Should There Be an Age Restriction for Hunting?
The urbanites that run MSNBC are apparently shocked that young people in America are allowed to hunt all by themselves. Can you believe this? Kids are actually allowed to use guns and hunt animals without a parent or guardian around in many states. (In Missouri, which is covered in the story, you only have to be 11 years old to be able to hunt on your own.) How terrible.
Of course, they found a tragedy that they’ve used as the basis for an argument that kids should hit a certain age before they are allowed to do something that kids in America’s rural areas have been doing for hundreds of years. From the story:
On the national level, Guzzo’s comments won support from Jim Kessler, policy director and co-founder of the progressive think-tank Third Way who previously spent four years at Americans for Gun Safety. Both groups seek tighter gun laws but are not opposed to hunting.
“I find it shocking actually that there aren’t laws that prohibit unsupervised hunting by minors,” said Kessler. “For a lot of families, hunting is passing on values from fathers to sons and it’s about responsibility and there are a lot of good lessons there, but it is far too much responsibility to give to a child or a minor teen, far too much responsibility. You need an adult there.”
There are tragic accidents in every aspect of life. The young man who committed the manslaughter prompting the article will pay a price for it. It seems most people see a tragedy and try to make laws to restrict the rights of others in order to prevent another tragedy, no matter how small the odds may be that the law will actually prevent a similar future tragedy. Maybe I am a jerk, but I get offended when people try to use a tragedy to limit the freedoms of others.
And I don’t mean to make fun of MSNBC. The story is interesting and the survey informative. I just don’t see a need for Missouri to increase its age limit because of one terrible incident.
