Question about hunting accidents

[jrdudas]

I am a long time target shooter but not a hunter.  I have absolutely no critism of hunting, it's just something that wasn't done in my family and therefore I do not hunt.  I prefaced my question with that statement in case my question sounds silly to some.  The reason I ask is that I don't know the answer.

I live in the woods in SE Ohio about five miles outside of a small town in an area of the state that attracts a lot of hunters.  My immediate area is rural but not appropriate for hunting with a high powered gun; too many houses in the general area.  Each year there is one or more hunting accident deaths within a twenty-five mile radius of my property.  I have learned over time to keep my dogs contained and to not wear tan colored clothing outdoors during deer-gun season (7 days).  Even though I would not hunt in my immdiate area, I hear gunshots often throughout the day during the season.  

Here's my question;  the hunting deaths are usually the result of one hunter in a party being mistaken for a deer by someone else in their party and being shot.  Sometimes it's a hunter from another party, but frequently the shooter is in the same group.  The most recent case happened just two days ago.  A 12 year-old boy was fatally shot by his 15 year-old brother as they crossed a field.  The boys were reported to be about 200 yards apart and wearing bright orange clothing.  The time of day was late dusk in this incident, but often these things happen in full daylight.  In this case there was no adult with the boys, but most of the time these shootings occur in groups made up of all adults.  

Why does this happen every year?  Is it a lack of hunter training, or maybe a disregard for safety?   One of the first things I learned when I first started shooting was to be sure you have a positive ID on your target before you pull the trigger.  Are there hunters out there that actually get lucky and bag a deer by just shooting at a noise or in the direction of some motion?  The reports of this latest incident state that the boys were 200 yards apart.  That seems like either a really good shot or a really lucky (unlucky in this case) shot.  Are deer routinely taken at that distance?  

It's not my intent to point a finger at anyone, Lord knows that these are accidents, but why do they happen?  I really don't understand; can anyone offer insight into these events?


JR

[victorcharlie]

Most states require hunter saftey so that's probably not it..........I think there is to much pressure put on hunters to be successful..........They get so caught up in it that everythings a deer..........

[marylandeer]

victorcharlie took the words wright out of my mouth. I think it's that these people just can't stand themselves if they have to go home and tell someone they were skunked. A lot of good hunters and the tv shows make it look so easy to go out and shoot a huge buck. When in reality it's very hard to kill a deer unless you do your homework and still sometimes very hard even when you do.
The problem is these people become blinded by the intense pressure and become (for a lack of a better word stupid).
What I always tell my kids is deer are very hard to get because they are so smart.
Every now and then you get one but it's no big deal if you don't. Were out here to have a good time and a safe time. We learn something every time we go into the woods wether or not we see or get game.  We become better hunters with this added knowledge. Making the kill is only 10% of it.
And I always emphasize SAFETY SAFETY and SAFETY FIRST, there not a  deer in this world thats worth hurting yourself or someone else.

[Jerry Lester]

Your guess is as good as mine?

I know that accidents "do" happen to regular "good" people, but I've never understood how anybody could mistake a man for anything else when hunting. I'm sure it's not always, but one has to wonder if just maybe a few of these so called accidental shootings aren't just a way of settling some score with another hunter.

I personally like my deer up close, and personal before I take a shot. It's just more satisfying for me that way, so I "know" for a fact it's a deer I'm shooting.

I agree with victorcharlie about the whole "pressure" thing. I know when I first started hunting deer, there was a tremendous amount of pressure to bring home a deer. Add in the fact that it had to have antlers, and time was very limited, and it indeed did stress me out, but not enough to take a pot shot at something in the hopes it would be a deer.

[Tn Jim]

Let me start off by saying I'm not trying to hurt any feelings or pi$$ anyone off. The number of hunters grows every year all over the country. As JRDUDAS said the pressure to bring home a deer is very high. Alot of guys from the big cities are hitting the woods with the biggest and baddest guns money can buy. And, unfortunately, they wouldn't know a deer if it ran over them. Here in East Tenn. it's in the papers every fall. Gnatbrains shooting at noises and shadows. Our hunter education requirments are if you are born after Jan. 1, 1969. So what you have is guys in their late thirtys and up who's hunting experience is watching OLN out in the woods with high powered rifles. Pretty much accidents walking around looking for a place to happen. The guys from the rural areas are usually better about target i.d. because they probably grew up hunting. But not always. The news stories normally give the names, ages and hometowns of the shooters and shooties (just in case anyone wonders what information I used to base my opinion). Now to really complicate things, let's throw another idiot factor in the mix. Alot of these "hunters" think of this as a weekend out with the boys and can't hit the woods without a beer in their hands! Anytime you mix inexperience, alcohol and firearms you are begging to be a statistic. Now I may be full of hot air, but I don't think I am. Please feel free to comment.

[marylandeer]

The number of Alot of these "hunters" think of this as a weekend out with the boys and can't hit the woods without a beer in their hands! Anytime you mix inexperience, alcohol and firearms you are begging to be a statistic.

How true it is Tn Jim way too many guys mistake a hunting trip for a drinking trip. It's like drinking and driving but WORSE. Everyone knows when your intoxicated your judgment is flawed and your reflexes are slowed down. Your mind needs to be clear and dead set on safety. Just imagine what it would be like having to live with shooting your best friend because you had a few to many beers. I'm an occasional beer drinker but hunting or shooting is no time for the suds.

[cattleskinner]

jrdudas,

What city do ya happen to live in?  Just wondering as I go to school in Nelsonville, and have alot of friends in Morgan, Muskingham, Athens counties, etc...
 
I'm going to have to agree with alot of these folks in that it is pressure from their buddies, families to get a deer, and if you don't you need to be ashamed for some reason.  Another one that may not pertain to all areas, but at least s.e. ohio is the fact that there are people from big cities who aren't in the woods 358 days out of the year come down to "get a big'un!!"  The day or two before hunting season will have an influx of license plates from Franklin county(columbus), and will most likely be there for a couple days to a week, and then they're gone.  These guys don't know the area, and don't know who hunts/how many/etc...they shoot at noise, and shoot untill their magazines are empty.  Happens here at home too as I'm sure it does most everywhere...they see a deer and blast away no matter how far away thinking they can hit it, disregarding where the bullet will go.  It's a step in the right direction when Ohio passed a law to require a plug in shotguns, but it still sounds as if it's a war zone on opening day.  Needless to say, there are bozos anywhere that you go, but the vast majority are law abiding safe hunters.  It's the bozos that make the headlines, and it's the bozos that feel they have to empty every shell they have at a deer that scare me....I guess that's why I decided to hunt by myself about 7 years ago.

~~~Amos

[Graybeard]

Shooting another human and offering as an excuse that you mistook them for game is NOT an accident. It's murder pure and simple and should be treated as such in my opinion.

The person firing the shot fired it with full intention of killing what they aimed at. That something was a human. Ergo they intended to kill a human whether they knew it was a human is to me immaterial. They didn't clearly identify the target in advance, meant to kill it and did. That's as good a definition of first degree murder as I know.

[victorcharlie]

Not sure I'd call it Murder.......but definitely voluntary man slaughter....or maybe criminally negligent  homicide.....
 
Just for the sake of discussion let me pose a hypothetical situation.
 
Hunter Jim see's a buck in a clearing on top of a ridge that he guesses is 200 yards..........Hunter Jim's in the woods with his new 300 rum shooting barnes bullets at umpteen million feet per second........Hunter Jim takes the shot, hits the deer and drops it dead in its tracks.......Hunter Jim's bullet fails to expand and travels well beyond the ridge and strikes hunter Bubba while he sitting in his tree stand a couple of ridges over.....not killing him, but severes his 6th vertebra as the bullet lodges in his spine.........Hunter Bubba is paralysed and is found hanging by his safety harness the next morning after an extensive search..........The investigation leads to hunter Jim and the bullet matches his gun............
 
OK...your on the grand jury.........do  you bind hunter Jim over for trial, and if so,on what charge?

If you want to ask questions I'll continue the saga.......I know laws vary from state to state.......and this is just food for thought......

How would you feel if you were hunter Jim?

How would you feel if you were hunter Bubba?

[qajaq59]

I'm with Graybeard on this one. There is no way you can shoot someone and not know it is a person unless you are shooting at something you can''t see, and if you're that dumb you belong in jail anyway.

[New Hampshire]

Alot of these "hunters" think of this as a weekend out with the boys and can't hit the woods without a beer in their hands! Anytime you mix inexperience, alcohol and firearms you are begging to be a statistic.

Agreed.  And even more than that Id bet there are more idiots hitting the woods with certain controlled substances than many would think.  My buddy lived next door to a guy he thought delt cocaine to his friends........and yes this guy and his buddies all hunted in fall  :eek: .

Brian

[Graybeard]

victorcharlie, your scenario is a totally different situation. I'd call it an accident. He would still be liable for the damages he caused but it wasn't a case of him claiming to have mistaken a man for a game animal. Rather a case of his bullet striking the intended target and doing ancillary damage afterward.

To me in such a situation no criminal charges would be appropriate but he'd lose the civil trial without question.

[Tn Jim]

I agree with you Bill. In the case of a hunting "accident" if a weapon is intentionally aimed and fired there is no accident. It was done on purpose and criminal charges should be filed. I would like to think if charges were filed on more of these "accidents" they may be less likely to occur. But, given the current state of our legal/litigation system, who knows?

[victorcharlie]

My guess is that criminal charges are pressed in most of these situations........and certainly a civil suit would follow if the person who did it had anything to get.

[Dave in WV]

If you factor in time of day (legal hours), where the "accident" happened (trespassing at times), legal season in or out and you'll find many times the proper term is POACHING. If you shoot outside legal hours, outside a a legal season, or are trespassing you are poaching. As for "accident", shooting  sky lighted game is irresponsible and stupid. Wearing blaze orange does reduce accidents. It's not bullet proof but really helps in brush or where the hunter's outline isn't readily seen. Hunting while under the influence of drugs or alcohol is usually illegal. If it's not it should be. True accidents that are not chargable by law enforcement are rare.

[alsatian]

I read the post from a different point of view.  I was surprised that there would be so many hunting accidents in a relatively small area.  If one hunting death occurs every year within a 25 mile radius, I would extrapolate this to mean there may be as many as 5-10 annual hunting deaths in Ohio and maybe 100 annual hunting deaths throughout the United States.  Are there this many hunting deaths annually in the United States?  Can anyone provide any statistics on this topic?

Certainly, one should not be handling firearms after drinking alcohol or taking drugs.  Certainly, one should be very careful to confirm one's target before shooting at it.  You don't shoot at noise or motion, you need a distinct and confirmed target.  In a lot of cases you need enough visual confirmation to assure you are shooting at an animal that you are licensed to take -- for example, in Texas many counties only allow you to shoot bucks and there are some specific antler requirements that need to be satisfied to qualify.  Hunting accidents are pretty inexcusable.  On the other hand, I think they are generally more rare than the "within a 25 mile radius every year a hunting fatality occurs" situation reported by jrdudas.  I'm not disputing this information, I'm just wondering if this is typical.  Maybe more deaths occur than I am aware of because they are not widely reported.  For example, the Texas deer season started in early November and I have yet to hear of any hunting fatalities here.  Have they occured and I just haven't heard about them?  Maybe.

[alsatian]

I looked up some information on hunting accidents.  The International Hunter Education Association (IHEA) collects hunting accident statistics.  Interesting information.  At least in 1997 and 1998 there were about 100 hunting fatalities in the US.  A lot of the accidents were due to the victim moving into the line of fire or the shooter swinging a gun thereby placing the victim in the line of fire.  There were more of these accidents than shooting deliberately at a victim mistaken for a game animal.  Still, the accidents were probably readily preventable by exercising reasonable care on the part of the shooter.

I'm all for hunter safety.  While I'm now 49, I took the hunter education course with my son three years ago -- though in most cases I'm "grandfathered" and would not require a hunter education card to hunt -- and found it very interesting and instructive.  I found that it left a lasting, beneficial impression on my son.

But while I favor making hunting safer, I want to avoid people taking away the message that hunting is exteremely dangerous.  For example, the IHEA web site provided the following 1997 accident fatality statistics:

   1,700 Swimming
   836 Boating
   97 Scuba Diving
   96 Hunting
   79 personal watercraft
   28 hang gliding
   28 sky diving
   4 football

Hunting is dangerous, but so are swimming and boating.  No one is spreading the word that swimming is extremely risky behavior and we ought to stay out of the water.  The word is to swim observing safe behaviors -- don't swim right after eating, don't run by the pool, don't swim alone, don't dive into water the depth of which is unknown, etc.  If one is concerned about hunting safety, and one should be, even these low risk levels indicated by these statistics can be reduced further by knowing who you are hunting with -- are they trust worthy? do they use safe methods?  Does everyone wear hunter orange consistently?  Do you know where each other is hunting?

[victorcharlie]

The law in Tennessee does not require orange for anything other than Big Game hunting.  I have always insisted that all parties rabbit hunting with me wear orange.  When there are four of five guys spread out waiting on for a rabbit to run by the shooting is just to fast not to have the orange.  Carhartt brown is nearly invisible in this situation.  

I'm thinking Archery only season, and Turkey season require no orange......

[NONYA]

People who shoot other hunters in a mis identification situation should be held responsible for thier actions,its no excuse.The majority of hunting/shooting accidents come from bird hunters that are tracking a target and dont pay attention to thier partners position,these type could be considered an accident,mistaking a human for a game animal and shooting them is no accident,its homocide.

[Savage .250]

There are a lot of people that hunt but not all are "hunters!"
     Maybe they need to de-brief the shooter in all cases of mistaken
     identity so find out just what they were thinking when they pulled the
      trigger.  I`m sure they( police,game Warden) do that when they
       investigate the accident  so getting data for a National Incident Report would  not be hard.    Could expose problems such as, over excited, took a sound shot, really looked like a deer, etc.
   Find collective problems take corrective action,  state wide. Most states now have a Pre Lic  mandatory Gun course for anybody born after a certain date, got to start somewhere.
    In my mind it`s comes down to one thing, lack of experience or maybe there are just to many people in the woods who talk the talk but can`t walk the walk.  
   The question is a fair one as it`s generated some good comments.
 
  " The best part of the hunt is not the harvest but in the experience."

[victorcharlie]

So, no one has suggested that because someone wanted to see a deer so bad.......that in his mind it really was a deer?

Or that he was raised by his mother and didn't have a male role model to "teach" him?

No liberals left on the board I guess.......guess we're all just mean spirited republicans, who expect a person to be responsible for the actions!

[Dave in WV]

I do.

[Don Fischer]

Years past I judged both AKC and N.S.T.R.A. field trials for pointing dogs. One of my requirements when I judged was that all weapons were carried with the actions open and chambers mty, I got a lot of grief over that. Chambers were not allowed to be loaded until the dog was reached. I was the only judge that had the rule. In the mid 1980's there was a shooting accident at a N.S.T.R.A trial when the region president shot a spectator in the butt that was sitting on a 4 wheeler taking videos.

I appealed the N.S.T.R.A. to implement stricter firearms rules, these were shoot to kill trials where any contestant was allowed to shoot for themselves. They told me no. They said that part of their program was that contestants could shoot for themselves and that they felt no further rules were needed. I left that trial organization.

While most people are safe, in the heat of competition some forget where they're at and fail to act accordingly. I believe thats true in the hunting field also and those that have these senseless incidents always tend to blame it on something other than they're own lack of commitment to safety.
Shooting someone is no accident!!!!!!! Somewhere else on this site someone said "I never have to pull the trigger." I wish I'ed have said that!

So long as we are content to view these incidents as accidents, they'll continue to happen, guaranteed. Shooting sports comes with a huge responsibility for a commitment to not only safety but also to public perception of our image. We've more than enough cridicts that would deny us firearms, shooting sports and ability to hunt right now. We certainly don't need to throw fuel on their fire. Lets not call these things accidents. Accidents are things that happen that nobody can avoid. Usually there is someone that can or could have avoided one of these incidents. I believe the proper term for the incident in this discussion is manslaughter! If that seems harsh, I don't care.

[mag shooter]

No such thing as" accident" ! Someone is at fault, what happened may not have been intentional, but it was not an accident as we use the word today. Someone was not obeying safety rules, not paying attention, not using proper equipment, not using common sense ect. ect.

This holds true for on the job, at home, in your car, hunting , you name it!!!!!!

There are a few things that would fall under  an" ACT OF GOD "


accident  
c.1374, "an occurrence, incident, event," from O.Fr. accident, from L. accidentum (nom. accidens, gen. accidentis), prp. of accidere "happen, fall out," from ad- "to" + cadere "fall" (see case (1)). Meaning grew from "something that happens, an event," to "something that happens by chance," then "mishap."

[JEFF WARD2]

there is to much peer pressure to get your deer, and not enough saftey traing.. and all the hunting shows on t.v dont help, they offer very little if any on safety.
i know if you set in the woods looking for an animal hard enough you are going to see what your looking for even if it isnt actualy there, how many of us have been squirel hunting and thought a knot on a tree was one?
as for myself i have to know exactly what i am shooting at, and what is behind it!!!!! i have passed on alot of good deer because there wasnt a proper back stop !! you never know whats going to happen when you pull that trigger, and you can never call it back after you do..