Most people in Wisconsin may be shocked to learn children at the absurdly young age of 10 without any training at all in gun safety are being encouraged to roam our woods during hunting season using fully loaded firearms. A bizarre gun subculture in this state actually won the support of Republicans controlling the Legislature for that irrational change in state hunting laws to intentionally increase the number of deadly weapons in the hands of very young children…. Republicans now want to make that dangerous situation unbelievably worse. Republican state Rep. Joel Kleefisch of Oconomowoc, married to Wisconsin’s lieutenant governor, has proposed a bill opening the way for toddler hunting. He wants to totally eliminate the state’s minimum age for children hunting with firearms without passing a gun safety course.
Growing up in northern Minnesota, I was surrounded by a strong, robust gun culture, which made the opening of deer hunting season practically a state holiday. One of the biggest rites of passages for a young boy was the state-mandated gun safety training course offered to those 12 or older. Passing the course meant being able to legally carry a weapon, go hunting, and the blaze orange patch was a badge of honor to those of us on the cusp of our teen years.
Guns were a part of my life growing up. My father put an NRA sticker on the front door to our house, and no one found anything amiss about it. Dad taught me how to safely handle a firearm, and I learned early on that guns were dangerous if not treated with respect for the deadly force they were capable of dealing.
A few years on, during my sophomore year in high school, the two sons of my 5th-grade teacher went into the woods to go grouse hunting. They managed to lose track of one another for a few moments, and when one heard a rustling sound, he fired towards it…only to discover he’d accidentally shot and killed his older brother. That was when I first truly understood just how dangerous guns could be.
I don’t know much about how gun safety is addressed next door in Wisconsin, but if Rep. Kleefisch has his way, the bloodshed and the body count will undoubtedly increase.
This has absolutely nothing to do with Wisconsin’s celebrated, strong hunting tradition. In fact, the radical changes in hunting laws are prompted by exactly the opposite—a fear by the extreme gun subculture that support for hunting in this state is growing weaker all the time.
Hunting enthusiasts have worried for years about the future of their blood sport because aging participants are dying off without being replaced by younger people. Kids today! You can’t get them to stop playing video games long enough to go out and really kill something.
That’s why the Legislature lowered the age to 10 for a so-called mentored hunt, allowing gun-toting parents to take very young children into the woods to get them hooked on blowing away animals before the kids become teenagers and discover less violent forms of amusement with each other.
Yep, ultimately it’s really all about continuing to create customers for gun manufacturers. If children in Wisconsin grow up doing things other than hunting, eventually gun sales will drop, meaning stock prices of gun manufacturers will drop and everyone associated with the industry will lose money. The safety of children isn’t even a consideration in this equation. If anything, the death or injury of a child is considered merely a cost of doing business.
Wisconsin has turned into an example of the things that can go horribly, deeply wrong when Republicans take control of state government and proceed to dismantle laws designed to protect citizens in order that their sponsors may profit. Gov. Scott Walker, perhaps the most corrupt and venal Governor in modern history, has presided over the creation of an environment that has eroded worker protections, the social safety net, and workplace safety regulations. His reign of error has helped to create a political landscape in which thoroughly corrupt zealots like Rep. Kleefisch can propose removing any and all gun safety requirements as they pertain to children.
I can’t even begin to imagine how one might justify creation of an environment in which ANY child of ANY age can stomp through the woods with a loaded rifle- unless Kleefisch is trying to support what might be the Badger State’s new tourism slogan:
WISCONSIN: THE NATURAL SELECTION STATE
