Trying to Get Boys to Hunt Again and Say Goodbye to the Second Amendment

Unless things change Hunting will decline and become a thing of the long past. There are places trying to resolve this but it's an uphill battle.

When David Helms was in seventh grade, he would take his .22-caliber rifle to school, put a box of ammunition in his locker and, like virtually all the other boys, lean his rifle against a wall in the principal’s office so he could start hunting squirrels and groundhogs as soon as classes let out.

Now, when he takes his 8-year-old grandson hunting on weekends, Mr. Helms, 55, searches the boy’s pockets before sending him back to school to ensure that there are no forgotten ammunition shells. But most of his grandson’s peers never have to worry about that, Mr. Helms said, because they would sooner play video games than join them outdoors.

Hunting is on the decline across the nation as participation has fallen over the last three decades, and states have begun trying to bolster this rural tradition by attracting new and younger people to the sport.

There are reasons why the culture of hunting has been lost;

• Access to hunting by hunters is much more difficult. Posted and closed lands.
• Pay to Hunt has made hunting like Golf. OK to do but expensive and only for the wealthy.
• Gun Law Nazis have made owning or carrying a gun nearly impossible for kids
• the "People don't kill, Guns Do" mentality has demonized anyone who loves guns
• Even though there is still a lot of wildlife to hunt, it's become hard.

I own several guns. I used to shoot a lot. My hearing loss reveals that truth. I haven't shot a gun in 3 years. I don't have much of an opportunity. We have laws in IL that are such that all land is considered posted. The catch 22 is that no one knows who owns that land. So the idea that like 40 years ago you could drive to the nearest farmhouse and find out to ask permission is gone. Believe me, I tried. It's a tangled web.

I think I am going to just sell my guns. There's not point in it any more.

When I grew up 50 years ago and was 10 years old my prize possessions were my single shot 12 gauge and my single shot 22. I would shoulder my 12 gauge and walk 2 miles out in the field near Ellendale and sometimes even bag a pheasant or a partridge.

In spring I would shoot flickertails for sport and the dime a tail we got. I was a pretty good shot. Those days are gone. I'll bet there aren't many 12 year olds traipsing out to the field with a gun over their shoulder to shoot a bird or a gopher today. The neighbors would complain and the cops would arrest him.

And, where would he hunt. He would be run off the farmers pasture or out of his slough.

I guess this hunting thing is lost forever.

We are all poorer for it. I would blame the Democrats but this happened slowly. Democrat and Republican. That Second Amendment thing is about to be neutered once and for all. And when it does it won't end with a bang, it will end with a whimper. When there is no reason to own a gun, owning a gun will be meaningless and laws against same will go unopposed.