If its brown, it's down

Public admission of hunting makes you a jerk.

Well, there are exceptions. Also, if they use all of the materials...

But to be excited about going out to shoot a beautiful and thoroughly peaceful deer makes me sick.

A gun rack... a gun rack. I don't even own a gun, let alone many guns that would necessitate an entire rack. What am I gonna do...with a gun rack?

No, I would have assumed the shirt had something to do with number two. And I'm Canadian, eh? So, like I'm pretty familiar with hunting 'n stuff.

Never heard of it. Interestingly, my personal shanti mantra is "If it's yellow, let it mellow." It's purely piss related, though.

My dad took me a few times when I was younger, but I never wanted to shoot anything. It was interesting to just see the deer from a stand, though. I own a couple of hunting rifles that have never been used.

But yeah... it's pretty huge in Mississsippi.

Bonus points to Rob for the WW quote.

...if it's yellow, let it mellow?

Sadly, I wouldn't be terribly surprised to find that there are two meanings behind such a "clever" t-shirt.

I've never been hunting but I fish from time to time, have family who hunt, and wouldn't mind knowing how to kill, clean, and cook my own meat in case there is one day a zombie-poc'lypse and I can't find a can-opener. Something damned unmanly about being almost totally dependent on other people to provide me with food.

Deers taste good.

I personally won't hunt, but I kinda understand the need to maintain deer populations just for disease control. What really gets me is the vast majority of hunters that see deer season as an opportunity to drink and shoot shit in the woods, but end up as one of Wisconsin's yearly 20 dead in time for Thanksgiving.

But you forgot to mention they're also thoroughly delicious. I'm glad I know a couple of jerks who are excited about this, as a few Venison steaks will be heading my way shortly.

As someone who was the beneficiary of some pretty tasty whitetail deer at a time when I was a starving student I can't criticize hunting at all. But seeing as I also used the hide, the antlers and the brains I feel I can criticize anyone who wastes any part of what they kill.

Use it all or don't kill it you fucking losers!

I hunted up till about three years ago. Used all of what I killed and was not a trophy hunter. Trophy hunters make me sick as they only hunt to put animal heads on their living room walls. I hunted deer because they taste so damn good. If that makes me a jerk then fuck it, I'm a jerk.

Deer sure are cute. But so are those sad-eyed big cows and those nice pink piggies. I'm not too keen on chickens--they look like little dinosaurs. God only knows what's going on behind those beady little eyes. Still, none of this makes me hesitate for even a second when somebody slides a plate of steaming pulled pork or a nice beef tenderloin in front of me. I just don't make the connection at that moment. If I'm talking with my kids, the topic comes up. Even so, everybody seems to let it slide by dinnertime.

If I get some venison from somebody--maybe a couple of steaks or some sausage--I come a little closer to the reality of freshly-killed food. There's the mandatory discussion of where my friends got it, and I get to hear the whole saga of the hunt. My buddies who hunt do it for the food, but they do it for the pleasure of the hunt too. Growing up in "Deerhunter" territory, I have to say that I don't find this too shocking. I don't hunt myself, but that's really because my dad didn't and we never had the big family outings that everybody else I knew did. I don't want to get all "circle of life-y," but I think that there's a certain personal responsibility to shooting what you eat. At this point, I don't feel like investing in a nice rifle, but if one of my friends invited me to go out with him and provided the gun, I'd go.

Finally--and with the declining number of hunters, this is something that most deer-laden states are going to have to think about--the current deer population frolicking around in our woods is no more natural than the cows living on our farms. If we decided we weren't going to eat beef or drink milk anymore, I don't think that we'll see herds of feral steer (steers?) roaming the plains. They'll be gone. Deer too. If hunters stop taking them, there aren't many wolves to take up the slack. There will be mass culls until the numbers (which are pretty high if the guys eating my flowers in suburban NC are any indication) get down to a manageable level.

Deer aren't really brown.

I hunt because I need to feel connected to the process of taking a life so that I can eat. I used to be a pseudo-vegetarian, but found myself too often dreaming of cheeseburgers and big juicy steaks. Truth of the matter was that I was very stupid, and basically lived on pasta and tortillas - not nearly enough protein, and I think my dreams were my body's way of telling me that I needed some more. I was not a vegetarian for any ethical or taste reasons - I was just living with a girl who was, and since I was the cook in the duo, it was easier just to make one meal rather than 2.

I decided that I wanted to start eating meat again, but I had become increasingly disturbed by our disconnection with the sources of our food. This is, of course, a big problem for most of our non-locally-produced food, but I felt it was most obvious with the way we bought meat. We don't go to the store and buy a bloody cow; we buy very brightly and cleanly packaged beef. It was far too easy to not think about the living animal that died so that I could eat the Big Mac.

So, I decided that the only way I would start to eat meat again was if I was willing to actually kill something for it. I won't go into the story that led to the first time I killed a deer, but it was difficult and powerful.

I don't eat only what I kill, but I continue to hunt so that I am always aware that whenever I eat any meat, I am killing a living thing, whether I am the one who pulls the trigger or not.

I hear all the time, "How can hunting be fair? You have a powerful firearm to blow away Bambi. If you want to make hunting fair, go in with nothing, track it, and kill it with your bare hands," and other things like that. I think statements like that are preposterous. It's as easy for me to ask, "How can eating steaks be fair? You haven't even seen the animal you are eating. If you want to make grocery store meat fair, go in and kill a cow with your bare hands, gut it, and butcher it." In reality, neither is really "fair." It's just a matter of how connected you want to be to the process, and I feel that hunting is at least one step closer than grabbing some brats from the cooler.

I also use a powerful firearm to hunt, and I sometimes hear derogatory comments about that. I have wanted to take up bowhunting, but have not done so yet. I want to make sure that when I aim at something, it will die as quickly and painlessly as possible, and I don't feel confident yet that I could do that with a bow.

...

I've always bristled when my hunter friends claim that they're doing their civic deer control duty to control animal population by hunting. The '97 Union County Parks Department 'Deer Management' report cites that deer populations boom after a hunt. In a hunted population, does produce triple the amount of offspring, thanks to factors such as more abundant food sources (due to lack of competition). It's little more than a band-aid fix at best, and, at worst, it's a population booster.

That's not even mentioning why many states have a deer population problem to begin with. Human encroachment into deer populations and mismanagement of land resources are the two biggest culprits. Hunting hasn't been shown to help. 'Population control' is a spurious rationale that adds a false sense of valor to sport hunting.

If you eat what you kill and you hunt for food, I don't see anything wrong with that. If you get enjoyment out of killing an animal- well, that means you share at least one thing in common with Jeffrey Dahmer. Just don't lie and tell me you're doing it for the good of the population. Own your sickness.

Rich cultural activity!

Vegetables, fruits, and plants are technically living things also. Why don't people get up in arms about eating them? Because they don't really have faces (Treebeard and friends excluded)?

I never went hunting, but I used to go into the woods tracking animals many years ago (my grandfather used to take me and my brother out into the woods when we were kids, learned to identify animal tracks, habits, etc.).

Once I got pretty close to a doe and her fawns, and watch them do their deer thing, it became impossible for me to even think of killing it. That said, if you absolutely need to hunt to survive, and you use everything from your kill, that'd be the only way I could condone hunting.

Cows with their calves are pretty precious too.

I am the Lorax! I speak for the trees!

Seriously people, drop the faux indignation. Humans are omnivores. We use fancy high powered velocity weapons to murder animals, because our evolutionary edge was an apptitude for devising such gadgetry. Taking pleasure in the murdering of Animals is Dahmer-esque (sorry Nexus), but killing animals for food and attractive clothing is simply nature at work.

Stop fighting it.

The worst thing you can do is go bow hunting before you're ready to make a kill shot with a bow. Be absolutely sure you have the heart before releasing the shot.

In Connecticut there's no real natural predators for deer. Coyotes won't go for 'em and though everybody in CT knows cougars are wandering around the woods (the officials just won't accept it) they're so rare they don't have any real impact. The deer population explodes annually, and even with the hunting season open there's usually so many that there's starvation come winter. Either the hunters are given an outlet and the deer are killed fast and sudden, or they can all starve to death slowly while they try to subsist off bark.

Almost 30 posts and not a single "U.S. foreign policy" joke. Too on-the-nose for the effort, or just shoddy?

Yeah, I loves me some steak on occasion, so I are a hypocrite.

So, you have a vegetarian for a girlfriend, and you started killing deer? How, how did that go down with the girlfriend?

She was a vegetarian because she didn't like the taste of meat.

I'm sorry, I can fathom every reason for being vegetarian except that one. Doesn't like the taste of a juicy steak or a pepperoni pizza?!? Needless to say, that relationship is no more.

I wasn't specifically trying to call you out - just trying to emphasize that meat is meat, and that all animals (us included) really have the same intrinsic worth. Any one who decides to eat meat decides to kill.

I guess you're a vegan, and only eat living things that can't flee from you.

Or maybe you'd prefer that the deer population grow unchecked, spreading rampant disease throughout the herd and eventually into our civilization.

Hunting happens, cause people eat meat.

Hunters: so selfless and heroic. Each and every one of them make Jonas Salk look like a drooling, mongoloidian rapist.

It's all about limiting the pain you cause an animal in the process of preparing it for your dinner table. That father and son who wounded that giant hog and then followed it for hours while it bled to death are displaying immoral action. Killing a deer with a bullet to the head it fine with me. It's a pretty small viewpoint that only has a problem with animal murder when the hunter wants to kill, but doesn't mind millions of mammals being thoughtlessly slaughtered in factory farms.

In terms of reducing suffering, I find hunting with a gun to be more morally defensible than hunting with a bow. The Bardem method seems to be quick and painless as well.

I ate venison once. I'd rather eat Kinison.

Gamey.

Brimstoney.

It's better than Rockydennison.

I wonder if any videos of someone fucking on top of a deer will show up.

I don't know from hunting, but I do say that to my wife when I'm looking for a little anal.

Anal's only condonable if you use all orifices.

sort of a "take all you want, use all you take" deal?

I like to kill deer.

I may go hunt the remaining 1/3 of the Polar bear population that Big coal can't be bothered to rid the earth of.

Deer meat is nasty.

Hunting is not done by the poor folks thats for sure, that shit is expensive with the guns, permits, time off work, accessories.

Odd too how it always seems like its done by the white guys trying to over-compensate for something and the look in their eyes when they describe shooting it, disgusting. I pity freaks like that and stay very far away from them. Aren't there betters to do with ones time?

Maybe, just maybe I wouldn't have a problem with so much if they would just stop using the word "Sport." Its not a sport when it's one-sided. Just call it what it is- stalking.

It's cool - I didn't think you were.

I might have expressed it wrong - I do understand the reasons and needs for hunting, and that meat is meat. On a personal level, though, I'd much rather leave the deer and other assorted critters alone, and if I eat meat, I'd rather it be from something that's been bred for nothing more than food (cows, pigs, chickens, etc.). We had a problem up here not too long ago from a couple of jack-offs that hunt for sport, instead of hunting beacuse they were going to use everything and it pisses me off.

I use a tranquilizer gun, then take the deer to the slaughterhouse and have them humanely bludgeon it to death with a giant hydraulic wethammer like all the other cute, defenseless animals I want to pretend I don't eat.

Or we could just call it, oh I don't know, HUNTING?

I am so glad nobody's posted that video here.

I think I was scarred for life after seeing that. Hunting now has a permanent mental association.

Not much of a sport if the prey can't fight back. At least a tiger would have a fighting chance of making you his dinner.

You're right, poaching endangered species is where it's at! Those are true noble folk.