Thanks for sharing that. We have trail cams, which of course are often fun and educational with their still shots, but there’s no comparison to the quality of your video from “2nd camera view”, which is just incredible. What setup are you using for your video?
GeoHorn’s fox story reminded me of my son’s introduction to firearms. We had various guns throughout his life and used them. I do hunt some for meat and not getting into the ethics of it, but I will say some hunting I’m good with and some not, just as a personal matter. Anyway, had told my son from the time he was little if he ever got interested in the guns, don’t try to get to them to mess with them, just let me know and together we’d make sure he had a proper introduction. Around 15, he told me he just had an itch to see what they were all about so we talked about what all he really wanted to do, and came up with a plan to introduce him to firearms in an organized way with real training in safety, shooting technique, ethics, and maintenance. Told him my one requirement was once he was a competent shooter, he had to kill two things. Didn’t care if he never hunted again in his whole life, and didn’t care what it was, so long as it was legal and ethical. He agreed despite thinking it was an odd requirement.
We had a good time with it and eventually it was time for him to make good on the kill two things promise. By that time he’d run over 1000 rounds through a .22LR target shooting and plinking, plus at least a few hundred rounds with a 12 gauge shooting clays and enough with the .308 to know that’s not a plinker for most people.
So he decided to go squirrel hunting. Sure enough, saw a squirrel, had a safe shot at it, lined it up and pulled the trigger just like he’d done over and over with paper and spinning targets... and he was shocked. We picked up the squirrel. I told him we were heading back to the house and he was fixing to learn how to clean and cook a squirrel. It had been a long time since I’d grilled a squirrel so it was kind of a treat, too.
As we were cleaning the squirrel we talked about why he had to kill something and why it was two things, not just one. We talked a good bit about the ethics of gun ownership, hunting, killing in general. He said it really became real that even with the little .22 it’s a tool for killing and there’s no redo after the trigger is pulled. He knew that in a book sense before but not in the same way he knew it after.
He did kill the second thing as well. That was a four point whitetail, I believe. He’s hunted deer, turkey, duck, squirrel, muskrat, coyote but not avidly.
He’s in his mid-20’s now and owns a gun. He has stated several times he also believes pretty strongly anyone who owns a gun should have to kill at least two things.
