On a flight the other day, I sat beside a man who just came from an NRA convention. He was there to participate in a calling (making various animal sounds) competition. He placed second, but he should have been first; the first place winner had made a couple of mistakes that the judges didn't deduct points for. Even the first place winner agreed that the judging was bad. The problem, apparently, was that several regular judges were in military operations in Iraq, and the substitute judges weren't as good.
He was from Southern California, and so I asked him whether he hunted much back home. He said that he did sometimes, but that he often goes out of state, mostly to the Midwest, to hunt. He volunteered that he only hunts what he can eat, animals like duck and deer. He said that he refuses to hunt purely for sport.
I wonder if he sensed my liberalness and was being preemptively defensive or something. Anyway, I felt like this was a liberal version of a conservative person having a chat with a gay person for the first time. :)
He even mentioned at one point that he was particularly furious with the bad judging because his dad is aging and might not be around in another year. The guy wanted to bring the title home to dad.
Comments (1)
Very nice Toasty -- I felt a tinge of pity when thinking about the relationship this man has with his father.
As for the NRA, its not that all guns are evil, but its about their opposition to the measures that are only meant to prevent the evil guns (i.e. semis, ammunition that is meant to pierce through bullet proof vests), from falling into the hands of the wrong people. The NRA is akin to PETA for guns.
Posted by echan | May 8, 2003
Posted on May 8, 2003