The Victims of Gun Violence Politicians Won't Talk About

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The Victims of Gun Violence Politicians Won't Talk About

02/01/2016 02:06 pm ET | Updated Feb 01, 2016

Jay Shooster

Advocate for human and animal rights

This piece was co-authored by Rockwell Schwartz, recent graduate of Vassar College's Science, Technology, & Society program.

A shooting is happening right now at Vassar College. It is the fourth the campus has seen in the past six years. Over 115 have already been killed, their blood spilled on the college fields. Yet, it's unlikely you've heard anything about it. The national media remains silent; not even the local news has covered the grieving families or lost friends. No candlelight vigils, no memorials, no communal mourning, as the victims remain unidentified and seemingly forgotten.

What's happening at Vassar College should be shocking, but similar shootings have been largely ignored across the country. The annual death toll climbs well into the millions, yet there is no accurate record of the casualties. Why? Because the victims were born as members of the wrong species.

In the brewing national discussion on gun violence, the most numerous victims--animals--are left out of the conversation. For every human life taken by a gun, hundreds, if not thousands, of nonhuman lives have also been taken. Yet for these victims, gun control advocates not only erase their deaths, but also actively promote and protect the killings. We fail to label the unnecessary killing of animals as gun violence, and instead we euphemize and romanticize it as "sportsmanship."

But hunting is gun violence. A bullet ripping through flesh, puncturing arteries, taking a life is violence no matter the victim's species. And these deaths are far from as clean and easy as often presented: One study found that more than 1 in 10 deer died only after two or more shots, often suffering for over 15 minutes prior to death. White Buffalo, Inc.--an organization hired by Vassar College to conduct killings on its campus--became the subject of a lawsuit following undercover footage collected at one of its shoots. In one video, a mother deer is shot in the head right in front of her two fawns and she is seen still kicking as a park ranger places a plastic bag over her head. Even when hunting is carried out by paid professionals, there is still suffering and a surge of cortisol-driven terror.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jay-shooster/the-victims-of-gun-violen_b_9112200.html

The anti-gun side of the debate has its versions of nugent too, but you wont see the anti-gun folks saying much about them.

"Hunting is gun violence". Puh-lease.