Published in the Laissez Faire Electronic Times, November 18, 2002
I arrived at my hunting camp half an hour before sunset, as the westerly hills were casting their long shadow over the gently sloping path that continues towards the Goudstikker Valley, named in memory of my friend Jean Goudstikker, who died at 77 years of age in 1998. I also dedicated my latest book to his memory.[1]
A retired engineer, Jean Goudstikker was born in France and, after an international career, had finally settled in Canada. He was a great believer in the right to keep and bear arms, and had an unbounded intellectual curiosity. Just a few years before his death, he discovered libertarianism, and soon saw himself as an anarcho-capitalist.
A few days before his death, I paid a friendly visit to his home in a Montréal suburb. At some point, he led me to his bedroom to show me something. "Jean," I asked, "do you, a warm supporter of the gun culture, keep your guns 'safely stored' as they say in Newspeak?" Since the 1991 federal gun control law (the one before the last), one has had to keep one's guns unloaded and locked at home, under penalty of two years' imprisonment. One cannot bear arms even in one's own bedroom! Jean Goudstikker was an old man who was both passionate and calm. He did not answer my question, but reached towards his bedside table on which lay a handkerchief. With a swift little gesture, he removed the handkerchief, uncovering a Colt .45 Government Model, cocked and locked. In memory of Jean Goudstikker!
Back to my hunting camp. Despite the unusually high temperature, I lit a fire in the stove, I opened the west-facing window against the wind, 30 yards away from a rock I had covered with carrots. I sat in front of the window, rested the barrel of my 30-06 on the back of a chair in front of me, told my German shepherd Walden to lie on the floor, and waited for the deer.
At sunset, a female passed a few feet away from the south window of the hunting camp. A few minutes later, another one (or perhaps it was the same one) appeared near the carrots just in front of me. I lifted my 30-06, rested my arm on the back of the chair, clicked the safety off, brought my eye close to the scope, and there she was, her chest just in the middle of the crosshair.
In Québec, as in many other places, you need a special licence to kill females or fawns. Once you have a hunting licence (which I do, although that is not a simple thing under the gun control laws of the last decade), it is not difficult to obtain a female licence: you just apply, and the licences are allocated by lottery. As I am not a real hunter, but only an intellectual redneck, I have never bothered to apply. Mind you, I am a grown man, and I don't much like to ask permission from the state.
So, I wondered, "Should I shoot this female?" She spent many minutes eating carrots just in my line of fire. "Where would I shoot it? … Right there; no, perhaps just a bit lower." Her chest was right in the crosshair of my scope. "Hell! I am on my own land here! And the tyrant says I can't shoot animals without its permission?" My neck was beginning to ache from leaning over my rifle and looking through the scope.
As far as I know, there are only a few places in the civilized world where one does not need a licence to shoot game on one's own land. England is one. Vermont is another. But not Québec. Moreover, even if you bag big game on your own land, you have to carry your trophy, in one piece or two equal ones, to a government registration station (actually often a hunting store authorized to do this), and register it. Otherwise, you can get arrested for poaching, and game wardens may trespass on private land. The probability of being caught is low, but it is not recommended to put an illegally taken deer in your pick-up and carry it to the butcher. You can probably find competent locals who will come to your home to butcher the deer for you, but this gets a bit complicated.
I was thinking about all this as I was watching the deer eating carrots through my crosshair. From time to time, the animal would raise its head, look around, listen, and go back to its meal. From time to time, I would take my eye off my scope and, still crouched over my stainless steel Remington, observe my target with my naked eyes.
When the deer finally ran off into the forest, its white tail dancing among the bare trees, I more or less knew why I had not fired. It is related to what Vico, the 18th-century philologist, called (in another context) "the common opinion of mankind." When people generally consider that a certain rule is just, and when this rule does not seriously infringe one's liberty, one should act as a good neighbour and conform. This is why even Lysander Spooner did not necessarily advocate shooting holders of government bonds, even if they support the state.[2] This is why, by and large, I obey hunting regulations, as most people around here do.
However, I do not obey gun control laws, which treat me at best like a child, at worst like a slave. French Canadians have owned guns without having to ask permission for three centuries. Now, they must tell the state about their burnouts and love deceptions every five years, just to be able to keep the ones they have.
In the dark twilight, two females came to eat carrots just a few minutes after the first one left. Again, I spent many minutes framing each of them right in the middle of my scope. "If I were to kill one of these," I thought, "I would put the meat in my freezer, and probably have enough meat for the whole winter." My finger was on the trigger guard, and only a few smooth gestures (pushing the safety with my thumb, putting my index on the trigger, gently pulling…) would have been needed to send a 150-grain bullet at three times the speed of sound through the vital organs of the animal. It would have dropped like a stone, even before the hills could have returned the echo of the gun fire.
With the two deers alternatively in my sights, I had time for some politically incorrect musings. "A gentleman doesn't shoot females, anyway." "Yet, this is only an animal, and her large, sad eyes seemed to cry 'Greenpeace' or 'Kyoto'." But I still did not fire. A similar thing happened the next day. The temptation was a bit stronger: "Who knows – the state might have confiscated my guns by next year. This might be my last deer hunting season." But I also had a new incentive to resist the temptation: my Laissez Faire Electronic Times article was half written, and I did not want to change it.
As it is often the case, a reason from self-interested greed comes to the rescue of morals. If I shoot a female, I deplete the number of future deers. The larger one's land, the more potent is this argument, for the better chance one has to kill one of these future deers (if the tyrant is nice enough to let one hunt in the future). The argument would less convincing if one's neighbours indiscriminately killed females, for why would I spare deers to have them killed by a neighbour? But, as I said, neighbours usually follow the rules.
As I am writing this piece now, I often look through my office window. At 75 yards, near my old school bus, I have replenished the stock of carrots, which regularly gets depleted by a buck roaming around. When I see it, I intend to shoot it from the library, where there is a convenient patio door, and where my loaded 30-06 is waiting.
The state wants to destroy this kind of lifestyle. This is why I (and many others) have come to really hate the state – because it is attacking my culture.
[1] Confessions d'un coureur des bois hors la loi [Confessions of an Outlaw Wood Runner] (Montréal: Varia Press, 2001), available at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/2922245616/subversivelib-20/002-0318194-4756008.
[2] See my "Confessions of a Resister," Laissez Faire Electronic Times, May 13, 2002, at http://www.pierrelemieux.org/artresister.html .