Eurodriver
05-06-11, 12:31
April's issue came out this week.
The World’s Largest Army?
America’s Hunters
I don't spend my fall weekends tramping around the woods in pursuit of a buck, but a lot of my friends and neighbors do. This blogger adds up all the hunters in just a handful of states, and comes to a striking conclusion:
The state of Wisconsin has gone an entire deer hunting season without someone getting killed. That's great. There were over 600,000 hunters.
Allow me to restate that number. Over the last two months, the eighth largest army in the world - more men under arms than Iran; more than France and Germany combined - deployed to the woods of a single American state to help keep the deer menace at bay.
But that pales in comparison to the 750,000 who are in the woods of
Pennsylvania this week. Michigan's 700,000 hunters have now returned home. Toss in a quarter million hunters in West Virginia, and it is literally the case that the hunters of those four states alone would comprise the largest army in the world.
His point? America will forever be safe from foreign invasion with that kind of home-grown firepower.
Hunting -- it's not just a way to fill the freezer. It's a matter of national security
Now of course there's something to be said that those numbers might be skewed (I don't see a source, and it doesnt say they were all hunting deer) I'm sure alot of those hunters were using shotguns for birds, and small caliber rimfires for small game. Even still, no one is saying the 80 year old on the back of his ATV has any chance against a standing Army from China. But its very interesting, at least to me, if you start thinking about it. The NRA has 4,000,000 members alone. Theres an estimated 80,000,000 firearms owners in this country. Who can match that?
The World’s Largest Army?
America’s Hunters
I don't spend my fall weekends tramping around the woods in pursuit of a buck, but a lot of my friends and neighbors do. This blogger adds up all the hunters in just a handful of states, and comes to a striking conclusion:
The state of Wisconsin has gone an entire deer hunting season without someone getting killed. That's great. There were over 600,000 hunters.
Allow me to restate that number. Over the last two months, the eighth largest army in the world - more men under arms than Iran; more than France and Germany combined - deployed to the woods of a single American state to help keep the deer menace at bay.
But that pales in comparison to the 750,000 who are in the woods of
Pennsylvania this week. Michigan's 700,000 hunters have now returned home. Toss in a quarter million hunters in West Virginia, and it is literally the case that the hunters of those four states alone would comprise the largest army in the world.
His point? America will forever be safe from foreign invasion with that kind of home-grown firepower.
Hunting -- it's not just a way to fill the freezer. It's a matter of national security
Now of course there's something to be said that those numbers might be skewed (I don't see a source, and it doesnt say they were all hunting deer) I'm sure alot of those hunters were using shotguns for birds, and small caliber rimfires for small game. Even still, no one is saying the 80 year old on the back of his ATV has any chance against a standing Army from China. But its very interesting, at least to me, if you start thinking about it. The NRA has 4,000,000 members alone. Theres an estimated 80,000,000 firearms owners in this country. Who can match that?