The Perils of Hunting on High
This article made it to the front page of the Washington Post today. And for the life of me I don't see how it is newsworthy! "Men fall from tree stands." Big freaking deal! If this is newsworthy, are we about to also be inundated with articles about the "perils" of bowling? Tennis? "Two percent of drunk men who bowl will drop their ten pounder balls on their own foot and shatter their big toe." "An old man playing tennis pulled his hamstring."
Seriously! What is the point of this article?!?! It wasn't condemning hunting- shockingly enough. Is it just trying to find another way to taint hunting? Make guns look bad from a distantly related angle? I really don't get it. Its a boring article that tells you nothing more than "When people climb high into trees some will fall and land hard and suffer injuries as a result." Maybe the newsworthy part of this article is that some city kid just discovered there is something called a tree stand that gives hunters a better advantage, and is hoping that this insipid article will incite and enrage some activist group into banning tree stands. (But with a name like Partlow, this reporter is probably related to the rural VA clan of the same name that has towns and streets named after them throughout the state, and is anything but "city." Maybe that is the problem- the reporter went Democrat and got expelled from his backwoods family.) Guess what, hunting has been around since the dawn of time, and its not going away. If you ban tree stands, men will just climb a tree. So how about we just let them do it safely in their stands?
If this is interesting and newsworthy maybe I should write an article on how many people get tetanus when their fishing lures prick them. Would that make it to the front page too? Or should I write an article about how women burn their foreheads with curling irons?
There are probably people out there who need this information. You know, the really stupid people who also need to read,"Do not iron clothes while they are on your body" when they purchase the new iron. It's amazing that someone, somewhere must have tried it and then sued the company.
ReplyDeleteI personally think the article should have included references to alcohol, such as: Warning! People who climb tree stands to hunt and then consume copious amounts of beer are prone to stupid behavior such as vomiting, passing out, rolling out of the tree and falling 25 feet, and shooting each other in the a**. I think instead of banning tree stands we need to put the disclaimer sticker on each and every tree in all the forests of the world. Think of all the mishaps we can prevent!