secret of the fact that they considered me to be somewhat worse than an ax murderer. So, why do so many of my fellow reporters regard me in such a bad light despite the fact that numerous stories I’ve written have earned national honors and my friends regard me as a very amiable person? It seems I’m an anathema to most reporters because I hunt with my dogs and I own and use firearms. Since most reporters these days are on the left-most fringes of the political spectrum, it is easy to see why they would take such a dim view of one of their own being a “gun-totin’ hunter.”

More than once, especially at journalism meetings and conventions, I’ve been confronted by one of my disapproving colleagues who has snarled, “How can you kill defenseless birds and how can you force an innocent dog to be a party to that?” If I’m especially irritated by the questioner, my usual response is to point to the beef wellington or the morel-stuffed pork medallions or the coq au vin or the rack of lamb on their dinner plates and say that at least I have enough moxie to pursue and kill my dinner on occasion instead of hiring some mercenary to do it for me; and if they are vegans, I remind them that someone had to be paid to kill the plants that they eat. That usually ends the conversation although the questioner often stomps off muttering something about “An ornery s.o.b.” As for “forcing” the dogs, I’d like to see any of my self-righteous colleagues stop the dogs from demanding to be included in the hunt once they see the boots and the hunting clothes come out of the closet.

If I thought they’d listen, I might explain to these sanctimonious folks that unlike owning firearms–which is a right guaranteed by the second of the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution–hunting is generally considered a privilege. However, in the face of numerous attacks on hunting and hunters by animal rights groups, many state legislatures have found it prudent to include the right to hunt as part of their state’s constitution. But hunting is a privilege and not just because both state and the federal governments have decreed it as such mainly so they could turn it into a revenue producing activity by licensing it and/or requiring the purchase of certain stamps. One of the reasons hunting is actually a privilege is because of the experiences it produces with the dogs; and it doesn’t matter if your hunting partners are sporting breeds, hounds or terriers, many of those experiences are memorable for a variety of reasons.

Click here to read the complete article
130 – May, 2021

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Posted by AnthonyA on May 19 2021. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.