Be safe out there!
 

http://www.cbs42.com/news/alabama/ma...ounty_60136573

Another sad reminder to wear your safety orange :(

Anyone shooting another hunter thinking the person is an animal should be charged with manslaughter at a minimum, regardless of whether that person has orange on or not. How can anyone pull the trigger thinking a human is an animal?!!!

According to what I am reading, it is not clear that they mistook the person for an animal, although that is often the case. In the second incident the hunter shot may have been wearing blaze orange. In near dark conditions, blaze orange does not even do you much good. I recall many hunting accidents in WI where someone shot another hunter (in blaze orange) in early morning hours, usually before legal shooting times. For sure there should be criminal charges when one accidentally shoots someone before or after legal shooting hours - simply obeying the law would have prevented the tragic accident.

Accident???

Sorry but the word doesn't apply in the above described situation...

Criminal fits better...

It doesn't matter what time it happens! There is absolutely no reason to mistake a person for an animal. A missed shot at an animal that goes a long way and happens to hit someone may be a little different matter, but you should always know what's behind what you're shooting at too. There is no excuse in an "I thought it was a deer" deal!

Be careful not to judge others, because the same thing can happen to any of us.
No matter how careful any one is, things can go wrong very fast.
Just sayin.

Just say all you want, but there is absolutely no reason to mistake a person for an animal, no way no how and it doesn't matter whether they have on hunter orange or not. A stray bullet is one thing, but shooting a person that you think is an animal is not an accident!!!

No doubt. How many times are you in a stand as darkness closes in and trees or bushes suddenly look like deer during the legal shooting hours? As experienced hunters, we realize that low light requires extra caution, but to the guy that never hunted before, it is another story. I am in no way justifying mistaking a person for a deer, nor am I downplaying the seriousness of it in any way. A way we can all help is to mentor new hunters and stress this over and over. Also, we can help out in the local hunters ed courses.

I agree.
A hunter must not only know what species of game he is shooting at but what sex and if it's a legal target for the license he is carrying. There just isn't a valid excuse for shooting a person mistaken for a game animal.

I once had a bullet crack a rock close to me which I believe passed through a deer and continued on a ways before stopping. The shooter didn't know I was even around. Now THAT would qualify as an accident if I'd been hit.

A misidentified target is just pure negilgence.

I cant tell you how many times I have heard this.. "I got off a couple of good sound shots" ...Most of us have seen millions of people in our lives and thousands of deer and never mistaken one for the other and never will. There is small percentage of crazy's out the with a rifle every hunting season that shoot at branches breaking, ghosts, livestock, ruffling of bushes, hunters using deer calls, etc. There is also the first time hunter that gets real exited by movement and just shoots first and thinks about it later. I think a lot of it is due to lack of hunter education and proper guidance. There might be a little bit of mental illness at play as well. I know I don't go into Walmart and say look at all these deer shopping in here and then go to my hunting spot and wonder what all these people are doing eating grass out of my field. It's a dangerous world out there. I jump a little every time someone shoots close to where i'm sitting. There are people out there that think an orange, upright figure, holding a flashlight, drinking coffee is a trophy deer and those people will always be out there. I can't fathom putting the crosshairs on a man and pulling the trigger ever being an accident but I also can't see all these hunters every year going into the woods with the intention of committing murder either. Some how in there mind maybe it was an accident.

I'm quite possibly the King of thinking every thing I see is a deer in low light but Its never even crossed my mind to shoot something that I think might be a deer.

Well, I can't talk about these situations, since I wasn't there and thus don't know what the shooters were thinking.

I can talk about myself, however. I have a healthy respect for guns and the things they can and can't do. I also am aware of how poor light, perspective, and excitement can make things look different. I was taught to never point the gun unless I was sure of the target (that's why I carry binoculars -- so I don't have to use the scope for that), and I was taught to never pull the trigger unless I wanted to kill whatever I was aiming at, whether it be deer, turkey, hog, or human. And just my own moral code prevents me ever doing the last one, which is why I don't have and carry a handgun. So in that sense, I don't understand why these guys got shot.

In another sense, though, I can see why. The brain plays tricks on us, making us see what we want to see (and that's true in so many situations, not just hunting), and then talks us into doing things we shouldn't.

So while I don't quite know what happened, I do know that paying attention to safety is literally a life-or-death situation.

Ha, you get to sixty...
 

and you've seen a lot of imperfect actions of people. And some of those imperfect people thought they were perfect. But some will disagree. You took 60 years to learn. And some know everything by 30.

Valentine, for the first time I will have to say that I agree with you 100%!!!! very well spoken as well may I say!! But will have to add one point to this. And some THINK THEY know everything by the age of 20, just ask them!!!!!!! And I am 50, for conversation sakes.

We had a retired Army Sargeant on a deer lease down in south Texas that lived just down the street from my Mom and Dad. He came into camp one morning after the hunt and we asked if he was the one that shot over along the southeast property line, He said yea and we asked what he shot at and did he get it. He said he thought he saw a buck along the road that ran beside the boundary fence and it just stood there all morning. He finally shot it and it turned out it was a rock. We didn't renew his membership on the lease the following year after hearing that story!!!

I love the "stood there all morning" part.
That should have been a clue !

Scary to think there are guys like that out there with rifles every fall. With that in mind it's really amazing how few hunters are actually shot by mistake. I know orange helps but WOW.

I heard a chilling term one year when hunting whitetails in GA. This dude called it "ground checking". The practice of shooting at a brief movement, noise, or even what you know is a deer then going over and getting a close look at it after it is on the ground.

***Yep, exactly, LOL! Too bad we can't put all those types together somewhere and let them significantly reduce their gene pools!!!

I've got a 40 acre block we could fence off. Let 20 guys at a time in there and release one deer.
:)

***That would probably do it!!! :fighting0007:

You could name it... The Darwin Award Sanctuary:barmy:

I think the second example here was a deer drive personally. If you are doing a drive you should be wearing A LOT of orange and know exactly what you are shooting at and what the background is. I hunt private land but whenever I walk out now I wear a green headlamp. There $4 and you can't mistake (I hope) a person wearing a green or red headlamp for a deer. Plus, deer cannot see green light very well so your not spooking anything Better safe than sorry.

Be sure of your target
 

I had an frightening experience about ten years ago deer hunting opening day of Ohio's gun season. I was hunting on the family farm in southern Ohio. The farm was posted and we don't let anyone but family and 1 or 2 local people hunt.The only access to the land is down our road,barbed wire around all the fields and locked gates, posted no trespassing signs about every 50 feet. Well at about 8:15 opening day, the usual opening day mad minute gunfire had quieted down. I see brown moving thru the brush about 60 or 70 yards downhill from my stand and hear what I thought was a deer grunt coming from the brush below me. I pull up my Knight, see movement and get ready for the deer to step out in an opening. I see brown and white moving I settled the scope, on the object in the scope, click the safety off, And get ready to shoot. Oh crap it's a human crawling on the ground wearing brown Carhart's and a white billed black ball cap. I pull up, click the safety back on and watch this clown with a death wish blow on a grunt call. Needless to say I start screaming "WTF are you doing AH," "I just about shot you!" Dumb founded he looks up and stands up waving at me,"Saying I didn't know anybody was out here today." When I get down to him he. said "I was looking for his dog" and then "I didn't know it was hunting season, is this your land?" I asked how he got all the way on to our land, he say's "I crawled over the the those fences over there," pointing west the fence line is about a 1/2 mile that way and the road is about another 100 yds farther west. Pissed I walked him back to the fence, where he shows me where he crossed, right next to one of our posted signs. Calling the law on the way there. The local deputy shows up, asked what he was doing, looking for my dog is what he said, then looking for ginsing. "In Nov," the deputy questions.and to me, "do you want to press charges for trespassing sir?"No I don't just get him out of hear so I can finish hunting. Thinking about all of this later on my stand I realize that this candidate for a darwin award came within a 1/2 second of ruining my life as well as his, I remember to this day what his head looked like in the crosshairs of my scope, scarey.

You should have pressed charges!!!

foo---That had to have been one heck of a scary situation that could have gone bad quickly. Thank God it didn't! That guy would definitely quality for the Darwin Award for that one and it could have ruined your life forever!!! I also agree with the assessment that Lunkerdog made too!

I'm amazed that Blaze orange is not a requirement for archery season. Just as easy to get killed/kill with an arrow as a bullet.

***Actually turkey hunting is the most dangerous because of full camo that most wear. Many states require blaze orange even for archers if they hunt with a bow during gun season.

WV, does require Blaze orange while Bow hunting in gun season. Only while gun season is in. I don't think it's a requirement for turkey season.. I'll have to check.

I am late in this thread, but ... had dinner last night with my good buddy and hiswife. He is a long time Alabama Circuit Court judge. We talked about these cases. Under Al. law these two will be automatically charged with nothing less than Involuntary Manslaughter. They are subject to immediate arrest and incarceration, however if the officers initial investigation indicates nothing more than a tragic accident, the likelihood of being held is unlikely. Once the investigations are completed, the District Attorney will make the decision. The range is from the charges being dropped ... to the charge being elevated to 1st Degree Murder.

My personal comment ... how a person can be identified as a "deer" is beyond me.
In the dark, I make it a habit to use a flash light. Usually a small pin-light or cap-light going in, and a quality hand held flash light coming out.

Why was he blowing on a grunt tube and did he have a weapon? And yes, I have to agree, should have pressed charges.

Yep, you press charges and soon the word gets around and the knotheads quit trespassing on your land and go become someone else's headache.

Took me about 4 years of zero tolerance to get my problem fixed. There are landowners around here that actually take out ads in the paper warning that they will prosecute.

I don't think that is even close to true.

It comes down too how yer interpreting the word "easy".

An arrow will kill you just as "easy" as a bullet will... Tho the odds of that happening are incredibly lower.

I don't see how is as easy in any way but within the context of hunting accidents its not even close.

From my experience killing something with a bow is harder than with a gun under any context.

At some point we have to start addressing the stupid people instead of continuing to make new rules that cater to stupid people.

[QUOTE=rockport;4117284]I don't see how is as easy in any way but within the context of hunting accidents its not even close.

From my experience killing something with a bow is harder than with a gun under any context.

At some point we have to start addressing the stupid people instead of continuing to make new rules that cater to stupid people.[/QU

My interpertation of the defination at hand of "Easy" being that a person is as possible to die within the same extent of being struck/hit/shot with an arrow as to be struck with a bullet from a firearm. I agree. Massive blood loss equals death regardless of projectile.
BUT!!!! What I also feel and agree with Rockport in his decision of the term is that with it being an arrow and the closer proximity of being shot with as opposed to being shot with a firearm at a longer distance as well constitutes the chances being lower due to the ranges exercised for the common shot being taken. My point, agreed with both partys for context at hand.

Yeah that projectile has to hit you first and that is not as easy with an arrow.


Maybe I'm taking it to literally but I am very against people changing the way I hunt based on the actions of a few idiots.

Point taken and agreed. But from a LEO point and prospective, the OP was asked if he wanted to press charges and he declined. His choice. Deputy could not have changed that. His personal choice, heck ya!!!! Tag n bag em!!!!! Did the offender learn a lesson, maybe, doubtful. Just goes to show what other idiots out there are doing and getting away with because the landowner didn't want to viciously offend someone possible future conflicts.

My opinion, let his experience be a lesson to others that unfortunetaly fall into this same predictament, slap the cuffs on barney, takem to cell with otis!!!!!!

Unfortunately people usually don't learn without consequence

I read that arrow comment and decided not to even make a post at that time, but if he meant there is the same chance to get shot by an arrow as a gun, it's way off base. Distance to get shot with an arrow is minute compared to the distance a centerfire rifle bullet travels. If the comment is strictly taken that if hit with either there is a good chance of a mortal wound, then you betcha. The two reasons hunter orange is not required for bow hunters is because of how close you have to be to the animal to shoot it and that it's easier for the deer to see movement on a solid color that may also even shine somewhat to them on a bright day. Most bow hunting is now done from a tree stand compared to gun hunting and that makes it safer form a shooting "accident" standpoint, although the latter being done from a tree is increasing where it's legal.