People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is making a last-minute pitch to persuade President Barack Obama to stop using hunting as a “justification” for owning guns.
In a letter to Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, PETA called out the president for saying after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre that “the vast majority of gun owners in America are responsible — they buy their guns legally, and they use them safely, whether for hunting or sport shooting, collection or protection.”
“[T]here is nothing ‘responsible’ about making a sport out of killing, about hunting, or about teaching children to hunt,” PETA executive vice president Tracy Reiman wrote in the letter. (RELATED: Documents show PETA kills more than 95 percent of pets in its care)
“As the mother of a child in elementary school, I cannot imagine telling my son that killing for fun is wrong when the victim is a human but perfectly acceptable when the target is a member of another species, say, a deer or a dove. Children must be taught that all gun violence is wrong, no matter how different from them the victim appears to be.”
According to Reiman, the idea that guns are okay for hunting sends children a “mixed message.” She claimed many killers begin as children with a propensity for “cruelty” toward animals — including hunting.
While she acknowledged that a hunting ban is not likely in America’s immediate future, she said she hopes for a “change in tone” from the White House about “promoting violence” by supporting hunting.
“Americans’ views are evolving on many issues, from same-sex marriage to gun control, and the time is right to reconsider the dangerous message that the practice of killing animals for fun is acceptable and should even be protected,” she wrote.