Why I Never Became a Hunter
A Bird, a Boy and a BB Gun
For my 12th birthday, I got what just about every boy in the neighborhood had, a BB gun.
It uses air pressure to shoot small metal balls (BBs) and they were considered “safe” for kids around 12–13.
A slice of birthday cake, and I was off to a patch of woods close to our house with the BB gun. I shot trees, rocks, pine cones and some old tin cans around a fire pit.
Tired of it, I was heading for home when I saw a bird on a low limb that didn’t fly away as I got closer. I took aim and got even closer than I thought I could. It had to see me.
I shot. The BB knocked it off the branch and onto the ground in front of me. It wasn’t dead. It fluttered helplessly.
I hadn’t considered the consequences when I pulled the trigger.
Crying, I picked up the bird and took it home and showed it to my mother and asked her what to do. She said there was no way to help it and it was my responsibility to do what had to be done.
I shot it, and I had to kill the suffering bird. She didn’t scold me. Didn’t have to. She left it up to me to deal with and learn from it.
I did what I had to in the backyard and buried it in the corner of a flower bed. I had shot my first and last bird.
However, that event, traumatic as it was, has not prevented me from eating chicken and turkey since then.
Having someone else do the killing makes the act more abstract and acceptable. It’s called rationalization.
