Combat arms MOS and seeing the enemy in death also changed my view on life, Mr. Oni. I kill numerous flies on a regular basis thanks to my chickens. I have a trap outside that gets over 500 every couple of weeks during the summer. They spread disease and killing them truly is protecting my family (not to mention how darn annoying they are). Do I smack mosquitos? Yup. Do I kill ticks that I find on myself? You betcha! Even if I'm still outside I will kill them so that there is one less possible lyme disease carrier out there. I definitely do not value all life, not even all human life after what I've seen what other human beings are capable of. I actually made someone incredibly upset with me when I compared the value of some humans' lives to that of an endangered species of trout...
Back to the topic at hand - I can accept that most people fully believe that the only good snake is a dead snake, but I also believe that if we start educating at a young age that we can change that mentality. General lack of education on the topic is evidenced by the fact that not one person in the comments stated that a snake was venomous but instead referred to poisonous and non-poisonous snakes. What bothers me about the video isn't that he killed the snake, it is that he felt the need to. That aside, his reaction bothered me. This is only due to the fact that I like snakes. There are likely many people that would be abhorred by the feelings, or lack thereof, that I have felt while standing over dead human beings. It is what it is, but again, we can change peoples' minds about what is actually dangerous with a little bit of education.
Do you truly want to alienate this community? Continue to make threats of violence because people don't see things through your eyes. All that you will do is to reinforce their already strong convictions about snakes and people who keep them as pets. Here's an example - cats are a horribly invasive species but there are certain people that get retarded about cats. I've seen advocates of trapping and HUMANELY euthanizing feral cats have their lives threatened by cat people. Does this help their case? Not a chance and for me it only fuels my anti-cat sentiment. I DO NOT have a problem with pet cats that are properly housed INDOORS at all times and pose no danger to local ecosystems but I am completely for the humane killing of "outdoor" cats and feral cats. Some people will argue that they have to let their cat out for one reason or another. TOO BAD! Many people here have had "problem snakes" but we still work with them and keep them responsibly! Way off topic again but there it is, my $0.02.
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