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This thread is very telling.

Most likely no one on here would have an issue being looked at through a spotting scope - heck, most of you have looked at folks through spotting scopes before and never thought twice about it.

Now, we mount that spotting scope in an old rifle stock-which is nothing more than a hunk of firewood when you get right down to it-and suddenly if we look at someone through that same spotting scope, we've done something worth being shot over.

Now why is this? Because that hunk of firewood makes it appear to be a rifle. But it isn't a rifle. There is no possible way on God's green earth that a spotting scope stuck in a rifle stock is ever going to fire a bullet and kill someone. It's no different than a spotting scope mounted on a tripod. The difference is that we percieve it to be some sort of threat.

But here's the fascinating thing-through this entire thread,we know that we're dealing with a spotting scope here. We know it's not a rifle. Yet people are still saying they would shoot someone if they pointed such a contraption at them. Folks that wouldn't blink if they were being looked at by a spotting scope on a tripod would suddenly kill a person simply because said spotting scope was stuck in a gun stock.

Brian.


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Originally Posted by clos
Originally Posted by Deerwhacker444
That's what they get for sneaking around in the woods and not making their prescience known. I don't think you were at fault at all..!


+1


That's another one I don't understand. What if it was another hunter? Should he also make his presence known? Ain't hunters supposed to sneak around the woods?


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Brian, You have to go on the best information you have in order to make quick decisions in what you may consider to be a life-theatening situation. It does not have to be a rifle in order for you to think it is a rifle. Try pulling out a toy pistol and pointing it at a cop at a traffic stop and see what happens. Didn't Dillenger break out of jail once with a bar of soap carved to look like a pistol? How many quicky-marts have been robbed by some dude with nothing more than his hand placed in his pocket to look like a pistol? Does the law treat that dude any different than it would if he really had had a pistol? (Perhaps some of you legal eagles can answer that last question.) I wonder what type of reaction you would get if you were to take a stock-mounted scope to a fence near an airport runway and use it to look at landing planes. Take a book backpack to that same airport, put it down in the lobby, and walk away. I dare say it will cause a stir even though it is quite harmless. We often must act on what things appear to be rather than what they really are.

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WCB,MY opinion was and is that the OP was quite OK to do what he did. What my comment was directed at are those who actually DO use the 'scope sights on their rifle to ID their targets. That is NOT responsible gun handling in any way shape or form."sneaking" through the woods, insisting that hunter orange would rectify the situation etc is pure horsecrap. Hunters sneak, and as for the colors-well colorblind guys couldn't tell you the difference. Crappy way to lay the responsibility off onto someone else when it is the 100% responsibility of the gunner to be safe in his/her actions. A telescope mounted on a riflestock for ease of use is completely alright. Shooting at someone for pointing anything while in the woods?? Nope. Returning fire otoh is a horse of a different color.


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Evil, I am not too trigger happy and have managed to hold fire when put in very real danger by people scoping me with sights on very real rifles. I do wonder, however, about the "returning fire" bit. You can return fire if they didn't get you on the first shot. Do you want to bet your life on their poor marksmanship?

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I didn't say to DO IT, I merely class it as a response that has more geuine grounds than the first mentioned. What HAS frosted me is when some guy didn't check his background before his shot and a slug smacked a nearby tree when he missed his deer. I did NOT shoot back but he learned that he had an extremely questionable parentage among other things. That is why I rarely hunt the southern zone here in NY.


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That frosts me also. I quit deer hunting in one area after hearing people brag about all the "sound shots" they took at "deer" on wildlife management area hunt. Having bullets go over your head or having buckshot rattle through the bushes near you are not pleasant experiences.
I feel the main point to be made is that the scope is fine (I have and use one just about like it) but that it should not be used in such a way that might give someone the false impression that you are aiming a rifle at them.

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Originally Posted by Steelhead
Originally Posted by clos
Originally Posted by Deerwhacker444
That's what they get for sneaking around in the woods and not making their prescience known. I don't think you were at fault at all..!


+1


That's another one I don't understand. What if it was another hunter? Should he also make his presence known? Ain't hunters supposed to sneak around the woods?


Safety orange?

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Originally Posted by Steelhead
Originally Posted by clos
Originally Posted by Deerwhacker444
That's what they get for sneaking around in the woods and not making their prescience known. I don't think you were at fault at all..!


+1


That's another one I don't understand. What if it was another hunter? Should he also make his presence known? Ain't hunters supposed to sneak around the woods?


I like to sneak around as much to keep my whereabouts unknown to other hunters as the critters.


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Originally Posted by EvilTwin
WCB,MY opinion was and is that the OP was quite OK to do what he did. What my comment was directed at are those who actually DO use the 'scope sights on their rifle to ID their targets. That is NOT responsible gun handling in any way shape or form."sneaking" through the woods, insisting that hunter orange would rectify the situation etc is pure horsecrap. Hunters sneak, and as for the colors-well colorblind guys couldn't tell you the difference. Crappy way to lay the responsibility off onto someone else when it is the 100% responsibility of the gunner to be safe in his/her actions.


+1 It is telling when hunters will lay blame on someone for not being dressed as a traffic cone so they won't accidentally shoot someone.


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Here's the one issue that still bothers me about this thread. The percieved threat that your life is in imminent danger while hunting. There's plenty of other circumstances where if someone is pointing a weapon at you, or what you believe is a weapon, in a hostile enviroment, that shooting first is justified. That one's easy enough.

The key is a hostile enviroment. A sitution where a reasonable person would percieve that their life is in imminent danger. We're talking about hunting situations. I don't consider that a hostile enviroment. I've never felt the need to fear murderers in the woods. Caution and worrys about hunters with poor judgement and poor gun handling is different story.

Isn't there any comradery amongst hunter's left?

Do you percieve fellow hunters as muderers and a real threat to your life?

Is there any tolorence for ingnorance or poor gun handling?

Think about all the examples of dumbphuckitude that you see at a public shooting range. We've all seen that. Unfortunately it carrys over to the field and hunting situations.

The blanket statement that someone will shoot another human being, in a hunting scenario, is IMO flat out wrong. There at least has to be qualifying and extreme extenuating circumstances to justify pulling the trigger and taking someone's life. It should be an absolute last resort in only the most unusual of circumstances rather than a knee jerk reaction. Even then you're probably going to kill an innocent person. I couldn't do it unless somebody shot at me first. I'm willing to gamble on the infinitesimal odds that I'm going to get shot vs the extreme odds that I'm going to prison for shooting first.

My first reation to somebody pointing anything at me would be to wave my hat and let them know I'm there.

There is one circumstance that greatly changes the hunting scenario and that's hunting in Arizona. PhilinAZ, do hear me on this one? Hunting near the US/Mex border poses a entirely different threat with the current issues there. The way things are now you're just putting yourself in harm's way. Personally, I wouldn't want to hunt or venture anywhere near the border. It shouldn't be like that, but it is.

Am I'm making any sense at all to those of you that have made the blanket statement that you're going to shoot somebody for pointing something at you?

It's the blind ingorance of poorly educated hunters and knee jerk reations of others that would justify far greater controls and requirements for hunter education and gun safety than currently exist. Do any of us really want that?

I'm absolutely amazed at some of the attitudes of the "knowlegeable" folks here on the fire.

Were supposed to be the good guys setting the right examples.

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My life has been in grave danger from other hunters in a hunting situation. I have been scoped with a loaded high-power rifle at close range by someone who positively had to know I was a human. Blaze orange, waving arms, and shouts left little doubt that someone 35 yards away was not a deer yet the scoping continued. I have a friend who is paralysed from a load of buckshot fired at him from about the same distance. I got blasted at about 50 yards with a heavy load of dusk shot by someone in a flooded wildlife management field shooting a cripple that was between him and me. A local man was killed by a hunter several years ago while walking through his field during deer season. A guest on my private heavily-posted hunting land was getting ready to aim his rifle at the source of noise and motion he detected in the woods near his stand when three trespassers wearing full camo and carrying what looked like AR-style rifles sneaked out of the brush. There were a few very tense moments until the three were persuaded to lay down their arms and step away from them. The three turned out to be friends of some local kid and the guns were airsoft, but my friend had very legitimate reasons to fear for his safety until the real facts were known. No hostility caused any of these incidents yet they occurred.

We are, indeed, supposed to be the good guys who set a good example. In this case the good example would have been to use the perfectly legal equipment in such a way that no misunderstanding could lead to an unfortunate event.

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Notropis,

We're in agreement on the safety issues. There's a big difference between an accident and someone intentionally shooting another human being. You didn't elaborate on the stories as to whether they were extremely unfortunate accidents or a willful acts of violence. Please comment on this.

The guy that kept scoping you would make me very nervous. That's one situation that'd be a tough call. Obviously you made the right decision. Nobody was shot.

"We are, indeed, supposed to be the good guys who set a good example. In this case the good example would have been to use the perfectly legal equipment in such a way that no misunderstanding could lead to an unfortunate event."

As far as the whole spotting scope on a rifle stock issue goes there's two simple solutions. Make it look less rifle like and if someone sees you glassing them hold it up sideways so they can see what it is.

Hunters don't need to shoot fellow hunters. I'm trying my best to convey that message.

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Originally Posted by fish head

The key is a hostile enviroment. A sitution where a reasonable person would percieve that their life is in imminent danger. We're talking about hunting situations. I don't consider that a hostile enviroment. I've never felt the need to fear murderers in the woods. Caution and worrys about hunters with poor judgement and poor gun handling is different story.

Isn't there any comradery amongst hunter's left?

Do you percieve fellow hunters as muderers and a real threat to your life?


Imminent danger is imminent danger period. Our hunting/scouting areas are anothers drug route, gun route, felony hide... etc... to assume every rifle trained on you is some careless/stupid hunter is to be a fool.

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It has nothing whatsoever to do with a Spotting Scope but one time years ago I was in a tree stand deer hunting in the Osceola National Forest about a mile or two north of Ocean Pond and some ashhole started shooting into a barrow pit filled with water and bullets were ricocheting off the water flying all around me. talk about scary as hell. It was absolutely terrifying!!!! It taught me a real lesson on knowing your background before you shoot. I never want to be in that position again nor do I wish anyone else be in that position either.

It was definitely good or bad lesson in firearm saftey spotting scope or no spotting scope.


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If you want to selectively quote me you should have quoted this:

"Do you percieve fellow hunters as muderers and a real threat to your life?"

And this.

"There is one circumstance that greatly changes the hunting scenario and that's hunting in Arizona. PhilinAZ, do hear me on this one? Hunting near the US/Mex border poses a entirely different threat with the current issues there. The way things are now you're just putting yourself in harm's way. Personally, I wouldn't want to hunt or venture anywhere near the border. It shouldn't be like that, but it is."

And this.

"There at least has to be qualifying and extreme extenuating circumstances to justify pulling the trigger and taking someone's life."

And this.

"Am I'm making any sense at all to those of you that have made the blanket statement that you're going to shoot somebody for pointing something at you?"





Can't you see my point on all this?

"Hunters don't need to shoot fellow hunters. I'm trying my best to convey that message."


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Unfortunate accidents as opposed to willful acts of violence? Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference. I suppose they should be called easily preventable mistakes. The hunters are out there to blow something away and often get caught up in that mindset to the point that they don't exercise proper caution before they pull the trigger. They often see what their expectations want them to see. I don't think that is an accident because they willfully pulled the trigger on something they thought they wanted to shoot and I don't think they went into the woods for the purpose of shooting a human. We should do what we can to make those easily preventable mistakes more easily preventable. Our very lives may depend on doing so.

The fellow tracking me with the rifle still gives me the creeps 35 years later.

I am also reminded of a fellow with whom I hunted once, and only once, who came back to camp laughing about a fellow hunter he was watching through his scope who passed up a shot at a deer that was standing in front of someone's truck parked on the road. He sa1d he would have taken the shot if he had been that fellow.

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Maybe this is a good time to throw out how hunting is one of the safest sports/hobbies there are. Far safer than boating, far safer than almost anything.

This despite the fact that there are hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people wandering the farmlands and woodlands in November with high power firearms. Many with little to no experience with the handling of firearms except for a few hours in a hunter safety class.

And people live. And the anti's have a very hard time finding incidents to use against us that put us in a bad light.

It's incumbent upon all of us to practice AND preach safety, and to retreat from a dangerous situation rather than escalate it.

Stay safe.

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As Calhoun says.. To take the life of a teenager or anyone would be a burden I would hate to carry for the rest of my life
FOR GODS SAKE - DO NOT SHOOT BACK. Stupidity is not a crime so please do not let it become a death sentence. I have had bullets come near me and have not even considered "Returning Fire" Right or wrong I do not want continue the stupidity.
As to the spotting scope on a gun stock...... If it is percieved as a threat - CHANGE IT !!!! While the concept is sound and very functional why would you want to place yourself in the same situation again. The warden may have run into idiots before and this is a sore point with him. My reading of your post I understand was a reasonable response to someone on his high horse but sometimes a little understanding can go a long way.
Right or Wrong - legal or Illegal the taking of a persons life would be as bad as it could get.
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