Thought it was a fucking dog he mowed down at the local park in his military fetish gear.
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I see some fawn speckling still on the haunches, suggesting this is a yearling at most. If legal in that state, then just barely.
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Or into her world.
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Dad and I hunted deer growing up, because that was one way we could keep meat on the table during the leaner winter months when he wasn’t able to make as much money. You know what we never did? Cosplay as big game hunters taking selfies…we actually respected the animals we harvested and were grateful for the sustenance they provided us.
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Serious question: you never took a picture with your deer? It’s an extremely common practice to take pics with fish and game, even when it was only film cameras. My dad has pics with dozens of deer, fish, and other game, and I have my share with fish and small game.
And I’d hardly consider a small doe “big game” hunting". Kinda the opposite.
I don’t see anything wrong with hunting a deer and taking a picture of it. From the picture alone I don’t see anything unethical or disrespectful to the animal. To harvest a young doe means you are probably looking for the best tasting meat.
No, then again, my dad has some really strong beliefs about right and wrong (veeery strong), and being respectful towards the animals we took was one of them. He fishes a lot, even to this day, and I honestly can’t think of a picture of him with a fish.
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I completely agree with the sentiment of being respectful with the game. And I respect it if it wasn’t your dad’s thing. But I also don’t think taking a picture is disrespectful (Usually. Obviously there are jackasses who can cross a line doing something dumb. 
)
To me, this one kinda feels like a “trophy” photo of one’s car, and one drives a Yugo.
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I agree. My relatives on my mom’s side are hunters, and my aunts and uncles were hunting into their late 60s, until getting around in the woods was too hard. They always hunted legally, wore gear that identified them to other hunters, field dressed their kills, didn’t take unfair advantage, and were always, always careful with their weapons and cognizant of the dangers, whether gun or bow.
They would never hunt with an AR-15; it isn’t a sportsman’s tool.
There is nothing wrong with hunting deer legally. They are a nuisance animal and overpopulated in many areas — because we’ve driven their predators to near extinction. In many areas they are literally starving to death slowly because of overpopulation.
My relatives would also take a photo with their kill. Deer are hard to kill, there were years when they weren’t able to get any, so they were proud of their achievement. Hunting together was a powerful bonding experience. It was not my thing, but I respect my family for the care and thoughtfulness they took in their hunts. They never brought toxic masculinity into it; it was a sport to put food on the table, and not killing for killing’s sake.
Finally, does are no less intelligent or difficult to hunt than bucks. Age factors into the difficulty, yes, but not the sex of the deer. Thinking otherwise is a form of misogyny, and we can do better.
If someone objects to hunting, fine. I’m not wild about it, either, but it’s kept food on my relatives’ tables so I have a complicated relationship to it. There are sooo many reasons to bag on this kid. That he hasn’t disowned his mom. That he hunted with an AR-15. That he is dressed in tacticool and could very well get himself killed by other hunters. But if he legally shot that deer, and that deer is a doe isn’t one of those reasons.
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And yet if he had a nice 10 point buck, everyone would be on him for going after a trophy.
Look, for a lot of people (most), hunting isn’t just about the killing of an animal. That is when the hunt end. It is the experience of the hunt. It’s like the end of a ball game, there might be some elation at the end, but the actual experience was everything leading up to it.
My dad has often said that just being in the woods looking for game is the best part of hunting. That’s the actual experience of hunting.
Have you ever gone fishing, had a good time, and took some pics of the small fish, even though you threw them back? I have. Several with my kiddo. Because the pics are to remember the fun we had fishing, not that we caught a monster fish, just that we caught a fish (or fishes).
I’ve been deer hunting just once, and it was a small button buck (I had an antler-less tag). The memory was with my dad and nephew for the weekend, and not how big the deer was or wasn’t.
But that really is irrelevant. It’s a tool, and if used by a sportsman in an ethical way, there is absolutely no difference between it and any other rifle in how it was used.
Semi-automtic hunting rifles have been around for over 100+ years. And lever action repeaters for nearly 200 years. I am sure somewhere in the past someone took a .30-30 lever action and blasted 5 holes in a deer because they could. But most people hunting with a lever action or semi-auto fire once, maybe twice if a follow up shot presents itself. That deer doesn’t looked riddled with holes, and so I have to conclude this guy got a single clean shot on the deer, no gut shots or anything. In which case it make absolutely no difference what he used. People make bad shots with bolt actions, as well as bad follow up shots with them, so it isn’t like a more traditional rifle can’t be misused.
It’s like driving a sports bike or a Corvette down the road. COULD you go 150mph on the highway? Yes. Do some people do that? Yes. Do you or most people who own one these vehicles do that? No.
What you said about toxic masculinity or any unethical hunting behaviors is true and can be a problem, but I really can’t tell any of that from a photo alone. He might be a raging asshole 24/7 but I can’t tell from that pic. Had I just encountered this in the wild I would have kept on scrolling because it is completely unremarkable.
But it’s not tactical at all. It’s all hunting patterns with stuff you would find at Cabela’s or Bass Pro (or even Walmart). The pull over is something I’d see people wearing at the grocery store.
He DOES need to use hunter orange, but it looks like he has some under his left leg. I think he had on an orange vest and just took it off for the pic. I guess if you want to ding him a point for that, ok, but I don’t think taking a vest off for a pic is really an issue.
I guess in general my problem is with the dog piling onto a guy who, in any other context, is just some guy who went deer hunting. If it was just some random picture I saw on the internet, or a buddy showing me a pic of his cousin, it is completely unremarkable to me. I’d just ask if he is sharing jerky or not.
Of course MTGs raging on about the dog piling is what has brought the store to the forefront.
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This here is the issue. MAGA-mom posts a lackluster hunting story TO THE WORLD first, stating how proud of her son for achieving a participation trophy at best. Then came the backlash.
This is the same woman who only hunts in God-Mode. Hunting from a helicopter is not the same as enjoying nature, and pride for hunting “overpowered” even on the ground really isn’t the same as a San People hunter tracking their prey over the course of a couple of days with a bow and arrow, even with poison. 
Of course, let’s not forget that the AR-15 is overpowered for practically anything except in defense of our country or our allies, yet in her mind it’s okay to hound survivors of school shootings because schoolchildren must be acceptable losses in the “false flag operation” that occurred at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Or even her defense of Rittenhouse’s use of an AR-15 in a move he had no right on this earth to be doing.
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Please don’t mock the cutting edge of Serbo-Croatian technology.
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Other than WAR.
It’s a weapon of war meant to kill and wound as many people possible in the shortest amount of time.
Full stop.
IMO, owning one (or more) means that person actively wants to do a LOT of killing, no matter what they might claim otherwise.
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Welp, gotta take the ol’ Ram 1500 down to the grocery store to pick up some cereal.
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Vehicles serve more than one purpose; firearms only exist for one reason.
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That was an informed, thoughtful post.
I’ve never hunted anything with a weapon bigger than a catapult, personally.
To me, the problem lies here -
Now his own mother has made sure he is not “just some guy”, but a real man TM.
The problem, to my mind, was not his hunting, but his mother’s glorification of it and the inferred belittling of any man who isn’t into huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’ or otherwise not votin’ 'publican.
(Might just be me).
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If your goal is meat, you do want something to kill an animal, but it doesn’t have to be something optimized for shooting up a school.
If your goal is just to enjoy nature, I have found that works perfectly well hunting with just a Canon. The souvenir photos are a lot more pleasant and the nature is still there for everyone else to enjoy too.
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