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If We Can Save Just One Lion, Let’s Put an End to Bow Violence
If you’ve read, listened to, watched, or otherwise consumed news in the past twenty-four hours, it’s nearly impossible to be unfamiliar with Cecil the lion and his untimely demise.
A Minnesota trophy hunter heartlessly shot the most famous creature in Zimbabwe after paying $50,000 for the ability to do so.
Since these events, outcry has reverberated around the world ranging from general threats of harm to rather disturbing and twisted remarks from former CNN personality Piers Morgan. He writes in the Daily Mail that those outraged by the hunter should “calmly walk over, skin him alive, cut his head from his neck, and [take] a bunch of photos of us all grinning inanely at his quivering flesh.”
However, I was most shocked to find Morgan, and others who have been great proponents of gun control, have failed to identify the true villain in this story: the bow and arrow.
It’s time we start taking bow violence seriously.
After all, does this Minnesota dentist need to own such a scary-looking weapon? What background checks were performed before he obtained it? Was it purchased legally?
By blaming the hunter himself, Mr. Morgan and others are diverting the attention away from the real problem: how ridiculously easy it is to obtain a bow and arrow in today’s day and age. Guess the percentage of bow violence against cute animals in areas where bows and arrows aren’t allowed? Zero. That’s why we need to start taking a serious look at this problem and making meaningful reform.
Just think: If this hunter had been prevented from obtaining his weapon, cute, lovable Cecil would still be alive today. That’s something for which we simply can not stand.
The question is, where do we go from here? How do we ensure other innocent lions everywhere don’t fall victim to the same fate as Cecil? How do we take steps to prevent bow violence?
At a bare minimum, we need universal background checks for purchases of all bows and arrows. Next, we need to ensure that all “assault” or “scary-looking” bows and arrows are banned. After all, is it really necessary to hunt with such an intimidating weapon? Can’t it be a little less mechanical-looking and still shoot arrows? Indeed, nowhere in the constitution are you afforded the right to bear a bow and arrow.
Once we’ve achieved these common-sense solutions, it’s imperative to limit the number of arrows hunters are allowed to carry at one time. One way to do this would be to require the assembly of quivers (the thing you put your arrows in) to fit a maximum of ten arrows. This would give other poor, innocent lions a better chance of survival and would help prevent a barrage of medieval-style arrow rain. Some archers, I’ve heard, can shoot multiple arrows per second, which doesn’t even give the lions a fighting chance.
After this, we need to address another underlying problem: bow and arrow culture. I’m afraid it’s common for this desire for bow violence to start very young. Go to any toy store, and more than likely you’ll find a collection of suction-cupped arrows with an all-too-lifelike matching bow. This gives children the impression that it’s okay to own and experiment with dangerous weapons. Give him or her a stuffed lion, and they’re that much closer to rationalizing the real thing. It’s just plain scary.
I hope these common-sense solutions shine light on the bigger underlying problem in our society: We have failed to grasp the imperative of targeting inanimate objects for bad behavior.
That is, unless, we find it politically expedient to do otherwise.
Published in General
Mugabe is dead?
My brother, Dale Anderson, who runs a facility that exhibits big cats was asked for his reaction to this by local TV.
Think of all the Valentine’s Day cards that portray Cupid and his arrows, thus confusing sex with violence and promoting the idea that there is no real difference between rape and marital intercourse. The next thing you know the most holy of unions, SSM, will be discredited.
Wonderful, McGee.
You’re a man after my own heart. And I mean that in a totally platonic, non-creepy way. NTTAWWT
P.S., you hear from Ziva lately?
When fletchings are outlawed, only outlaws will fletch.
You can have my broadhead when you pry it from my cold dead hands.
Wait, that didn’t come out right…
Is that a longbow in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?
Now I’m afraid I’m compounding things.
Don’t mess with Texas (Tech cheerleaders).
Good post, T. I’m sorry you had to read piers Morgan to write it, though. Thanks for taking one for the team.
Insert Jay w bow w dead animal pic here. You may not believe in arrows buddy, but they believe in you.
I think we probably need to have a more urgent conversation about restricting the availability of Piers Morgans to the general public.
If only he’d harvested Cecil’s heart, lungs, liver and calvarium for use in life-saving research, the federal government would have picked up his $50,000 hunting tab for him.
Please, Basil. He’s a dentist, not a women’s health specialist. Maybe if the federal government had a program researching the oral hygiene of lions…
Women got teeth. That makes him a women’s health specialist in my book.
Hey T.,
You don’t by chance live at slip F18, Bahia Mar, Lauderdale do you?
<snark>To all those who were conceived on a bear skin rug, you owe your life to big game hunters. </snark>
On a houseboat named the Busted Flush?
Banning bows is politically impractical. What we really should do is just demand that people have smaller quivers.
Best thread of the year (with plenty more goodness to come, I’m sure).
Slip Number 23?
Speak for yourself.
and we haven’t even started in on the outrage that you can buy crossbows so easily in this country…………..
Am I the only one who finds it passing strange that Cecil the beloved lion was apparently named after the imperialist Cecil Rhodes, dead white exploiter of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe?
Sigh.
The way safari hunting works in Zimbabwe is that foreign hunters are not allowed to hunt alone. (Local amateurs are not allowed to hunt at all. Animals are too valuable.) Hunters must stay at a game preserve and hire a local guide. The guides, who are very skillful and knowledgeable, help you to find animals. They also
count animals. You are charged money for every animal you kill (or injure!) costs range from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands for a lion or elephant.
(In Canada, by contrast, you pay for your hunting licence in advance. For more carefully controlled species, like a grizzly bear, you enter a lottery. If you are picked, you get to buy your licence (~$1000 for a grizzly). Then you can try to hunt an animal. According to Huffington Post about 1/4 of people with a licence suceed in getting a grizzly.)
Once the hunt is over, the meat is given to the local population (I don’t think you can take the meat out of the country but I think you are allowed to eat your own catch during your hunt.) The trophy (eg. hide or horns) is then kept in country for a period of waiting, measurement and bureaucratic approval. In a couple of months, you will be able to send the trophies to a taxidermist.
Not the Sea-Sick Sea Serpent?
That would make more sense.