Very simple question. I put no qualifiers on two legs, four, or on the wing. Very simply put, have you ever shot and killed a living being?

Any details you feel like sharing are up to you. Any further discussion is up to you. I know there's plenty here who have done some, or all. But I wonder how many have never.

This thread isn't about the morality of killing. It's merely a question of if you have used a firearm to kill. I understand there's more poll options that could be added along the spectrum in between, but for my interests, this is a binary choice.

Question:
Have you ever shot and killed a living being?

Choices:
Yes.
No.

 

Yes, a damn near impossible shot (which is why I took it, I guess) at a Blue Jay. Crosman BB gun when I was ten years old. When it hit the bird, I thought I had missed, because it flew off the branch it was sitting on and made a slow, lazy circle to the ground, then didn't move any more. No one- including the bird- was more surprised than me. The next day, the woman who lived in the house chastised me and asked me the point of doing that. I coudn't answer her. Since then, no, nothing else, and you can laugh or roll your eyes, but I still think about that bird and I still feel bad about it.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Since then, no, nothing else, and you can laugh or roll your eyes, but I still think about that bird and I still feel bad about it.

I wouldn't laugh and roll my eyes. Killing a living being brings up a wide range of emotions, and if you don't feel some measure of remorse or... for lack of a better word, at least a seriousness about it, I can't say you're a properly adjusted human.

Yes. Twice. A quail on a quail hunt years ago with my employer. I also had an experience similar to parabellum except mine was the neighbors cat. Pellet rifle at night - I aimed for the hip hoping to scare it away but I must have hit it in the side of the chest or something. It flopped around for 10 seconds or so then didn't move. To this day I still feel guilty about killing that cat.

one pheasant and one squirrel
,when I was in my early teens.

then I was done. never again .

that shit got sorted out on that day ,
dads single shot shot gun.

that was enough for me

I have since killed deer for meat but my first kill was like Para. It was some sort of bird (no idea) and a BB gun. I was 11 and I cried. WTH I thought would happen if I shot it I don't know but that made it tough to even think about hunting for a long time. I realize there was no purpose and it was horrible and I should have worried if I had felt nothing.

But now, when I hunt it is for food for me or someone else and I am respectful of the animal's death. I have a Christian Faith that values all living things but like to think even if I didn't, I would have some reverence- maybe as Native American traditions dictated....

Mice caught in glue traps. Even 6 inches away, .22 ratshot wont do it reliably. I didn't like that. I don't like killing things I don't have to. If it's gotta be done, I can do it, but I wont like it.

In my youth, I absolutely terrorized the birds, rock-chucks, and rabbits in my area with BB gun and .22 rifles. I have killed hundreds, if not a thousand.
I never really thought about it at the time. It is just what humans do to animals.
Now, I am a strict vegetarian. Karma ?

I've hunted since I was a kid. Deer, ducks, geese, quail, dove, squirrel, hogs, bear, elk, pheasant. . .I've killed them all many, many times.

Lots of lizards as a kid with my bb-gun. Big poisonous toads, rats, with the same bb-gun. (Crossman M-1)

I don't even have the excuse for youth. I was 21 and on a girlfriends farm. Shot and killed a rabbit from 20 yards with a shotgun to impress her. It screamed as it died and I did it for no reason but to a big man to a girl. I've killed some ground hogs since then as a favor to my father in law and two squirrels that were living in my attic but I think about that rabbit and my actions every time I killed something.

My first kill was also just like Para's except that no one else saw it but me so no one chastised me about it - but the guilt was same.

Since then, I've gone on many hunts and killed many but have always made very conservative shots and harvest the meat.

As a lifelong hunter of large and small game, I’ve killed many animals. Most of them ended up on my plate at the dinner table.

Yes, just one time. With an Air rifle. A bird perched on a phone wire was shitting on my new car.

All my cousins I grew up with and my neighbor were hunters. They were going out “bird hunting” one snowy day. I didn’t want to look like a wimp (probably between 8-10 years old and I was the youngest). Shot one bird with a BB gun. Regret it to this day. Never felt bad about killing poisonous snakes. A few raccoons and possums that were either being pests or looked seriously ill and were behaving very strangely. Bunch of groundhogs but only because they tear up my garden and the fields.

I'm the first 'No' in this pool. I'm a fisherman, but never hunted.

Closest I've come is shooting up watermelons.

First thing I ever killed was a Coot with my air rifle. My father and grandparents lived on a golf course, and every year the men would hold a shotgun day to shoot the coots-with approval from the local PD- as they were considered to be a menace (something about them tearing up the greens, cant remember). I would practice for hours with my rifle in the woods, and my dad said he wanted to take me down to the pond and let me have a go at the Coots before the shotgun day. I laid down at one end of the pond while my dad would throw golf balls at the coots to shoo them toward me. I think I shot 3 or 4 that early evening. My dads friends started calling me the “Cootinator”. I remember feeling pretty proud of myself, never felt bad for the coots. First time I truely regretted shooting a living animal was a few years later. I was hunting for dove with my dad and his friend, and I took a shot at a rabbit that I had no reason to kill other than “can I make this shot?”. They didnt say anything one way or the other about it, like they knew I would figure it out for myself- that was a pointless kill. Ive hunted many times since and still enjoy it.

I have been a hunter as long as I can remember, when I was younger it was part of who I was. Around 8 years old I would shoot birds with my BB gun, grab a potato from mom or grandmother, clean the bird, start a fire somewhere and eat it.

I still hunt but nothing like I used too and I seem to have more compassion for critters as I get older. However, I will eliminate any critter I feel is harmful to our chickens. Just the other night I spotted the opossum that had been hanging around the chicken coop, he has since left this world to join his other buddies.

I hurt somebody's feelings once.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Sig2340,

Yes, I was a paid assassin. When a young lad there were two trees in an elderly lady"s front yard that for some reason attracted hundreds of sparrows on a nightly basis in the summer time. The birds were so thick they fouled the sidewalk with droppings to the extent folks would walk in the street to avoid the area. She would pay me and my pal 1 cent each for all the birds we could kill any time we wanted to spend the time doing so. We would often fill a 5 gallon bucket each in a nights' shooting. Her renumeration was enough to buy BB's for the next expedition. Never did figure out what the over attraction to those trees was for the birds, but I see they have been cut down. Whoever owns the house now likely just gave up trying to fight the horde.