A Time to Kill

Senseless killing does not become a man, and it does not become a hunter.  A man should kill for good reason and should understand his reasons before he is faced with the necessity of killing.

As the father of three small boys I must help them become men.  As part of that process I am teaching them to hunt.  A man may one day have to kill.  A hunter will certainly have killing to do.

This is not another lesson in hunting ethics.  This is not a moral lecture.  This is one hunting father’s struggle to come to terms with the necessity of raising boys into men who are able and willing to kill when the time arrives, because they have thought it through and know where they stand on the subject.

My boys may be privileged one day to look down the shaft of an arrow at a deer whose life they have chosen to take.  Or they may be forced to look across the sights of a gun at a man who intends their family harm and whose life they are required to take.  In either case I want the reasoning part done in advance.

I believe that a boy can ask two questions about any killing and that the answers will help direct his actions.  (1)  What am I protecting?  (2) For what am I providing? 

When wasps entered my attic and made a nest twice the size of a large pie plate I crawled up there and sprayed them with a petroleum distillate (gas), slaughtering them by the hundreds before they could attack.

As a boy I slaughtered hundreds of rabbits with a friend whose family depended on the sales of their meat to make ends meet.  We shed rabbit blood to provide grocery money for my friend’s family.  Other families depended on the inexpensive meat to feed their own family.  We provided for both needs by killing.

In both situations I did not kill for the fun of it.  I did not kill out of anger.  I killed to protect and to provide.  Needless killing is the work of a destroyer, not a provider or a protector.  I do not permit my boys to kill songbirds just to do it.  I encourage them not to kill without a reason.  I encourage them to ask the questions:  (1) What am I protecting?  (2) For what am I providing? 

We live in a day when people kill their unborn children for the sake of convenience.  Yet they will not kill a diseased mouse in their own pantry.  I want my boys to be men who know the worth of human and animal life.  I also want them to be men who possess the courage to kill when it is time to kill.

(My thinking on this subject was influenced by Bob Schultz, author of the timeless classic: Boyhood and Beyond, (some of these words are his words, which, being timeless, I have made my words) as well as by the "Good Book" and a few years of thoughtful living, fathering, hunting and killing!)