And like a poached lion, Walter Palmer has discovered himself trapped by better-equipped forces, singled out into the open.

Let me first clarify that in no way do I wish Walter a long traumatic death – followed, perhaps, by routine skinning and decapitation – or any sort of violence on him at all, and I must say it’s disheartening to see so many reacting to this situation in this way.

Sadistic talk not only recycles the energy behind his (once?) favorite hobby, it also promotes hostility in more sinister and desperate minds, like those proudly dreaming to unload guns in schools and churches.

But I do wish Walter and his fellow poachers would genuinely consider a role reversal with their victims.

How necessary is it to take this life?

In what other ways can we redirect this drive to kill unnecessarily?

It is, after all, unnecessary.

This said, I’m quite imperfect, and I have plenty of my own struggles over life and death. I eat most anything and I enjoy most anything with little to no responsibility providing it.

I often wish I hunted and fished more because there is a certain respect and appreciation for life that one can gain from taking it (if anything, to see it taken as humanely as possible).

There’s an emptiness to forgetting the lives lost to feed us and to clothe us, to power our goods, to be our goods. The vicarious trips to restaurants, to grocery stores, to the butcher – they make me less human too.