No More Killing

No More Killing


I got a BB gun probably when I was about 8 or 9. This was fairly common for a son to get a gun from his father in order to learn the sport of hunting. Dad gave me the standard talk about not pointing it at anyone or shooting toward people or things of value. The gun that I had was not the standard Daisy lever action gun but was a pump action. I don’t remember the name of it but it was more powerful but didn’t have the eye appeal of the Daisy lever action. I would set up tin cans and use them as targets. I would make bulls eyes from paper and crayons. After a while these static targets were of no challenge so I had to find new targets. There it was. Birds.

Birds became my favorite fun with the BB gun…killing birds. I wasn’t supposed to kill “good” birds but sparrows, starlings and those kinds were fine. I use to really enjoy that. I would stalk the birds very carefully. I would stand in one spot for long periods of time listening and watching until a bird would move and then I would nail him. I could listen to their song and tell where they were. I tried to get different birds. Not the same kind all the time.

After a couple of years with the BB gun, I did some research, saved up my money and got a pellet gun. This was a single shot gun powered by compressed CO2 and was very accurate at close range. Much more so than the BB gun. The CO2 came in cylinders that you attached to an opening in the gun and the high pressure in the cylinder would equalize within the storage area of the gun. This was good for several shots. The pellets were hollow lead objects that were deadly.

One time I was in the back yard of Dan Newnum's house (the next door house where we use to live) and was watching a bird in the big walnut tree. As usual I was quietly moving around under the tree listening for sounds and watching for movement in order to locate the bird. I then found the bird, took aim and fired. The bird came crashing through the tree bouncing from limb to limb and then the long fall to the ground. It fell right at my feet. The bird was not quite dead. He was gulping and heaving. I suddenly felt terrible. I was petrified. What had I done.

This is when I suddenly realized the value of life and the insensitivity of taking a life. I could not believe that I was doing such things. I don’t know what exactly turned me at that point but that was the last time I killed a bird or anything intentionally. I was probably about 12 or 14.

Dad liked to hunt for coon, squirrel or rabbit and he always wanted me to go with him. I finally went with him one time to rabbit hunt. We walked behind the house into the field at the back of the house. I think that we had a dog with us. I don't think that I wanted to go with him but he insisted and I felt obligated. It was probably the way that his Dad taught him to hunt. We came upon a rabbit that was sitting there too scared to move. Dad raised a shotgun and blasted away. The rabbit went rolling across the field. It upset me considerably. This was after I had given up the killing of birds and I was especially sensitive to this kind of killing. I know that Dad was disappointed but he didn’t make a big deal of it although he at first mocked me for being so sensitive. He saw how upset I was and in his way, he understood. I can still see that rabbit looking at me and then rolling across the field.