Recently I read a piece of advice for writers that I’m going to try and take to heart. It went something like this: “If your words can possibly be misconstrued, they probably will be.” My writing style tends to make people have to stop and think about what it is I’m really saying, but I’ll work on being a little clearer so as not to lead readers to the wrong conclusions.

One thing I must be leading some to believe is that I hate all hunters. Not so; what I hate is the act of hunting and its end results. It’s the ignorance and the killing I hate, not necessarily the people.

I know that many hunters are just doing what they do to animals because it’s the popular thing to do if they want to fit in with the people they associate with. In that case I hate the peer pressure that seduces them and their weakness to resist it. But I don’t outright hate those people because I know if they were influenced by peer pressure to take up hunting, there’s a chance they’ll respond to social pressure against hunting one day and join their fellow hunters who have turned away from the sport.

And off course I don’t hate those who hunt out of poverty and desperation. For them, I mostly feel pity (although I know what it’s like to be poor, and yet I still resist the temptation to take an easy meal at the expense of the local wildlife).

Then there are those hunters who actually enjoy killing or making animals suffer. Those are the people my hatred is reserved for. But at the same time, I feel no love lost for the people who sadisticly threaten hunters with violence. How can we expect to stop violence against animals unless we set an example by taking the high road?