MISSOURI WATCH: BEWARE: HUNTING SEASON COMMENCETH

As inevitable as the winter snowstorm and the summer tornado, Missouri's (political) hunting season has arrived. Its official start began the moment following the final day of candidate filing, thereby ending any foolish hope that somehow Missourians might be spared the consequences of scores of wild-eyed trigger-happy men and women running up and down the state looking for innocent prey. Fat chance!

Let's face it, fellow prey, we are in for it, from now until that far distant Tuesday in November when we will, for the first time in months, feel free at last. Not until then, not until the hunters decide they have no further need for our aid, comfort, solace, admiration and pocketbooks, will we be able to return to a normal life in a safe environment.

With the hunting licenses already issued, we at least know who will be tracking our whereabouts for the next eight months. The hunters will be the candidates for president, vice president, governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, state treasurer, attorney general, congress, state legislature, county commission, county clerk, sheriff, county treasurer, county assessor and other assorted jobs in 114 counties.

Even though our numbers now reach 5,300,000, we really don't have much chance of escaping the small herd of men and women who, even as you read this, are preparing their hunting plans and honing their skills as they seek to capture, if Bob Dole doesn't object to my using his phrase, the heart and soul of the Missouri voter.

The prospects for this 1996 hunting season, according to most of the so-called experts, are not particularly promising. For one thing, most of this year's prey can still recall the disastrous season in 1992, when the hunters literally took over both the nation and the state, running willy-nilly up hill and dale, while engaging in running shooting contests at each other. The crossfire was so helter-skelter that literally no one was safe, and the list of wounded was a national disgrace.

Four years ago one only had to turn on the television to see hunters taking wild potshots at their fellow nimrods, without the slightest regard for even the most basic safety precautions. At the national level, Democrats were shooting in all directions in order to bag a Quayle, while the Republicans zeroed in on the Arkansas Bull Moose, found principally in the White River region.

In Missouri, those of us who survived will never forget the Carniverous Carnahan Canary and the desperate cries of the once high-flying Wounded Willie Webster. Gone but certainly not forgotten was the excitement over the discovery of the Mauve Maiden Moriarty. These are images that still haunt us as we seek refuge in 1996 from the bows and arrows, bullets and heavy artillery of a new crop of hunters, with the cry of the hunt nearly bursting their lungs.

To lure us, the hunters will, no doubt, seek to reassure each and every one that only they will protect us from the unskilled, the quick of trigger, the overly eager who are certain to do us in even if they don't mean to. Each will promise that his or her experience will assure us of safety through this hunting season and well into the next one. Each will promise that if we will only trust the hunter, we will grow and prosper and live to a ripe old age, with our winter supplies still intact and our lives made even more enjoyable.

The hunters' assurances are undeniably luring, even as they seek to inject fear of the other hunters, all of whom are charged with being better financed and possessing far more weapons than are necessary. Those who claim they are experienced would have us forget the dangers we have faced in past seasons from their very weapons, while those who are least experienced will seek to convince us that the most accurate hunter is the who has never hunted nor fired a single shot.

The rules of survival by those at the end of a hunter's barrel are precious few. The most adept prey are those who stay as far out of sight as possible. The name of the survival game is to remain inconspicuous, anonymous and, if possible, invisible. The hunter can't get you in his scope if he can't see you. But only the foolish believe this ruse will guarantee safety. Hunters have a hundred different ways of stalking you, even if they have to address your mail as "Boxholder."

Experienced Missourians make a habit of avoiding television as much as possible during the hunting season.

There is a very good reason for this. Seeking to lure the innocent and the gullible, hunters will bombard anyone within range with messages of reasonableness and reassurance. These messages will empathize with the prey's concerns and worries, assuring one and all that the hunter is just like the prey: worried about the future, concerned over the prey's safety and nervous about the cost of the hunter's huge supplies and equipment.

Those who have survived more than a few seasons will quickly recall that even though the hunters seek to associate with the prey, when the time for hunting has passed the prey is still left with the problems he had before while the hunter has retired to his own haunts and is nowhere to be found. Even those who bag the limit and are accorded homage for their prowess seek out other fellow hunters, leaving the prey to fend for themselves until the next season of promises rolls around.

No one expects this season to be any different than those of the past or those to come. The hunter has too much to gain if he or she bags the limit, while the prey are still an endangered species regardless of the moment. The season now upon us promises to be as long, tiresome and troubling as those in the past, leaving the prey to wonder when the promised protection will become reality and when, if ever, the unprotected victims will be saved from the hunters' onslaught.

For when the lambs lie down with the wolves, guess who is planning to serve mutton!

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of the Missouri News and Editorial Service.