Shooting Gallery

My dear husband came into the house last night stomping mad. Two teen-age girls were hunting squirrels on our neighbor's property. The girls got bored looking for squirrels and decided to target practice by setting targets on the property line fence and shooting directly onto our property. Dave had bullets whizzing over his head and by the time he managed to find the girls and stop them, he was not only scared but damned mad. He cussed them out with such neighborly phrases as "You f---ing need to know where you are shooting" and "You don't shoot a f--ing gun towards someone else's property, you could f ---ing kill someone." When I heard the story from him after he came back to the house, he was still cussing mad. The girls really had no excuse except that they thought our house was south of where they were shooting. They were shooting over a hill so they couldn't really hit the house but they were lined up right with it. The greenhouse is further up the hill, so the bullets went whizzing over Dave's head when he approached it - what sounded like just barely over his head was probably a good ten feet, but still ... bullets are bullets and when they are being fired anywhere near or at you, it ain't good.

I know I should have stayed out of it but 10 minutes later I walked down towards the drive to see if there was a vehicle parked there. I wanted to find out who the girls were and where they were from. Perhaps a parental call was in order. Things quickly got out of hand because one of girls goes all belligerent - yelling that they were not shooting at our house or at our property and their bullets were not going over Dave's head. About then Dave came up to the gate with me and I told him they were saying he was wrong about the bullets. Now we both were mad and not sure where things would have gone next but all came out well when the girl who hadn't been shouting, came over to the gate and admitted they had been shooting at our line fence and she was sorry. Her Dad was out bow hunting and they were putting away their guns and just waiting for him to come back. We thanked her for speaking up and explained that she should never shoot on our property (or anyone else's without permission) even if she didn't think there was anything there to be concerned about.

A scary situation for us but also probably for both girls. It was impressive that one of them was able to handle herself while the other lashed out and lied. We felt bad for yelling at them in one way, but on the other hand, Dave or one of our animals could have been killed and they really needed to understand how irresponsible they had been. So if we put a scare into them - it may turn out to be a cheap lesson.

I am not a fan of hunting - not a popular position here in the Midwest. I've always felt hunting for sport was demeaning to the people who did it and the animals that were hunted. Hunting for food is fine as long as one is respectful of the animals and the surroundings. But hunters who are irresponsible, do not respect property rights, who drink while hunting or who threaten others through their actions and horseplay have no business hunting for any reason, ever! Of course the stories about bad hunters get repeated but we have had plenty of our own stories, surrounded as we are by good hunting grounds - deer, turkey, squirrels and mushrooms - all of which have been poached from our property. The worse was when Dave was threatened some years ago by a drunken bunch of hunters. We were in the woods and heard shots close by. Dave caught the hunters crossing back over the fence with a poached deer from our property. When he tried to talk to them about it, they threatened to beat him up if he did not back away from our fence. When drunks with guns threaten you, you tend to listen. So now when hunting season comes, we avoid walking on our own property except when we are sure there is no one hunting at any of the neighbors. We love where we live, we love to take the dogs for walks in the woods, we want to enjoy our property. No matter how many good hunters there are, I could never be a fan of hunting!