Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Opinions, please

If you shoot someone because you THOUGHT they was a critter, you should get it back TWICE. A couple of moron's getting whacked should slow the problem, but then again they are idiots.........

Yesterday in Stony Creek just west of our home a hunter was shot (thru shoulder exited thru stomack area) He is still alive but critical at local trauma hospital in Albany. He was shot by his brother-in-law They have been hunting to gether at this local gun club for several years. (I am paraphrasing news article) They were not local but from NY state (not city area)
Here's where your opinion is needed.
Shooter thought this man was a deer.
Both hunters were dressed in camo.
Area is brushy but not overgrown
Shot was fired from about 50-60 feet


100 SQ.INCHES REQ,D IN VA. THAT BEING SAID,I WEAR
A BLAZE ORANGE HAT,I FIGURE I CAN TAKE A BODY SHOT
BETTER THAN A HEAD SHOT ...(GRIN)
ANY WAY,HOW DO YOU GET A SHOT INTO THE SHOULDER
AND OUT THE STOMACH AT THAT DISTANCE? REALLY SHORT
BROTHER IN LAW?

Afew years ago while hunting NY Southern zone near Norwich I was sitting on a comfortable root in some open hardwoods, there was little underbrush and the visibility was good to 40 yards, more or less. I'd been there since before daylight, wearing a kinda bright red wool jacket and a red slouch hat. I heard some noise off to my left and soon 5 idiots with guns passed me by at a distance of 50-60 ft. Only the last guy in line saw me and started to move his gun in my direction before he identified me and moved on. Just before full daylight a bunch of turkeys flew down and worked around me at 25-30 ft. One hen finally gave me the eye and with a couple clucks they just walked off in the other direction. The hen didn't do anything till I blinked. While working I also had the misfortune to be present at a couple hunter shootings. The first was late afternoon, a guy nailed his brother-in-law dead center at 40 yds on a partially grown-in logging road. The shootee was wearing full camo. The shooter said he thought he was a bear. His gun had a scope. Second, roughly the same distance in mixed evergreen hardwood old growth woods on State Land. A hunter was standing facing his wife, the shootee, not quite in line with each other. The shooter fires over the shoulder of the hunter, killing the hunters wife. Everybody was dressed in camo.
I don't hunt much anymore for much of the same reasons given on another post here, but while I was hunting, I never had a problem I'ding a human. Neither did the guys I hunted with. I think blaze orange is a good idea, mainly because the quality of hunters with woods skills keeps declining, and if they see something orange they may not shoot.

You're missing the point: I demand the right to place my-
self in increased jeopardy if I so choose. I place myself
in jeopardy everytime I ride my motorcycle or drive my
Corvette; my friend places himself in jeopardy everytime
he flies his ultralight aircraft. Those sub-cultures which
insure themselves to great cost have rights that individuals
don't, or so it seems. Are you picking up a pattern here?

In fact, I always had the right to dress in camo or whatever
I wanted until Big Gov't, ever the tool of the carrion-eating
insurance companies, and ever seeking more power for
themselves, took it away from me; and in fact I never even
got a chance to vote on that law, since usually it was DNR
or some similar drone factory who just shoved the reg down
my throat and told me to deal with it.

I fully support the right of anyone to wear orange if s/he so
desires; why is it that those people won't grant me the right
NOT to wear orange if I don't want to? I have a rather
piquant opinion re that question, but since I'm new here, I'll
keep it to myself, out of common courtesy.

I don't think it should be a matter of legislation either, but some common sense needs to sneak in there somewhere. I still wore my Red & Black checkerd shirt, hat and coat till I couldn't get into the woods anymore, but if you want to play woods commando that is your privilege, somebody needs to support the clothing industry.

Here's where your opinion is needed.
Shooter thought this man was a deer.
Both hunters were dressed in camo.
Area is brushy but not overgrown
Shot was fired from about 50-60 feet
--------------------

Brushy is a relative term. Brushy as in enough to deflect a bullet? Or, brushy as in 50-60 feet of it being enough to stop a bullet unless carefully threaded through it?

I can't get a bullet to take a straight path through a few feet of brush if it hits brush before the intended target...

Precisely my point; it isn't my privilege anymore. the
"thought police" will give me a ticket, or worse, if I dare
go into the woods without looking like a neon sign. Such
usurpation of a previous personal freedom is reprehensible
and only serves the purposes of (1) more profit for the life
insurance industry and (2) more (usurped) power for Big
Brother. I fear it's as simple as that. Just another form of
taxation/legislation w/o representation. I just don't want the
guv'mint to have that kind of power over me.

I fully understand that my wishes for a return to personal
liberties ain't never gonna happen.

(1) more profit for the life
insurance industry and (2) more (usurped) power for Big
Brother.
========================================

How so, Fang??

These stories are always tough to get...I have hunted a few days in my time. Seen lots of things in the woods...I have never shot at anything that I thought was a deer.

This issue is not really about blaze orange or camo...it is but it isn't. No man walking upright in camo looks remotely like a deer in any setting. I might buy I shot at a deer, missed, and didn't see the hunter 50 yard behind my target...but its always tough for me to really buy "I thought this man wearing camoflage green, gray, brown, black in mossy oak patter was a deer."

Just guessing here: but its more likely an issue of a guy seeing movement and blasting away irresponsibly...he'd have never hit a deer in a million years, and he squarely hit his partner.

Life insurance industry is all about reducing their perceived
risk and exposure. The longer they can delay paying off on
a policy, the greater the profit on that policy, and they're
collectively quite prepared to legislate the public into a state
of somnolent senescence to reduce their exposure, if they
think they can get away with it. They wield power out of all proportion to their numbers; it was they who were responsible for gun companies having to stamp
"Read instruction manual before use" on firearms, and dozens of other intrusions into our lives, all in the name of profit. I'm all for profit, but I'm for personal freedoms even more.

I trust you've read Orwell's "Animal Farm" and "1984,"
wherein he describes how all governments seek power,
absorb it like a sponge, and are willing to steal/usurp power
not otherwise given to them if they can get away with it.
There is no mystery to any of the foregoing, so I'm baffled
as to why you called me on it. Remember, George Orwell
died in 1950, so the foregoing is scarcely radical, trendy
news.

...Fang, You're a man after my AMERICAN sense of individual self reliance, and responsibility. I agree that freedom ought to prevail over legislated govt clap trap ideas of how to protect us from harming ourselves. No govt legislated hunting clothes color is ever going to save the lives of many innocents who've been shot not because they were wearing the wrong color clothing,but because a jack leg idiot DIDN"T ID his target before cutting lose a high power rifle!...I see NOTHING wrong with a common sense recomendation that hunters wear safety color clothing,but it ought not be law,rather the emphasis ought to be on law requiring POSITIVE IDing of a target ,with SEVERE felony penalties for not doing so!! I believe this approach would save more lives and get idiots out of the woods more effectively as well.....A couple of years gone by now I had a scare. While sitting my tree stand suddenly a high power rifle shot rang out! It was so close,as it broke the silence, it near pitched me out of the tree!. I looked to my left,and slightly to my rear, and saw a fellow with a 30/30 lever gun just lowering it from a the shot he'd just made at a squirrel in a TREE!...Well,I felt my alarm turn to anger right quick! I settled my Ruger77 in 30/06 at a 90% angle to the fellow,who hadn't yet seen me. I shot into the base of a large oak tree. The report and muzzle blast dropped the yokle to his knees! You'd have thought he'd been shot as he hunkered down and looked around, in fear for his life (I understood,since i'd just been through it myself)..I hollered to the guy "Did you get yours?"..Still shaky he stuttered a "no","how about you?", "Naw I missed too" I said as the fellow quickly shuttled out of the area!....Shooting at squirrels while deer hunting with a high power rifle is typical of the kind of facts that surround most 'hunter shoots human' stories. Such idiots are the kind that shoot movement in the brush,and say "I thought it was a deer" or "I saw no hunter orange" ,when the hunter,hiker,birdwatcher,ect. is shot. ....Hunter Orange saves lives i'm sure,but it costs some too. ....you reckon the govt ought to be telling us what we can and can't eat,for our own good of course. More people are killed each year out of the bottom of a 'gin bottle', than are killed in decades of hunting deaths.My point ,so long as clothing color laws don't change folks consciousness.Laws that punish wrong doers make more sense than continuing to restrict the freedoms of the decent chaps amoung us...

Fang, you sound a bit foolish.

Even the most conservative interpretation of the US Constitution would conclude that providing for the common safety is one of the foremost duties of any government.

Making you wear blaze orange is in the same category as making you wear a seat belt when driving your car, making your house conform to a building code, or not letting you buy lettuce with E. Coli bacteria in it. It's for your own good and it makes you safer.

If your insurance company were to change its policies so they didn't pay for medical care for people who didn't wear blaze orange when they were shot, you would be the first one to complain.

BULLSCHITT!!!!!!!

The government has no business making me wear a seat belt, tell me how to build my house, what I can or cannot put on my property Etc. I also should have enough sense to WASH my lettuce before eating it. I pity the folks that need the government to protect them from themselves from womb to tomb!

I'm not sure of the deer can see camo orange.
But I do believe that the UV enhancers put in most dyes, laundry detergents and dry cleaners is seen by deer. The manufacterers put the UV enhancers in and on clothing to make them appear brighter and cleaner.
Jim

Sir, I respectfully disagree.
How ever I would go along with the auto insurance companies having a clause in thecontract that if you get into an accident , you are not covered. If your house burns and it's not built to code you are not covered. Plus if your house is not to code the mortgage company won't loan you the money.
I for one would be disturbed if one of my neighbors put a truck stop on his property or a sewage disposal plant.
While I agree that the government is to much involved in out lives, there are aras that need to be addressed by the government.
Jim

Now we are getting somewhere!



I too would be upset, but what are the chances they would? Something like that has to be economically feasible and requires lots of property and a need with access.



I cannot think of any areas that need government involvement other than public health issues, NATIONAL defense and child labor & protection laws.

Respectfully submitted,
Terry