10/27/2008 10:23:00 AM Say goodbye to hunting rights
Stephen Griffin
Stephen Griffin
As I have mentioned on occasion in my columns, I dearly love to go hunting. I have rarely been happier than the 30 years of spending that week following Thanksgiving living in a tent and sleeping on the ground with my dad in our Gallia County deer camp.
We arrived home after the last day of the season and much to my mother's chagrin, all grubby and smelly, wearing the dirtiest clothes imaginable, but smiling like a Cheshire cat. While I have missed it terribly since Pop's passing eight years ago, I firmly believe that those days are in great danger of vanishing forever - not only for me, but for all of you as well.
When Ohio's deer season opens on Dec. 1, I hope to be afield somewhere here in Highland County in an attempt to put some of nature's finest venison in my freezer for the winter. I plan to savor every sight, every sound and every smell of that whitetail hunt because after Barack Obama is sworn in as president on Jan. 20, 2009, as I fully expect him to be, his administration will sound the death knell for all hunting and gun ownership by the end of his first term.
Before he began his run for the White House, Sen. Obama went on official record both in Illinois and in the U.S. Senate to state his belief and intentions concerning our second amendment.
In 1999, he announced his support for increasing the federal taxes on all guns and ammunition a startling 500 percent. Such a move would render it practically impossible for you and me to buy the shotgun shells that we use for both deer and small game hunting here in Ohio.
Imagine shelling out $150 or more for a five-round box of rifled slugs, which would be the ramifications of such actions. At that point, it would be more logical and cheaper to simply buy a side of beef to feed your families which may indeed be Sen. Obama's motive to begin with, as Illinois is a major beef producing state and widely known for its stockyards.
Of course all of this may simply be a moot point considering Sen. Obama's voting record during his brief political history.
• On March 13, 2003, as a member of the Illinois State Senate, he voted to ban all common hunting guns.
• After he entered the U.S. Senate, he voted on Senate Bill S.397, vote number 217 of the Kennedy amendment on July 29, 2005 to ban virtually all ammunition used for deer hunting everywhere in the U.S.
Thank God for all of us that there was not enough support at that time to pass these bills; however, with Sen. Obama sitting in the Oval Office and his confederates running both the House and the Senate, these bills are a mortal lock to pass the second time around and when they do, our days in the deer woods will be as extinct as the Dodos.
The loss of our hunting guns will have an enormous impact on our lives, make no bones about that, but that is nothing to what it will do to some of our other states, including many who will apparently be voting blue in this upcoming election. South Dakota, a state in which I have hunted a number of times and is dear to my heart, is a prime example of this.
South Dakota is a scenic wonderland, one that everybody should visit at least once. Of course, it has the magnificent Mount Rushmore, Wind Cave National Park, the Black Hills and Badlands.
You can gamble in Deadwood where Wild Bill died holding his aces 'n' eights or ride your Harley into Sturgis and enjoy, hands down, the finest steaks in America.
As incredible as all of these sights are, the entire economy of South Dakota is based upon one thing and one thing only ... their state bird, the Chinese ring-necked pheasant. They are everywhere. With a population in the millions, they draw hunters from every corner of the country and each fall, every motel is booked solid, every restaurant is standing-room only and local stores generate more income during pheasant season than the rest of the year times 10. I cannot imagine what will become of South Dakota when a President Obama bans all of our hunting.
• In Pennsylvania, opening day of deer season is a rite of passage and even the school system closes up shop. Gone.
• Down in Georgia, where quail hunting out of a mule-pulled wagon behind a brace of fine pointers is an institution.
• On the eastern shore of Maryland, hunters have been awaiting the fall flights of Canada geese since the days of another goose hunter by the name of George Washington. Gone.
• In the Rockies, the sound of a bugling elk will send shivers running down one's spine, as will a squadron of mallards descending through the flooded timber of Arkansas in an attempt to land in the laps of those who hunt them, along with a farmer in Highland County, Ohio who forgoes his chores to awaken well before the crack of dawn one spring morning with hopes of coaxing a long-bearded wild turkey into gun range among the dogwoods. Gone, gone and gone.
I am not attempting to frighten you, just prepare you for what is going to transpire. The fact that I am terrified at the prospect of losing my beloved duck hunting unnerves me more than you can possibly imagine. As I do not smoke or drink, rising in the middle of the night to cross our beautiful Rocky Fork Lake in brutally cold temperatures and coaxing flights of migrating ducks into my decoys is my vice of choice. I have been doing it for nearly 40 years now and it has taken me more places than any ol' coot like myself has any right going.
Once on the coast of Scotland, I knelt behind an ancient stone wall and shot geese alongside of the Duke of Strainraer, a cousin to Queen Elizabeth II. Years ago in Iowa, while on a lunch break to a small country diner, I met and enjoyed an amazing conversation with an enchanting little old lady who was a passenger on the Titanic. I've had my decoys buzzed by bald eagles, fallen in over my head at 68 degrees below zero and become encapsulated in ice to a degree that my partners had to use hammers to free me. And once in South Dakota, I spent two days hunting out of a blind with a man who, on our final afternoon, explained to us that he was a professional contract killer. We all enjoyed a huge laugh at his expense until six months later when we saw him being profiled on America's Most Wanted. Yep, you guessed it, he was as he had claimed - a professional hit man.
My duck hunting has been one amazing ride, but the one place that I have yet to hunt is in Argentina. It offers the world's finest wing-shooting, the best prime rib on the planet and the most beautiful Latin women imaginable. What more could any man dream of?
When President Barack Obama bans our guns and hunting here at home, I just may have to pack up and move south of the equator until we get them back, hopefully, in four years.
I wonder if Southern State Community College has any openings in their Spanish classes?
Stephen Griffin is a Rocky Fork Lake area resident and a columnist for The Times-Gazette.
Reader Comments
Posted: Friday, October 31, 2008
Article comment by:
Jeff
Mr. Stone:
".....voted to ban virtually all amunition used for deer hunting everywhere in the U.S." This is a lie. The amendment dealt with armor piercing ammunition." End quote
I beg to differ, every common big game hunting round will penetrate body armour worn by police. A fact that Ted Kennedy and Obama really don't care about and made no provisons to exempt hunting ammo. Stop hiding behind a smokescreen. I notice that you failed to address the 500% increase in taxes for firearms and ammo of all types. If Obama is so pro gun why did he propose such a crippling measure.
Doesn't matter tho' there are 300 million guns in the US, if the Obama teams thinks they can man up and take them, let them try. There will be blood in the streets, most of it innocents whose only crime was to own a functioning firearm. Lets see if the American public have the stomach to see almost every household undergo SWAT team raids, with some of those persons resisting returning fire with fire.
If only 3 million actually mean "from my cold dead hands" then there are going to be alot of dead cops and citizens.
Let's see if the gun grabbers have the "courage of their convictions."
Posted: Thursday, October 30, 2008
Article comment by:
Silly
You don't hunt pheasants in South Dakota out of a blind.
Posted: Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Article comment by:
John Stone
Mr. Griffin states that Obaama voted for an amendment "to ban virtually all amunition used for deer hunting everywhere in the U.S." This is a lie. The amendment dealt with armor piercing ammunition. The bill was sponsored by Senator Larry Graig (R) of Idaho. If Mr. Giffin thinks he needs armor piercing bullets to shoot deer, he is not much of a hunter. Additionally, Mr. Giffin's assertion that South Dakota's "entire economy" is based on pheasant hunting is a lie. South Dakota Bureau of Finance and Management states that "Finance and insurance is the leading industry in South Dakota." A columnist has the responsibility to present facts, not lies.
