Can I Say Again That I Remember when the NRA was About Safety, etc.

[glowing]

4. I grew up in the country. Gun safety was a norm. We didn't do any special shooting classes

in the late 90's in VT, but we did learn archery. Stringing the bows, pull, safety of letting go, and aiming at targets. I enjoyed it very much. There are still people who go hunting with compound bows over guns (mainly for the purpose of hunting wild turkey - not having bullets ruin the meat of a smaller animal is much nicer for many). For deer, its still a hunting rifle - not some semi-automatic weapon - it would absolutely ruin the meat and the hide and or head for "rack" stuffing.

One thing I do know, the first time these boys go out with their dad's, their first "bag", normally leaves them puking because they just killed a being. They know its feeding their family and its a survivor necessity for many families to make it thru the winter, but its also something to respect. Its not a "game" for them. No one I knew had a hand gun. No one I knew had assault rifles. Only hunting rifles. And if on the first day out, they got a deer, they were normally done (unless they had a bigger family or donated meat to other families in need). I should say, its not just men who hunt (it normally is the men who go hunting), but there are females who hunt as well. And most of them know how to use a rifle if they are on a farm and in the boonies and need to literally keep a fox out of the hen house.

Personally, I don't really like the taste of deer. Its a bit gamey (they aren't a "fatty" type of animal and its not exactly like eating a fat juicy steak from a grass fed cow who's only purpose was to eat and get fat for slaughter). I don't mind it so much if its ground and put into spaghetti sauce alongside sausage and spices (its actually better than using hamburger meat because grease and fat in tomato sauce isn't too apetizing) and I don't mind when its made into different flavors of jerky (that's a better taste than a beef jerky - my friend's mom made some of the best deer jerky ever). Bear, on the other hand, is absolutely disgusting to me. It is completely greasy and fatty. Duck is amazing (as long as the kill shot didn't drop the bullet into a place where it would make the meat taste funny and that the bird was cleaned properly). Wild turkey is ok; but turkey in the oven is rather drying anyway and wild turkey aren't fat farm raised butterballs that most are used to, but they are still good. And then there's fishing; all year long if you like.

We had many "parties" out on the ice in the shanties with the only access being a snowmobile. With all of the access that we had to guns, bow/ arrows, knives, we didn't have a bunch of shooting sprees. We had access to these types of weapons, but we didn't "play" with them. We didn't get them out at parties to "show off". They were simply tools, like a hammer for nailing down a roof, a chainsaw for cutting down a tree, or a hoe for gardening. It wasn't "cool" to get out a gun to show off or use on someone. If there was ever a "fight", it was done with fists... But most of the time, there was no fighting. Small town, most everyone was friends, and half the time people were too baked to bother with a fist fight, however, there was an occasional fight. I'm not sure what the "teen" scene is like now that I've been gone for a bit, but I would think, for the most part, they are still similar. The one thing that is an addition is the internet and knowledge of what kids are doing beyond their own front door. I've seen a few stupid RW FaceBook posts from some of my high school friends. Its like they didn't think before posting, and they think that they don't look like a total ass or racist to the outside world... The dumb one about Food Stamps and welfare before the election was especially disgusting. I shut it down by using some common sense about most people who are broke don't actually have extra money for drugs. Drug testing is just tax payer money being funneled into a private entity to "test" their piss for drugs, all the while politicians, who make more, take bribes, and generally run amok, won't make a law that states all federal employees, including themselves, submit to random drug tests. (There's a more likelyhood of them using drugs or drinking heavily -Boehner anyone- than a poor, single mother of 3 making minimum wage). Most people liked my comments and the original poster of the "shared" comment apologized for being an idiot.