Americans: Natural-born Hunters?

"We have inherited many attitudes from our recent ancestors who wrestled this continent as Jacob wrestled the angel, and the pioneers won. From them we take a belief that every American is a natural-born hunter. And every fall a great number of men set out to prove that without talent, training, knowledge, or practice they are dead shots with rifle or shotgun. The results are horrid . . . .

If I were hungry, I would happily hunt anything that runs or crawls or flies, even relatives, and tear them down with my teeth. But it isn't hunger that drives millions of armed American males into forests and hills every autumn . . . . Somehow the hunting process has to do with masculinity, but I don't quite know how. I know there are any number of good and efficient hunters who know what they are doing; but many more are overweight gentlemen, primed with whiskey and armed with high-powered rifles. They shoot at anything that moves or looks like it might, and their success in killing one another may well prevent a population explosion . . . .

A farmer in upstate New York painted the word cow in big black letters on both sides of his white bossy but the hunters shot it anyway." (Steinbeck, "Travels With Charley", pp. 56-57)

photo credit: factoid news