8-Year-Olds May Be Allowed To Hunt In Wis.

[The Straight Story]

8-Year-Olds May Be Allowed To Hunt In Wis.
Current Limit Is 12

POSTED: 3:09 pm EST January 23, 2006

MADISON, Wis. -- Legislators who fear young people are losing interest in Wisconsin's hunting tradition want to allow children as young as 8 to shoot deer.

Rep. Scott Gunderson's proposal would lower the hunting age from 12 to eight.

The Republican from Waterford said it's important to get kids hunting at a younger age.

But the idea of a lower hunting age horrifies Joe Slattery, whose 14-year-old son was accidentally shot and killed by a 12-year-old while deer hunting in Marinette County last year. He said 8-year-olds don't have the ability to handle guns.

http://www.local6.com/family/6372663/detail.html

[DrDebug]

1. Up next: 12-year-olds are allowed to enlist in the army

"We feel that this is a big step forwards in recruiting. 1000s of recruiters have been posted near schools offering free Nintendos for the youth who wants to enlist."

[lpbk2713]

6. What a concept!

Not only will it help in the "global war on tair" but just think of the increase in the "number of people employed" stats. What a boon to the economy!!

[TheCowsCameHome]

9. OK, but only if their parents are republicans.

[xchrom]

2. oh there's an idea who's time has come...

i keep seeing an 8 year old driving home with dad tied to the bumper.

[jilln]

3. By all means

let's revive the dying "tradition" of bloodlust.

[sasquatch]

4. I had my first rifle when I was nine

It was a .22 caliber bullet.

[DRoseDARs]

10. And how many dozens of feet did it throw you backwards when it fired?

;)

[sasquatch]

16. 2 or 3, it wasn't too bad

[freeplessinseattle]

5. in UT it was ok for kids to miss school on opening day

of hunting season, and I could swear it was in elementary school, too ('course this was many many years ago, I'm 33 now)

maybe years and years ago that made sense if people relied on deer hunting season, but it is no longer necessary (and yes I am vegan and don't think it was ever necessary but won't shove my opinions down your throat, in hopes of pre-empting the usual hostile anti-vegheads)

[papau]

7. The under aged just walk along - maybe carry the gun if an open

shotgun.

No adult should be stupid and have a kid carry the gun and just choose their target, aim, and shoot.

But then again I shot at a target animal/bird with Dad or an uncle sorta holding / helping at about age 8.

[Odin2005]

8. *waits for the city slickers to start balling about how evil hunting is*

[RebelOne]

14. OK, I'm saying that hunting is evil.

And it cannot even be called a sport because the other side is not equally armed and doesn't even know that there is a game going on.

[Solo_in_MD]

24. There was a time in my life

when hunting and fishing made the difference between our family eating and not. Inspired me to do real well in school and escape from the subsistence living of my parents. People who know me today find than incredible, urbanites especially, but when I show them photos of my childhood, they are less surprised. Still do a little of that today and always eat whatever is taken. My kids have actively participated in it as well.

[DRoseDARs]

15. If you eat wht you kill, thn fine. Trophy hnting is 4 the small-penised.nt

[Ladyhawk]

41. Agreed. I grew up around trophy hunters and poachers.

They were a bunch of assholes even when they weren't killing animals.

Eating what you kill is fine with me, as are leather jackets and fur from food animals. I figure as long as the whole animal is being used, it isn't wasteful. I would just like to make sure that hunting and farming of food animals is done as humanely--and hygienically--as possible. The way it is currently done probably doesn't pass muster, but I have too much on my plate (so to speak ;) ) to add another issue. Right now the US is fighting against fascism and if I can get my fatigued body to cooperate, I'm going to concentrate on one or two crucial issues.

I used to hunt and shoot when I was younger, but watching the idiot poachers around me totally turned me off on that. I did some pretty nasty things to animals, too. As of now, I don't hunt. Due to current political trends, I have been thinking about learning survivalist skills, but the truth is I'm too ill to live in society let alone survive in the wild. So hunting is out for me. However, I'm certainly not going to judge anyone who follows the law and eats their kill.

[TX-RAT]

45. Whats your definition of a Trophy Hunter?

Not trying to start a fight, just curious.

As far as poachers go, their not just assholes, their also criminals, a thief to be exact.

[Ladyhawk]

47. Killing any animal you don't eat = trophy hunting.

I personally find animal heads on the wall tasteless, but if you ate that animal, I really can't complain. After all, it's your wall. :)

I personally choose not to hunt, but that's my choice. :shrug:

[TX-RAT]

48. This might interest you.

I've been in the hunting business for over 25 years, i
m proud of it and will not apologize. There seems to be a misconception when it comes to trophy hunters. First thing we need to get straight is this, It's illegal in all states to take a game animal, and leave the meat in the field. Anybody who would do that is a criminal and should be treated as such. Many of my hunters never fire a shot, either they couldn't get a shot, or they choose to pass up the shot hoping for a larger buck, yet they keep coming back and booking hunts every year. It's the hunt, the friends, and the challenge that it take to truly take a record book buck, they're very rare, thats what brings them back.Most treat the meat as if it was gold, utilizing very bit, some choose to donate to local schools, or needy organizations, but it's never wasted. Trophy hunters may go several years before pulling the trigger, yet they continue to spend money. It's not the quantity of the animals they take, it's the quality.

[Ladyhawk]

50. I guess I wouldn't consider that trophy hunting.

:shrug:

My father and his hunting buddies used hounds to trail and tree native wildlife and often killed animals out of season or (even if they were in season) just left them to rot. Sometimes they'd dump the carcasses by the side of the road so the dead animal would look like roadkill and not raise an eyebrow. A fundamentalist preacher I know killed a mountain lion without a depredation permit and just left it to rot under the tree. He and his disgusting Republican politician brother used to lead trophy hunts for bobcats, bears and other animals. Bobcats were killed for their skins. Bears were usually eaten. We always had a bear in the freezer for bear stew.

My father, brother and their hunting buddies also killed dogs that didn't measure up. I can remember my father walking a dog into the woods and shooting it. The pub politician killed so many dogs he had to dump them down a mine shaft on his property. When a litter of puppies was born he would kill any that weren't marked perfectly.

When I was growing up, all this seemed normal, but as I sit here typing this, my stomach is turning over and over on itself. I feel like I'm going to hurl. It's not just the memory of so many wasted lives, it's the callous disrespect these men had for life. Interestingly, I've noticed they tend to treat powerles PEOPLE like they treated powerless animals. When I'm around my brother, memories of him knocking down birds' nests and threatening to throw my pet raccoon to the hounds surface. He's a correctional officer and he brags about his cruelty to inmates. He used to work Death Row at San Quentin and enjoy torturing inmates with thinly-veiled references to the gas chamber.

:puke:

Sweet Jesus, I think I'm going to pass out...need some Rolaids or something. Seriously.

[no_more_rhyming]

11. Is it shotguns only in WI or rifles too for deer?

Makes a difference.

[AllegroRondo]

19. Rifles are allowed

[no_more_rhyming]

22. Personally

I think 8 might be a little too young to hunt deer with a rifle. Let them hunt birds with a shotgun for a year or 2 first.

[benEzra]

26. There are a lot of people who hunt deer but not birds...

and a .243 probably has less heft and recoil than a typical shotgun.

Around here (eastern NC), I don't personally know ANY bird hunters, but deer hunting is ubiquitous. Probably has to do with the fact that we have vast areas of deer habitat and not a lot of places where ducks, etc. congregate.

[stray cat]

12. My cousins that age are pretty good shots

and are probably more careful hunters than many adults out there. As long as they are with their parents I don't think we should use government to restrict them. There would be rebellions in some states if the age was 12.

[htuttle]

13. Is there even any evidence that 'young people losing interest in hunting'?

If they are, it probably has more to do with their corpulent XBox lifestyles than not having an opportunity to hunt when they were eight.

Other factors: You have to drive much farther to hunt now, due to widespread suburban development, and not many people (read 'parents') trust eating that deer anymore due to Wisconsin's CWD plague.

[benEzra]

27. Hunting is declining among all age groups

due mainly to the $$$ and difficulty involved in actually finding a place to hunt. The shooting sports in general are increasing in popularity at the moment, but the percentage of gun owners who hunt is only ~20% and falling.

[RebelOne]

29. Which in my opinion, is a good thing.

The fewer hunters, the better.

[MrBenchley]

17. Gunderson owns a store that sells guns and liquor....

http://www.gunguys.com/?p=470

He's also the author of the bill to let neurotics and loonies wander around with pistols in their pants that Doyle, quite sensibly, vetoed....

[in_cog_ni_to]

18. Well that's just ignorant. Who in their right mind would let an 8 year old

use a freakin' gun?

A friend of my had her 14 year old son shot and killed by another 14 year old after they had gone hunting. (BOTH of them had grown up around guns and were trained on how to use them, supposedly) The kid thought the gun was unloaded, aimed it at his friend, pulled the trigger and killed my friend's son. If 14 year olds aren't capable of properly handling guns, what makes them think 8 year old are? 8 YEARS OLD????????!!!!!!! That's just CRAZY.

[benEzra]

25. No one in their right mind would let an UNSUPERVISED 8-year-old

use a gun...I don't think that's the case here.

Well that's just ignorant. Who in their right mind would let an 8 year old use a freakin' gun?

A friend of my had her 14 year old son shot and killed by another 14 year old after they had gone hunting. (BOTH of them had grown up around guns and were trained on how to use them, supposedly) The kid thought the gun was unloaded, aimed it at his friend, pulled the trigger and killed my friend's son. If 14 year olds aren't capable of properly handling guns, what makes them think 8 year old are? 8 YEARS OLD????????!!!!!!! That's just CRAZY.

In the case of your friend, it sounds as if the 14-year-olds were unsupervised (and pointing even an UNLOADED gun at another person is such a fundamental violation of gun safety rules that I suspect that kid was not, in fact, trained in gun safety).

As a resident of a rural state, I expect that this law covers the parents who want to take their 8-year-old hunting with them, buy the kid a youth rifle, and sit right next to the kid coaching them through the whole process. Not turning armed 8-year-olds loose in the woods unsupervised.

I am not a hunter and have little interest in hunting, but I am a gun owner, and I expect my son and daughter (6 and 4) will be shooting (under VERY close supervision) long before they are 8. My son shot his first target with a BB gun at age 3, and I am currently in the process of teaching both of them the fundamentals of gun safety.

(FWIW, my wife and I do keep our guns locked in the safe or otherwise secured when not in use.)

[Ezlivin]

20. "I"m twelve. I've been in the National Guard for four years."

There was a comedian who riffed on how young Israelis were when they joined the service. This is a modification of that.

We can hand a rifle to an eight-year old and trust him/her, but we can't hand a condom to a 15 year-old and trust him/her? WTF?

[xchrom]

21. condoms lead to

SEX.

but killing an 8 pt white tail is just fine and dandy when you're 8.

[AbbyR]

23. Is this unusual?

I work for a small, southeast Arkansas newspaper, and we run pictures all the time of kids - elementary age kids - who shot their first deer, or whatever. I put my foot down: I do not take pictures of dead animals - but I still have to read the pages for publication. Yuck. And NUTS! By the way, it's not just boys - the little girls are out there with Daddy, too.

[LWolf]

28. I had a conversation with a local hunter just a few weeks ago.

We were discussing the story about the 3yo who shot a 6yo on a family hunting trip:

http://www.news8austin.com/content/your_news/default.asp?ArID=152794

Living in a rural area with a large deer (and hunting) population, kids go out hunting with the family whether they are handling the gun or not.

This particular hunter told me about his son's experience in the firearms safety course he took at the age of 12; there were 6 year olds taking the course who did not have the attention span or concept of the consequences to handle a gun safely; this lifelong hunter didn't understand why people wanted to put guns into their kids' hands so young. He spoke about his son's first hunting trip as a "hunter" at the age of 14, and how even that was risky. After being raised with guns, attending safety courses, years of teaching and of accompanying hunters on hunts etc., his son still forgot to engage the safety on the rifle and let a bullet fly when he tripped over a rock. No one was hurt, thankfully. This man said that his son turned a sickly pale color and stood there trembling, ready to give up the hunt and go home. He knew what he'd done, and what the consequences could have been. He was old enough to understand. How many 8yos are really ready to handle weapons that, with one "oops," can forever alter lives?

[benEzra]

30. If I were going to take my daughter/son hunting,

I'd have their gun UNLOADED and either the bolt or the magazine in MY pocket, and be a tyrant about muzzle discipline (i.e., keep that thing pointed in a safe direction). I'd hunt from a tree stand or elevated position where all our shots would be DOWNWARD (a miss hits the ground fast, instead of going on for a while), and once the gun was loaded they'd be sitting right in front of me or in my lap, so that I could control the direction the gun was pointing.

I don't think an 8-year-old can be trusted with a loaded gun without immediate, direct supervision (I'm talking within arm's reach, from behind, here). Having said that, I think that directly supervised hunting under those conditions should indeed be legal.

For me, even as an adult, I wouldn't generally have a round in the rifle's chamber until I were actually ready to shoot, or in a safe area to do so. Climbing rocks while holding a rifle with the chamber loaded and the safety off is just dumb, regardless of age.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

31. Killing defenseless animals is soooo American.

Start 'em young so they won't have any trouble killing people when they join up to "defend" the country.

[davepc]

37. Sure is!

We learned from the best!

[Bill McBlueState]

38. but not that unusual

I mean realistically, unless you're a vegetarian, someone's killing defenseless animals on your behalf. I don't see why doing it yourself is more of an outrage than buying meat at the store.

[Horse with no Name]

32. Why stop at 8?

Why not just give babies pistols to cut their teeth on, that way they will have a good feel of the gun by the time they are toddling?

[slackmaster]

34. My brother was taught to shoot at age 6

I was 10 at the time. Our stepfather, a former military firearms instructor, taught us to handle weapons safely.

Some kids can be taught gun safety at age 8, many are not emotionally mature enough.

[smirkymonkey]

51. Yeah! And lets lower the drinking age to 8 too!

I can't believe some of the posts on this thread. This is one of the most fucked up things I have ever heard of. What the hell is it with this country and firearms?? Excuse me now, while I go blow my brains out.

[Silverhair]

33. I hunted, supervised, at an early age.

At 11, I was allowed to hunt unsupervised, with a .410 break action shotgun. (I still have that gun, although I haven't fired it in about 30 years.)

Not a big deal, if done correctly.

[Goldeneye]

35. Our state senator said something

about increasing revenue for the DNR. I wish I could remember more but this was at a meeting in November.

[newportdadde]

36. As a hunter and kid who grew up in a rural area, 8 is too young.

My father started me off carrying a .22 rifle when my uncle and him went quail hunting. I didn't even get to shoot it lol it was to see if I could handle being out all day tired and cold carrying a gun and not whine about it, that was around 10 ish. Around 12 I finally got a single shot 20 gauge and my grandfather gave me a beautiful restored 22 rifle about 40 years old. When I was 16 I bought my first and only target pistol a western style ruger single shot.

As a father myself I do not plan to let my sons fire any firearms until they are around 12, that won't be hunting either but target practice with a safe back drop. The pistol will come later if at all. As far as hunting well its not something I do anymore but I just don't think a child under 12 should be trusted to have the judgement and experience to use a weapon that can kill another person. Grown men mistaken shadows etc for deer all the time and take risky shots, don't need to add children into that mix.

[Odin2005]

39. Hunting is a GOOD thing.

I would rather see kids hunting than stuck inside eating junk food and playing Madden 2006 on the Playstation. It also is good for the enviroment because it gives a larger group of people a stake in protecting nature. Hunting is the reason a lot of our prairie potholes are still here. I'm sick of the "evil animal killer" BS spewed by some people.

[jilln]

40. and we're sick of

the "nature can't survive if we don't kill it" BS. There are more options for children besides playing video games and hunting. I never did either as a child.

As for a stake in protecting nature, by law wildlife belongs to all of us, yet the 6% who like to blast them with metal pellets has more rights than the other 94% of us, who have to sue for the right to SAY anything about it and have to contend with stupid laws about bothering hunters.

I don't want you to kill MY wildlife.

[Odin2005]

43. Fine, let them drain those prairie potholes then.

:banghead:

[TX-RAT]

46. You are incorrect.

The wildlife on my place belong to me.

[Beausoir]

44. Those are the only options? Kill something for fun..or Playstation?

That's messed up.

[smirkymonkey]

52. That's America.

Damn it!

[Gruenemann]

42. Hey, if we can strip-search 10 year olds,

why the hell not?

[Redneck Socialist]

49. I was hunting at that age...

with my father.

Presumably 12 year olds would have to be accompanied by an older hunter. Heck, in my state you don't even need a license until you're 16. Not sure what the big deal is.