Deer Hunting Opener

I don't hunt.

I don't fish.

I shop for food.

Yesterday I was watching the news and there was a story about how much revenue deer hunting season brings to the state. I admit I MIGHT have some of these facts wrong, but this is how I remember them.

The gist of the article was that this hunting season generates nearly 3/4 of a billion dollars. 500,000 hunters will kill approximately 165,000 deer by the time it's all over.

Now, I was thinking, if I got the numbers right, that means that each dead deer costs about $4,500.

That cost is shared among the two out of three hunters that doesn't get one. I other words, the one hunter who gets a deer pays $1500 for it, but the two that don't pay $1500 each as well.

Looking at it another way, one hunter pays $1500 a year for three years, to get one deer once every three years. Any given year a hunter may get a deer, but if he hunts a lot, it costs him a lot of money.

If I went shopping and spent $4500 for 120 pounds of usable meat one weekend every three years, I'd have some explaining to do to my wife.

But we have half-a-million hunters doing that.

On the brighter side? We have half-a-million armed men carrying loaded weapons around the countryside and we rarely, if ever, hear of some one shooting someone on purpose from said event.

Guns don't kill people.

Bad people kill other people, and sometimes they use guns. The vast majority, of gun owners don't shoot people on purpose.

500, 000 guns and hunters

Deer killed on purpose? 165,000

People killed during the season on purpose by hunters? 0

That says a lot about hunters. They might be stupid enough to pay 35 dollars a pound for gamey, tough, dry meat, but they aren't crazy.