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I recently took up hunting in my adult life. My reasons for doing so were complicated – a need for a little more maleness in my increasingly demasculinized world, a desire to spend more time in wild landscapes and, as a meat eater, a hope to understand exactly what that means (in a red-in-tooth-and-claw kind of way). And learning to hunt has definitely shaken up my rather mundane urban existence – $6 macchiatos, daddy-daughter ballet and a responsible drink before dinner (perhaps two on Fridays).
Last fall was my first hunting season. I went on a couple of deer hunts, and they definitely scratched a dormant caveman itch even though I didn’t manage to shoot anything larger than a ruffed grouse. I’m already planning next year’s hunts. There’s a practical concern to address first, though: I need to become a better marksman. A big part of being a responsible hunter is the ability to shoot a deer in the quick-kill zone, a classic heart/lung shot if possible, not wound the animal in a way that allows it to run off and eventually die, never to be recovered, butchered and eaten. So I joined a gun club.
At the new members’ orientation, our instructors started by reading out the club’s anti-discrimination policy. Then it was all specific safety rules regarding use of the shooting ranges, followed by a tour.
The rifle range was packed because it was the club’s annual pumpkin shoot. Basically, members bring in their sagging Halloween pumpkins and blast the hell out of them. It was billed as a family-friendly event, one that I initially envisioned my son having a great time at in a few years. But then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw them – “The Mad Nazis.”
Right in the middle of all the pumpkin-shooting action was a group of half a dozen men and women wearing black hoodies with The Mad Nazis stamped on the back in a large font and a German Iron Cross below. Wait, had I read that correctly? Yes. Was I missing some joke? If it was a joke, I was missing it by a mile.
The instructors herded us toward the less-busy shotgun range to finish the orientation. Our group had only spent only a couple of minutes at the rifle range, but it left me confused and angry. Had I just witnessed a neo-Nazi group happily blasting away at a bunch of pumpkins? Had I seen 50 other people blasting away while happily ignoring them?
When I got home I told my wife about The Mad Nazis. She was horrified, but less surprised than I was. Although she hasn’t vocally objected to my new hunting hobby, she is leery of gun culture and gun people, and this simply confirmed her worst suspicions. That night, after the kids went to sleep, I e-mailed the club’s board of directors. How, I asked, can a gun club that promotes shooting as a family-friendly pastime simultaneously tolerate such racist clothing?
The next day I received a response from the club’s secretary telling me the directors would examine the incident and discuss it as soon as possible. Thanks, I responded, happy they were taking the complaint seriously. Over the next couple of weeks, I optimistically started to think of The Mad Nazis as a group of potentially good-natured rednecks who’d had to pick a name for their pumpkin-shootin’ hoodies and opted for The Mad Nazis because it sounded badass. Maybe the club could simply have an educational chat with them. But then I got the club’s response: “The hoodies in question, worn by a private company, do not represent a violation of our code of conduct. … Should you not wish to remain a member of the club you can apply in writing for a refund.”
I shared the club’s response with my two hunting buddies, who are also members. “Maybe the board members all wear the hoodies,” Pierre suggested. Don said the reply was dismissive to the point of being insulting. My wife just arched her eyebrows. All three agreed I had a moral obligation to step up the fight.
So I e-mailed the RCMP and Vancouver police hate-crime units. Both responded quickly and acknowledged the seriousness of the incident. But they also said that, while the hoodies were offensive and discriminatory, wearing such garments in public does not violate any law. All they could do was make a few phone calls and dig a little deeper. I felt better knowing the police now were aware the club might be a training ground for The Mad Nazis, whoever they were.
I was going to forfeit my membership – I actually wrote the “screw you and your gun club” letter – but changed my mind after talking to Don and Pierre. We decided to remain members so we could press for change from within.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my flirtation with gun culture. I was okay with being a weekend redneck if that meant occasionally wearing camo and arguing about the best calibre to use when hunting moose. But if it goes hand-in-hand with racism, do I want to have any links to it at all?
If The Mad Nazis had been throwing strikes at a bowling alley instead of blasting away at the gun range I’d have been equally offended, but less worried. They were shooting guns, after all.
Cameron MacDonald lives in Burnaby, B.C.