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Apologies from America
and New Zealand, here’s some hard lessons we’ve had to learn
The Tararua Ranges are about 50 miles north of Wellington, New Zealand’s capital city. That’s where I shot my first deer. Well, I didn’t actually shoot it, my cousin’s boyfriend did. I was only 11, and scared shitless. A nice big doe. He dragged it into a clearing and began to field-dress it. I turned away, and because I did I was the first to see the fawn stumble from the woods. The boyfriend jumped up quickly, grabbed it and, using the same bloody knife he was using to dismember its mother, he slit its throat. “Won’t last long out here on its own,” he grunted in explanation, seeing the horror in my eyes. I was looking at the horror in the fawn’s eyes. Later he sent me its beautiful speckled hide. I had it stretched, and for the remainder of my childhood it was pinned to my bedroom wall. I never wanted to forget that animal.
For the rest of my life, I have hated guns — which is weird, because for the last 40 years I’ve lived in the USA, the land of the free, where gun ownership is considered by some a sacred right. Many are startled to learn that the U.S. Supreme Court didn’t finally rule that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual’s right to own a gun until 2008, when it struck down a law in the District of Columbia that effectively banned handguns in the home. The…
