I just don't get the appeal of hunting. I know. Gasp. Blasphemy in these here parts, right? Well, before you jump all over me and attribute my first statement to me just being a darn Yankee, let me just clarify by saying that I am not by any means anti-gun or anti-hunting.

I come from a family of hunters. My father goes every year. My uncles hunt. My cousins hunt. And I'm sure my Pilgrim ancestors did too. In fact, I don't really remember a year while I was growing up when my father didn't bag at least one buck. He would bring it up to my uncle's house where he had all of the machines to cut up the meat inside his garage.

My dad loves to hunt. But I don't. I can see the appeal on the one hand of getting up early in the morning and being in the great outdoors with your father or sons or buddies and enjoying the companionship and crisp fall air. But that's where it stops for me.

I'm an animal lover. Personally, I think deer are beautiful and graceful animals. I love seeing a deer out in the woods or a field just doing what deer do. My parents live on 52 wooded acres on top of a mountain and have a nice pond which my father built to go along with it. I used to love walking down to the pond or seeing a deer walk across the lawn. When I lived in Utah I was only a few hours from Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons. I loved driving up there. You would almost always see these massive elk on the sides of the road just off in the distance. In Logan, which is where I lived, they had an elk refuge and you could take rides on a hay wagon and watch them feed the wintering elk. I would find no enjoyment killing such a beautiful and harmless animal and I certainly wouldn't take any satisfaction following a trail of blood knowing that my prey is slowly bleeding to death.

I'm not na*ve enough that I don't understand the concept of overpopulation. I have a friend who lives in New Jersey and I'll bet you more deer are killed by cars each year than by hunters. And my father for one, enjoys eating deer meat. My sisters and I, on the other hand, weren't too keen on it.

There is something about hunting which strikes me an unfair. For one thing, hunters have guns. And those guns can shoot quite a distance. A deer, on the other hand, can't shoot back. I hear a lot about hunters taking pride in picking their deer stand. Okay, so now, not only do they have a gun, but they are high in a tree waiting to ambush the animal as it comes in range. Does that sound fair to you? I wonder how many hunters would actually go hunting if, oh, say a deer could shoot back? What, no takers? That's like me inviting you to go play paintball only guess what? You don't get a gun. I get to sit in the tower and shoot at you and all you can do is try and run away and avoid being shot. Still want to go play paintball with me?

I realize there is a lot of skill to hunting. I'm sure hitting a deer with a bow isn't easy. And I know it's not easy getting off a shot with a muzzle loader. Yes, folks, I have fired a gun before. If I had been around 200 years ago, I'm sure I would have been a hunter. But since I can go down to the supermarket and get a pound of ham or turkey, I think I'll pass on hunting.