General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Welcome to new members who, just coincidentally, use assault rifles to hunt! [View all]Hekate
(91,005 posts)The other night one of the gun advocates here claimed that in all 50 states there are people who must get their protein from hunting with guns for economic reasons.
While I am sympathetic to that idea, for the vast majority of us those days are gone. During the Great Depression my mother's older brothers shot wild rabbits for the family pot, but their location in Colorado was so rural that one of the reasons their father lost his Ford dealership was that the local farmers still could break wild horses if they absolutely needed extra "horse-power." That was a long, long, long time ago.
And I don't know about the other 49 states, but in the 50th, the only gun-hunting I ever heard of was fairly much for sport. When I was growing up there, we did have a net-fisherman who lived behind us, and he indeed supplied his family (and ours) with protein. Rural families could raise chickens. But all the hunting I ever heard of was for wild boars, a group activity if ever there was one.
I feel like the mother who hears her kid say, "Everybody does it," and knows darn well there's a significant flaw in that argument.
So you like guns, so you like shooting things up, or hunting, or whatever. Fine. But the 2nd Amendment is not Holy Writ. It's part of the Constitution and like ALL the others subject to change, further amendment, reconsideration, and some restrictions.