Pat Lefemine

Past Anchor Point Columns

Iron Giants and Intercepted Letters

 

I snuggled up with my three year old to watch the video his Mom just bought for him. It was called The Iron Giant and it looked like just another cute kid's movie. I would soon be educated.

The movie progressed, as most kids' movies do, but as my mind wandered and drifted into other thoughts the image of a dead whitetail buck snapped my attention back to the story. The iron giant had found a dead buck with a hunting rifle next to it. The giant's friend, a young boy, explained that the deer was dead and was shot by a hunter. The giant's eyes' contracted and turned red with anger. The boy and the giant then slumped to the ground in sorrow over the dead deer.

What crap.

It was no surprise to me that another movie, aimed at our kids, was once again pushing an animal protectionist agenda. Perhaps the hardest part to admit was that my own child, whom helps me skin deer, scout new areas, and cut up venison - loved this movie. He defended the movie after I remarked at how bad it was to my wife Julie. Too young to understand that he, like so many his age, are being victimized and controlled by people with an agenda. One that is counter to the value system that you and I believe in.

This attack on our youth is a brilliant strategy, yet it's just part of the overall agenda to end animal uses of any kind - especially hunting. Take this letter which Dr. Dave Samuel forwarded to me and is printed in his fantastic new book "Know Hunting" - it lays out clearly another agenda which they are following to a T.

"In our efforts to bring an end to the insane cruelty of sport hunters, we have embarked on a series of small incursions based on the timeless principle of divide and conquer. Our first step has been to isolate and end trapping. Our experience with trapping illustrates fatal flaws in the hunters' psyche. You must understand these to be successful. First, although they kill and eat wild animals, hunters do care about animals, but their concern is for the species and not, like ours, for individual animals. Because they actually care for the animals, they are quick to condemn someone else's actions as detrimental to wildlife. So, given hunter's sentimental approach to wildlife and their tendency to vote against each other because of different techniques, what should our next target be? Hunting with hounds obviously.

Our next logical step is bowhunting. Again, we have a natural chink in their armor. Many rifle hunters resent bowhunters because of our claims that a higher percentage of animals are wounded and lost with arrows than with bullets. Bowhunters themselves will split their ranks over equipment and this will lead to an easy victory"

So here you have it, the strategy laid out in plain view. Attack us by pitting us against each other. While we're busy running around trying to fight these battles, they continue to gain ground on our kids. The future is bleak if this continues.

I can tell you what we are doing to help.

These are small steps but important ones. My kids will have the opportunities to hunt like I have. That is, if they are even interested in hunting by the time the media is done with them.