NY - pretty safe season for the new rifle country

[doughboysigep]

Well it appears that all of the worry about the safety of rifles in the Southern Tier was for naught. I have not heard of one rifle related accident in my area (Broome, Chenango, Tioga counties). No grandmas were shot in their kitches, no cars were shot going down the road, and even no hunters were hurt. I am not sure if this holds true for the rest of the new rifle area (I hope it does). Hopefully this trend will continue for years to come.

PS - their were some shotgun related injuries (as there always is/will be)

[Deleted User]

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[johnl]

sounds good to me or at least let each hunter kill ONE DEER AND ONE DEER ONLY if you shoot a doe during bow season your're done till next year

[jcchartboy]

I would not be so quick to draw any conclusions from one years worth of admittedly incomplete data.

Not to mention the fact that this year will likely be an anomoly as a result of the fact that using a rifle was a novelty to most experienced hunters in those areas this year.Extrathought was likely given as tothe relative safety of rifles.

It won't be meaningful to make any comparisons of rifle/shotgun safety until after a couple of years of comparable data is collected.

This is not to take away from the fact this rifle season seemed to go very well. For that I am very thankful.

In fact in writing this post I did a quick search for any reported gun accidents this year. Sadly I found a report that greatly disheartened me.

Shortly beforeI left my hunting area on Sunday afternoon (which happens to the hometown I grew up in) I heard a report that an acquitance may have been involved in a hunting accident. In one of the reports I just located it has been reported that in fact he was fatally wounded in the accident....

MILAN "” Residents in northern Dutchess County are mourning the death of a 22-year-old Rhinebeck man who was killed in a hunting accident Saturday.
Coleman Hagadorn died Saturday afternoon after he was accidentally shot by someone in a group of six friends with whom he was hunting, according to state police. The group was deer hunting off Turkey Hill Road in the Town of Milan. State police investigators are still determining which member of the hunting party fired the fatal shot.
Hagadorn graduated from Red Hook High School in 2001. He was on the eligibility list to become a state trooper and was well on his way to following in the footsteps of his father, Jeffrey Hagadorn, a retired state trooper. The younger Hagadorn had recently graduated from Marist College in the Town of Poughkeepsie with a bachelor's degree in criminal justice.

Whether handling a shotgun or a rifle gun safety needs to be treated with an equal level of respect.....

JC

[fastfire]

ORIGINAL: cma3366a

All we need now is a 3-to a side antler restriction and a HUGEreduction in doe tags (as in none), and our gun season would be perfect IMO, but thats for another thread...

Regs Regs Regs Do we need more Regs NO NO NO
Haven't you guys ever heard of abstaining.
You guys must also hunt blind!
It is not all the DEC although some is.
How many coyotes have you seen?
We found a lot of fawns killed in june,july & even august most were
coyotes but a few were bears.
Have you ever watched a coyote back track a doe to find a new born fawn.
Come on guys lets think before you ?

[Deleted User]

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[djgj200]

Yeah, so much for all of the "OH MY GOD, THEY ARE GOING INTO THE WOODS WITH RIFLES NOW!!!!"

The know it alls. They think a rifle is like a nuke or something, an accident waiting to happen. I hope the next time some place(s) allows rifle, they wont be so quick to say they are so against it because of safety blah blah blah blah blah.

Glad to see it was an overall safe season. I didn't hunt in a zone that allowed rifles, nor do I own a rifle, but I supported it all the way and actually couldn't wait for the bill to become law. The place I hunted was literally across the street from rifle country. The closest I was to the line was 3-400 yards. I could see the border, which was Rte. 79.

[Phade]

There were numerous accidents in my county alone. 3 people were shot on opening day with shotguns.

I feel that one season is at the very least able to conclude a reasonable amount of safety can be expected with rifle use on par at least with the shotgun crowd.

Long term data may prove a defintive answer, but there was one shotgun season, and one rifle season this year. Comparisons between the two can begin, and an ascertained level can be had.

I have not heard of any rifle accidents in the new areas myself.

[buckdropper]

I never doubted it for a second. Many rifle hunters in catt county and not one incident, My "hats off to a safe RIFLE hunt" this year.

[jcchartboy]

ORIGINAL: Phade
I feel that one season is at the very least able to conclude a reasonable amount of safety can be expected with rifle use on par at least with the shotgun crowd.

As has been mentioned before only time will tell that in reality...

Not to mention the fact that the data comparison would not be statewide rifle vs shotgun safety.

The logical comparison would be whether accident rates decreased or increased in the specific areasaffected by the newrifle regulation changes.

Before anyone makes any false assumptions..I will point out that I have, and still do favor the new regulations, I simply believe that touting this one years statistics as meaningful to the long term safety of rifles/shotguns isrelatively meaningless at this point.