DAD TAKES SON HUNTING, SHOOTS HIM

I don't have the stomach or the heart to do the round-up of hunting accidents that inevitably heralds the opening of the season, but let this one stand in for the barbarity of this entire enterprise:

The father of a 10-year-old killed in a hunting accident said the boy was shot as the two descended a hill and the elder man slipped. The shotgun he was carrying went off, striking the boy in the back.

The father, Raymond F. Libby Jr., asked his son, Raymond F. Libby III, if he was hit, and his answer "yes" would be the last word the father would hear him say.

While I grieve for the father, the boy's death is not just an outrageous travesty but an allegory for the practice of modern-day hunting: The son's life is outweighed by the importance of loyalty to archaic macho tradition - a tradition of killing, which, not surprisingly, often backfires on the killer in more ways than one. It is absolutely pathetic that this still goes on in a supposedly civilized America.