Warrior or Pretender?

18 June 07

More sterile guns and "gunmen"!

In looking through a recent issue of a popular American gun magazine, I noted an article on the subject of planes-game hunting. A smiling hunter is pictured with his deceased quarry ( an antelope) and his Ruger single-shot rifle, presumptively the one used to down the animal, obviously unloaded, out of his control, and leaning nonchalantly against the reclining beast.

It must the new, accepted norm for "hunters" to pose for photographs with empty guns! It is as if they were saying, "It's okay! My gun is unloaded. I'm harmless/helpless/defenseless. We can all relax now." And, among gun-magazine publishers, it is apparently the new, unwritten rule that hunters may pose with guns, so long as all are obviously unloaded, sterile, and not being held in a way where one could possibly use them for any serious purpose.

I had the unhappy experience of hunting with a British PH in South Africa several years ago who had this same pernicious habit of unloading rifles the moment the beast went down and the hunt was supposedly "over." After shooting a large Oryx with a borrowed 270 bolt gun, this PH indicated that he could now take the rifle from me. We'll, I couldn't very well tell him he couldn't have his own rifle back, but I was dismayed and not a little concerned when he promptly unloaded it, all the time complementing me on my accuracy.

His congratulatory comments were, as is turns out, premature! After thirty minutes, the "dead" Oryx got back up, looking at the two ofus and displaying very little discomfort! We had both been guilty of "relaxing too soon." I drew my G19, which was the only gun I still had. In an embarrassed panic, my PH tried clumsily to reload the rifle. Meanwhile, the animal, apparently bored with both of us, ran away! It was hours before I got another shot at it and finally brought it down for the final time. My PH never asked me to surrender the rifle the rest of that day, and it thus stayed loaded and under my direct control.

During WWII, a far wiser General "Vinegar" Joe Stillwell, assigned to the far east, never allowed himself to be photographed while unarmed. Every picture we see of him today shows him with M1 Carbine in hand. A fifteen-round magazine is unfailingly locked in the magazine well, and I have every confidence there was always a round chambered. Joe Stillwell obviously didn't feel a need to apologize for always being ready to act, unlike many in today's generation of hunter/writers.

Like Vinegar Joe, I have made it a habit of not allowing myself to be photographed on a hunt while holding an obviously empty gun or with my rifle or shotgun out of my direct control. I believe such photographs convey an arrogant, overly-casual attitude that simultaneously dishonors our quarry and does a disservice to our Art.

Nor do I allow myself to be photographed using an autopistol, with slide locked to the rear, as a pointer, calling attention to bullet holes in a paper target. It's a pistol, not a pointer, and such an airheaded stunt does our Art no good service!

Decades from now, I, for one, don't want my descendants to look as photos of me, as I am unarmed, clueless, inattentive, and arrogantly assumptive that the fight is over. No, I want all to say of me, if nothing else, "... now, there's a Warrior!"

"A mousetrap is an example of excellent "conditioning." It's coiled spring sits expressionless. It has no personal animosity toward mice, any more than it does toward careless index fingers. So long as neither touches the cheese, there is no problem! But, when the cheese is molested, it's reaction is fleet, remorseless, and absolutely invariant."

/John