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Billy D...right on target, as I would expect.
There are a number of issues with respect to the gun carry you see by the PH's on the TV shows, and yes that is very typical for over there.
Point number one.........these guys live and breath hunting. They are in the field for many months of the year, in some cases all year, when they change countries to follow the safari seasons. Typically the real PH's spend a lot of time in dangerous game country and pack rifles around for thousands of hours a year, not like the average hunter in North America who only goes out to play for a couple of days a year.
If you have ever carried a big double for a while you would soon learn that that over the shoulder carry is a comfortable one and no, many of them don't use slings as they can get you killed in thornbrush country in a charge situation. When you throw your rifle up but the sling gets hooked by a couple of wait-a-bit thorns as an elephant is bearing down on you....well that can ruin your whole day.
A second thing to consider is that many PH's have served in the military and fought in the various bush wars in Africa. Ever watch the military and how they pack their rifles in the field..............you will notice the similarities. There is a respect and trust that military personel have in each other with regards to how they handle firearms and they do not worry about barrels being pointed at them unless the handlers stance tells them they should worry.
I would guess that if you watched the news at night when the men are in the field and active you will see all kinds of what we hunters tend to view as 'unsafe practices' with barrels getting pointed at other soldiers. I have seen the over the shoulder carry holding the barrel and across the shoulder carry (sideways) hundreds of times in actual field conditions on TV. I bet you don't twig on those strips of film and suggest that they should not be shown on AMERICAN TV.
Hell your kids can watch all kinds of bad firearms handling on just about every shoot em up, blast em movie that comes on TV.
Just remember that things aren't the same when you are tripping through a safari concession in Zimbabwe, where you could run into a herd of nasty cow elephant, a wounded buffalo or a big cat that had someone piss in his cornflakes that morning. It isn't the same as hunting bambi in the woods of Pennsylvania.
I have been there and had the firearms handled like that in my presence and I worried not. I trust those guys and their gun handling and I know they need to be ready to shoot at a moments notice at times. A friend of mine was killed a couple years ago by a cape buffalo in Tanzania, and the PH was hit as well but lived. They never got a shot off and there was no warning. It can happen that fast.
Those boys aren't going to change the way they 'carry' to please you when you are watching TV. As Billy said there is an on/off switch............you could also explain to your kids why it is done differently in some places.............and I think most of us would rather see it unfold on TV as it actually happens, as opposed to staging it to suit the viewing public. God knows there are already enough of the hunting shows where the story line is far removed from what actually happened on the hunt.
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