Killing Rabbits

I just began a new job working at a vineyard and winery in Northern Arizona, so I will be writing dispatches from outside Sonoma County.

A couple of weeks ago the owner of the vineyard where I work gave her son a gun, and told him to go outside and kill the rabbits in the vineyard. Let’s leave for a moment the fact that rabbits are so cute and cuddly that Amy Sedaris believes you should always have one hopping around the house, because they make people happy. Let’s also choose not to dwell on the owner’s assertion that the state of Arizona is too much like California, because there are some environmentalists in Arizona who believe it’s wrong to kill wildlife. Let’s instead pause to note that her son, a 35 year old self-proclaimed conservative, was unsuccessful at the task at hand. He did not kill or injure any rabbits. He was successful at puncturing, in several places, the irrigation lines for the grapes.

The battle between farmer and wildlife for supremacy in the field is an old one. This battle plays out every day in Napa and Sonoma where I heard a vineyard manager say that the only natural enemy of the wild turkey is the shot gun. Farmers the world over are not much different when it comes to protecting their crops. Maybe I would be a lousy farmer, but I don’t think I could kill a rabbit. I have a hard time cooking lobster and, unlike these rabbits, at least someone will eat the lobster.

All the talk of shooting animals this week drove home to me that I’m a bit out of step with the culture here. I’m a California girl, and I don’t like guns. The Arizona state legislature this week also spent some time talking about guns. They took steps toward passing a law that would allow people with permits to carry a concealed weapon into a bar. Even though this law would make it illegal for gun toting bar goers to drink alcohol, I still feel that there are a few obvious problems with this legislation. What happens when a bar-fight breaks out, and our sober permit holder pulls out his gun to settle it? Will one of the crazy drunk people punching each other wrestle the gun away from the sober person? Or does that only happen in movies?

What if, as happened in my new home town a month ago, a rabid bobcat walks into the bar, and drunk people corner it, and start taking pictures of it with their camera phones until it bites them? Is it ok for our sober friend to brandish her concealed weapon then? And who is it ok for her to shoot?