Our founding fathers were a culture of hunters. Hunting in this new wonderful country was democratized in a way that was inconceivable to Europeans where only the nobles were allowed to hunt.
Its not an overstatement to say that had it not been for the American hunting culture, we would still be a part of the English Empire. The Revolutionary War was a long time ago. Does our legacy even still exist? Is it even relevant today?
Consider if you will, an interesting fact regarding our Legacy of Hunting:
Wisconsin by itself, has over 600,000 licensed hunters - equivalent to the 8th largest army in the world. That is more soldiers than Iran. In another perspective more than France and Germany combined. Pennsylvania has 750,000 licensed hunters. Michigan - another 700,000 hunters. When you add 1/4 of a million of licensed hunters in tiny West Virginia... These four modest states equal more armed citizenry than the largest standing army in the world!
Are hunters important? They are the fortress that guards these shores. They guard against foreign threats, they guard against domestic tyranny.
Thinking back to our roots the answer lies almost 200 years previously in an obscure historical reference. Imagine a young American, twenty-three years old. That young American was faced with a critical decision, on an early cold morning of October 7, 1777. We were overwhelmingly outnumbered. For several years the Revolutionary War had been going bad against us. The English has begun a bloody campaign to divide the Continental states in two.
"Bloody Burgoyne" had conducted a brutal campaign of terror. At the Battle of Saratoga, that 23 year old American, young TImothy Murphy crawled into a tree with his hunting rifle - his Pennsylvania hunting rifle. On that day, in the next 15 minutes, the world held its breath, and the history of nations spun on a dime. A legacy was created and the history of the world changed, pivoted then turned upside down by a young hunter named Timothy Murphy up in that tree.
British General Fraser sitting on his horse directed his troops ready to run the ragtag continental army to the ground. Murphy missed his two shots by slim margins. The third was spot on killing General Fraser, a shot that shook the world in a historical sense.
Murphy's shot caused collapses of the British western flank, resulting in the critically important victory of the famous Battle of Saratoga. Ultimately only ten days after that fateful shot directly led to Burgoyne surrendering his army. One of the largest in the field of creating the costliest defeat of the British Empire up to that time.