What drives intolerance

The objections and activities of the anti-hunting in national parks

movement, are predicated on two things: 

•  a hatred/fear of all ‘weapons’, and 
•  notions of what is, and is not, acceptable risk

Little or nothing can be done to ameliorate the fear and loathing that drives people who would have weapons of all kinds banned. That which they see only as the agents of death, we hunters see as tools that enable us to engage in a legitimate cultural practice associated with thousands of years of human evolution and tradition.

Their closed minds make them deaf to discussions about partnership and compromise that they automatically engage in and accept in so many other day-to-day activities that are a thousand-fold more dangerous than hunting wherever it takes place. To everyday examples of the public’s willingness to tolerate an element of acceptable risk are driving and beach-going.

Each time I sally forth on the states highways, I accept that I am sitting in a 15,432,358 grain projectile travelling at around 91 feet per second (legally). My projectile is aimed directly at another of at least equal mass and speed, heading directly at me on a course that allows for a margin of error of about 1.5 metres, that being the distance at which my projectile will pass theirs.

Chances are I don’t know any of the thousands of people who are launching their projectiles in my direction. I simply accept that most will be skilled managers of their projectiles. I accept that they will hold the appropriate licence for its deployment, and that they will abide by the rule that forbids them to cross a 10 cm-wide white line along their projectile’s trajectory.

But along with everyone else on the State's highway system, I also know that every day thousands of projectile managers break the rules.

Many will be travelling at speeds that exceed the legal maximum. Many will be operating substandard projectiles, and many will be managing them under the influence of alcohol and elicit substances. Many will not be wearing the correct prescription spectacles as they pass me, and many-many more will be talking on mobile phones.

At times the projectiles may be travelling at night with very limited forward vision, and despite this their velocity will remain unchanged from daylight to dark.

In short, statistics and my own knowledge of the world combine to tell me that there are many things that may cause my projectile to collide with other. And this is reinforced by the fact that along with all the other projectile occupants in NSW, I know someone who was killed when a mechanical failure or a breach of the rules governing safe projectile management were broken. Yet sally forth I do, each and every day, along with a million others.

The need outweighs concern for my personal safety, though logically it should not and this acceptance is known as ‘tolerance’. The anti-hunting lobby shares this tolerance with me, because the anti-hunting lobby finds cars convenient and useful. They are intolerant of the perceived risks associated with hunting on public lands, simply because they have no use for weapons or hunting.

As Australians we have a very strong beach and surfing culture. Yet there are innumerable instances of surfer-swimmer encounters that result in serious injury or even death when an errant surfboard slams into a group of swimmers.

In my youth a good friend lost consciousness and drown after being hit in the head by a surfboard, and I carry a scar on my back from an encounter with a surfboard while snorkelling. Yet we do not ban surfing from all beaches. Instead, surfers and swimmers are encouraged to remain apart, keeping to allocated areas of the beach so that all can enjoy the environment.

There are no real laws or penalties associated with this arrangement. We simply comply (mostly) because it is in everyone’s best interests to do so, and we accept the risk when we visit the beach even though no-one there has any real power to enforce any rules about safety or separation.

There are many day-to-day activities that are high-risk, but because we all have a stake in those activities, we accept the risk and, often, we laugh at others who suggest the risk is too great. The risk to the public associated with encounters with hunters on public lands is not great and the vast majority of "the public" recognises this fact.

As a result, they have not engaged in the scaremongering of engines like the National Parks Association and The Greens, preferring to laugh them off as the silly concerns of a risk adverse generation obsessed with control and banning that which they do not approve of..

Despite what they may say, The Greens and the National Parks Association etc object to hunting primarily on philosophical grounds, because they despise weapons and hunting. They are happy, therefore, to denigrate it and demand the abolition of that which they neither understand nor respect.

This is the nature of bigotry and intolerance. 

Anyway, I'll get outa ya way now...