Covering Up Our Hunting?
A recently proposed North Dakota bill requiring hunters to cover their game while transporting them on roads was dropped after garnering opposition from all sides. While there isn’t any way to tell how many similar type laws there are, it has become a trend over the last few years to promote covering of carcasses.
Rules and regulations for hunting are fine, but why go this far to begin with? I don’t know about anyone else, but I see this as an example of ‘political correctness’ being carried to the extreme. We have to be so worried about what other people think and their rights that we begin to infringe on the rights of others.
And with the controversy being about hunters and animals, it’s somewhat surprising to find out that PETA is against such laws. Their reasoning isn’t, though. The more blood and dead animals people see, the more likely they’ll be to form a negative opinion of hunters and hunting.
Taking this into consideration, considering how often hunters are portrayed negatively, I could almost agree with such laws only to help maintain our image in the eyes of the general public. All it takes is a few idiots who display their deer with blood running all over the vehicle and the wounds prominently visible to cause people to form a less than favorable image of us. I know when I transport an animal it’s in the bed of the truck with the tailgate up. The only people likely to see it while driving are truckers.
While I think we should show a fair amount of class and consideration to others while transporting our game, I don’t think the law should force us to cover up the fact that we hunt. That’s my two cents on the matter, but what do you readers out there feel on the issue?
hunting, game transporting, laws, anti-hunting
January 10th, 2007 at 1:44 am
I often wondered how far some politicians would go to “enforce� political correctness. While I agree that hunters should not make a habit of “showing off� what they got. I see nothing wrong with having a deer, or any game, uncovered in the back of a closed pick up truck.
It is almost funny how some try to tell us that a dead animal in plain view could offend somebody, and yet at the same time we are exposed to endless showings of humans being maimed, murdered and slaughtered on TV and often it is shown in slow-motion to boot. Do we as a society really have our priories of what is “gross� and unethical so screwed up that we are more offended by a dead animal than by a dead human?
-Othmar Vohringer-