Constable: Hunter takes aim at softening views on guns

Hunter Butch Navarro of Elmhurst says there is much more to hunting than killing animals. Courtesy of Butch Navarro

As a hunter, Butch Navarro of Elmhurst says he understands people who wince at this photo of him next to his pheasant "harvest." But he says the sport is about more than killing. Courtesy of Butch Navarro

The poster shows the buff arms of some heavily tattooed guy clutching an intimidating-looking black rifle.

"This," says Butch Navarro, a 63-year-old gun instructor certified by the National Rifle Association, "is the image I'm trying to get rid of."

He has nothing against tattoos, semi-automatic rifles or buff guys, but that image fuels the raw emotions surrounding the epidemic of mass shootings in the United States and fans the flames of "the haters" of anything having to do with guns, Navarro says. He keeps his guns locked away at home, has carried a gun in public just a couple of times in the years since he got his concealed carry permit, and winces at the mention of people posing with freshly killed giraffes. He won't let his young grandson point a toy gun at people, teaching the philosophy that you don't point a gun at any living creature you don't want to see dead.

The former restaurateur from Elmhurst says he hopes his Pheasant Hunting 101 class on June 22 at The Range at 355 in Bolingbrook can show a different side of guns. His gun passions are fueled by the old-world trappings of the hunting experience.

"It's about nature, conservation and sharing a sunrise with your best friends," Navarro says of hunting. "It's not about the killing. If you just want to kill animals, you're not going to get much out of my class."

Complications from a knee-replacement forced Navarro to miss out on hunting trips last season for the first time in more than 40 years. "Without being too dramatic, it felt like I lost a child," the father of five says. Of his kids, only a daughter hunts.

A star running back on his high school football team and a slugging first baseman on the baseball team, Navarro grew up in Chicago and didn't see a gun until a football teammate took him trap shooting during his sophomore year at Carroll University. Out of 25 targets, "maybe I hit five," Navarro remembers. But he was hooked.

"Before you know it, I'm asking for a hunting coat for Christmas," he says, patting his shoulder where his gun's butt nestled into a leather patch. By the mid-1970s, Navarro was a regular at hunt clubs in the suburbs. "In those days, I rented a dog for $7," he says.

"To me, it's always been about the dog work," Navarro says, calling up a video on his phone showing him teaching an 8-week-old puppy how to retrieve. His class, which runs from 8:30 a.m. until noon, costs $45 for adults and $35 for kids younger than 16 and tackles everything from guns and dogs to clothing and pheasant recipes.

"There's no one who loves and respects animals more than a good hunter," Navarro says, aware that animal-rights activists and lots of suburban folks would argue that killing creatures, even if you eat what you kill, is not a way of showing love and respect. While Navarro prefers hunting in the wild, he also enjoys hunting at clubs where birds are raised for the purpose of being prey for hunters. Pheasants, he says, have been fending off predators since the day they hatched, and their deaths by shotgun are quicker and more humane than the ends those birds usually meet in nature.

Just as strip malls and subdivisions drove away many of our pheasants, the angst and anger about gun violence have made suburban hunters a rare breed.

"I love to mentor these people so they hunt safely," Navarro says. "There aren't those mentors anymore. You don't have somebody's dad or uncle. I want to fill that void. I want to be everybody's Uncle Butch."