Katie Pinke, publisher and general manager of Agweek, recently posted an article urging parents to attend a hunter education course with their children. Below are a few of her comments:
If I don’t take the time to educate myself and my children about guns, where will they learn? Will they live in fear and not take up one of our family’s pastimes together, hunting? I want my kids to soak in and love the outdoors, to be responsible gun-owning citizens and to take up hunting as an outdoor activity because it’s good for the land and habitat and it fills our freezer with meat for the winter.
The primary reason we own guns is to hunt. My husband and son use them for upland bird, waterfowl and deer hunting, along with taking care of an occasional skunk or raccoon that makes a home in our barn and eats our cats’ food. I would love to hunt down the coyotes I listen to each night who get the better of a least a couple of our cats each winter. In our home, guns are stored in a safe.
I have numerous adult friends, like me, who have never taken a hunter education course or any type of gun safety class. Rather than tackling initiatives I have little sway over, such as gun safety, gun education, gun legislation and responsible gun ownership, I’m starting with hunter safety. I hope more parents and grandparents, whether you have any interest in hunting or not, choose to join me.
Go here to read the entire article.
(Photo source: North Dakota Game and Fish Department)