Deer hunting would be fine sport, if only the deer had guns.

The quip satirizes “sport” that is thrilling only because it is radically unequal. By imagining deer armed with guns, Gilbert flips the power dynamic and exposes the moral and rhetorical evasions that can surround blood sports: what is called fair chase or recreation looks less noble when the prey is granted comparable agency and danger. The joke also works more broadly as a comment on any contest framed as honorable while one side is structurally defenseless—suggesting that true sport (or justice) would require reciprocity, risk, and consent rather than one-sided advantage.