Here are the 21 US states where pre-teen children can hunt big game alone

I’m kind of stunned that North and South Dakota are not on that list.

Preteens are not the food providers.

Couldn’t this be read as “Here are the 21 states where pre-teen hunting hasn’t been so much of an issue that we had to make a law about it”?

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No offense but this reads as extremely condescending. Especially since you don’t seem to realise that many here are from rural parts of other countries with their own hunting traditions that go back millennia, that still find the US hunting culture as strange and off-putting as anyone from a (US) city would.

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I don’t think anyone here is making that case. The case is against hunting without the appropriate education in order to make hunting as cruelty free and as sustainable as possible. That’s where a licensing system with extensive coursework comes in.

If you are perfectly honest: do they hunt for subsistence food or for delicacies/for cultural reasons?

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I’m pretty sure there’s no laws in the UK covering what age someone can go hunting. Of course, there are laws about access to weapons, and what animals can lawfully be killed.
But if a six year old wanted to snare squirrels on their parent’s land (for example), that would be perfectly legal.

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I’m not sure I would go so far as to say ‘subsistence’, but certainly to reduce the grocery store burden. It’s really sounding like a lot of people here have never been poor and don’t understand what it’s like.

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More or less, yes. They have limited budgets and could get by without hunting. But they would suffer nutritionally and economically. Hunting lets them live safe, stable, and happy lives. They’d much rather live in the country the way they do than somewhere urban with more money. It’s not a choice I would make, but they look at the rest of us as a bit crazy for joining the rat race. I can respect that.

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Came here to say this, as well. I’m very pro gun control, but honestly I’ve never heard of a hunting accident caused by a 12yo kid running around in the woods. There are probably a lot of reasons for this- few kids actually doing it, the difficulty for most young kids to access the woods without a car, the fact that most little kids can’t hold a rifle big enough to do much damage, etc. I’m not sure there’s anything in this story.

The size thing is a big one, I think. My 11yo nephew is a healthy normal kid who likes his airsoft gun, but my dad’s .30-06 deer rifle? That would take his damn shoulder off.

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Yeah, sometimes the lack of law just means there isn’t much there there. I bet there are also a lot of states where it is legal for toddlers to operate arc welders, too, but I’m not sure Congress needs to race into session to address it.

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Where I grew up, there is no age minimum on operating heavy machinery. This is helpful for growing up on a farm (as I did) because it means the kids can help run the simpler machines like the cultivator and harrow, freeing up the adults for the hard stuff, like the seed drill, swather and combine. Since there’s never been (as far as I know) a 10yo kid rampaging around in a D10 Cat, nobody has ever bothered to make this “illegal”. However you could write a very catchy headline along the lines of In State X it’s LEGAL for a CHILD to run a 400 ton mining truck!!! OMG!!! Pearls!!!

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Sister, you’re speaking my language. Just swap out the DC10 for an Allis Chalmers.

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Never hunted alone as a kid, and I imagine most pre-teens aren’t actually hunting alone either. Though in rural areas when you live on a farm, I bet it is more common. There are more young adults who do, especially in small towns/rural areas.

I took a hunters safety course I think in 3rd grade. My dad took me and my best friend at the time, Ben. We both passed. I think I got one question wrong.

So, I am sure this is well outside many peoples’ experiences either directly or tangentially, but people do different things than you all over the US. We have a lot of diverse areas.

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I had school friends who ran some heavy, scary to me farm equipment back in the day. I guess they just learned early and they had handle on it.

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Hah! I learned to drive on an Allis Chalmers model WD. As soon as your leg was strong enough for the clutch, that’s the machine you got put on first. Let’s be friends.

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The good thing about heavy machinery is that things mostly happen slowly. And on a farm, you’re generally not in danger of hitting much. There are exceptions, though. As a 'tween I once misjudged the 60 foot harrow coming back in and clipped the leg of the 1000 gallon diesel tank stand. Nearly pulled it down. The Connor family had a sit-down about that one, I can tell you. There was yelling.

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My Dad was raised on a farm (an orange grove). He hated it so much that I was never taught these things. So please forgive me when I ask if it is forseeably possible to lose a limb running either of these two machines,

I suppose if you tried hard enough, but those are pretty safe. The only story I ever heard of literal limb loss was a school friend of my dad’s who was pulling a disc harrow. Those things are basically engineered to maim (google it and you’ll see why). He fell of the tractor and it rolled over his arm, and that was it. Anything with a PTO is also pretty high danger. Our square baler is probably the scariest thing we have. It’s a clockwork death machine where every part of it looks like something from a Saw movie. My dad lost the tip of his pinky on the swather. He was sitting in a place he shouldn’t have been and the counterweight spring on the head came up on where his hand was resting. Farming in general is not that dangerous, I wouldn’t say. Not compared to things like logging, which is insanely dangerous.

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The first sentence is certainly dramatic.

Yah, that’s the take on that I would expect from the NYT. :roll_eyes: NYC has a lot of pearls, I guess someone has to clutch them all.

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