The Grim Reaper

Humans are crazy -- you never know
if they'll pet you or shoot you
--A Coyote's in the House,
Elmore Leonard

Of all the creatures that man kills for
his amusement there is only one that he kills
out of hatred -- other men.
Man hates nothing as much as himself
--Under the Glacier, Haldor Laxness
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Fred Eichler is as good a starting point as any to investigate America's culture of death. The most fearsome enemy of the varmint, look at his simpering smile in his advert for his arms company which boldly threatens, "The Food Chain Ends Here." Eichler's specialty is cowing the outside-the-Beltway "predators" and varmints among us.

Why do we prey upon animals for blood sport, those engaged in the hunts often dragging bags of their quarry away not to eat, but for ... bragging rights? Why is it legal to kill coyotes, foxes, wolves groundhogs and prairie dogs, while dog fighting is not? Both are blood lust sports unnecessary for survival purposes.

Why does the Left not protect these animals from serving as unwitting moving targets, while meaninglessly objecting to the use of "hoodie" targets? In the first case, actual lives are being lost; in the latter, the group merely renders itself as polemical and irrelevant as its ostensible target audience.

We expend energy in a welter of meaningless fights: The Left railing against the hoodie target, while Gary Reeder custom pistol smith is marketing a Grim Reaper pistol, with an image of the hooded figure on the cylinder. The Reaper wears a hoodie, wherever you are on the political spectrum, and killing machines are going to be called Reapers or Predators whether you like it or not.

In last month's Outdoor Life, Eichler shows off his $1,395 predator rifle, replete with coyote prints on the handgrip -- look at that rig:

"This 5.56/.223 AR is a handy little predator rifle. . .
(that) should have coyotes quaking in their dens"

Yeah, buddy ... the enemy are quaking in their dens, unarmed -- not exactly a fair fight. Ask a varmint shooter why he kills and the common NRA-tutored reply is, because they're predators (exception: prairie dogs and groundhogs.)

But the predators kill only to live, as is the wont of nature, whereas the varmint shooters kill only for the thrill of the splatter of a jacketed bullet upon living flesh. If we can justify killing predators due to their label, it is not a far shot to liken coyotes to terrorists, who are cut of the same cloth, killer drones and snipers becoming our defense.

It is beyond the scope of this entry, but the subjects of this form of "hunting" can be analogized to the subjects of current war efforts (there is Camp Coyote, on the Iraq/Kuwait border.) There will always be the human predator equivalent of the coyote, and perhaps we should be more focused on what creates this human analog, especially if he is the primary target of our war efforts. Maybe the question of who gains the predator status is simply a question of which side of the fence you sit on.

Looking at varmint killing strictly from an ecological point of view, removing predators from the natural world upsets the homeostasis of life. However, humans must satisfy their urge for dominance, their impulse to kill or capture prey, and will discharge this need by any means necessary, using any justification available. We are logically unfit for our place at the apex of the food chain, and surely we reside there only momentarily.

If you kill it, you should eat it. We find it aberrant for grown men to find enjoyment in killing these creatures deemed varmints en masse for sport alone.

That it is tolerated reflects a degraded and decadent sensibility in our society.