I've always wondered if gun fetishism, not directly correlated to hunting but sometimes it is, and hunting are within the range which Erich Fromm described as necrophilious, that was in contrast to biophilious, the biophile was someone who was attracted to living things, living systems, ecosystems, biosystems and was maybe extroverted, concerned to create and maintain relationships, bonds, kept pets etc. whereas the opposite tendency was drawn to dead things, inanimate things, objects or people and living things which they had been able to objectify, so loving your gun better than people (that was a Nirvana song wasnt it?) would be necrophile, wanting to kill a stag and turn it into a trophy for the wall of your house would be changing it from a living breathing thing to a dead object.
Although Fromm thought that biophilia was undoubtably a good thing and necrophilia a bad thing, much like Freud's eros and thanatos or life force and death wish I might add, he did think that both were signs of human growth, growth was unstoppable and irresistable but if it didnt happen one way, the beneficient way, it would happen another, the malign way. The malign way was a case of being human, all too human, as opposed to being subhuman or superhuman, although I'd part company depending on what the action was because I do think evil exists and I do think evil can be subhuman.
Although that is perhaps a pretty stark way of putting it, I've read some things written by Hemingway or others which appealed to me about blood sports, risk, safaris, hunts and subjecting yourself to terror and forced yourself to realise how weak, humble and defenceless mankind really is in the face of nature red in tooth and claw. The bull run for instance I think is defenceable, bull fighting too. Although I think both are horrible.
All I know is that I'd have to think longer, harder and more about it before I could say the final word on that.
