Unsafe hunters

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Shawnee

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from USAToday...

Tuesday, November 20
Wausau, WI - The opening weekend of Wisconsin's deer hunt was the safest in its history, with one accidental shooting among 630,000 participating hunters, the state Department of Natural Resources said. David Ruck, 18, was fatally shot by his 63-year-old grandfather Gerald Ruck in Waushara County.

Certainly not making light of the Ruck tragedy but 1 in 630,000 sure puts the lie to the false image anti-gunners try to put out about reckless hunters.

Thumbs up to Hunter Safety Education ! :cool:
 
Was that the one where the kid was wearing a brown blanket and grandpa took a shot at him? That would be negligent, and tragic.
There were probably more people who died choking on tofurkey yesterday than due to hunters.
 
Blackdog, you have that backwards

The murdered people were on their own property, when the hmong man tresspassed. They ask him to leave, he did not, then all hell broke loose
 
"There were probably more people who died choking on tofurkey yesterday than due to hunters."

Tofurkey. Okay, that's just funny, I don't care who ya are! :p
 
There was a truly unsafe hunter here today... He told me it was best I stay in the house to take care of the babies. But... when it was time to dress the deer it's honey, come out and help...
Click to expand...

Is he hanging next to the deer currently? :uhoh:
 
Certainly not making light of the Ruck tragedy but 1 in 630,000 sure puts the lie to the false image anti-gunners try to put out about reckless hunters.
Click to expand...

Just because only one person was killed on opening weekend does not actually refute the anti-gunners claims of reckless hunters. There may have been a lot of reckless hunters, but only one incident that connected over the weekend. So far this year, this is the 16th incident, the 15 prior being noted as recently as two weeks ago. See http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/es/enforcement/safety/huntstats.htm

Also, the stats don't include all the boneheaded acts that failed to result in injury to people.

The IHEA's data from 2005 and back to 1994 reports anywhere from 300-1100+ hunting accidents a year with the overwhelming majority being firearm-based.
http://www.ihea.com/news-and-events/incident-reports.php

Fortunately, the overall trend shown by their data is a decrease of the total numbers of events over time. The more recent years tend to have fewer incidents than earlier years.

In looking a previous Wisconsin data, there have been 324 incidents between 1999 and 2006 (inclusive), nearly all of which were firearms-based. http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=681772

During that time period, there were 24 deaths of which 22 were definitely firearms, 1 crossbow, and one unknown.

So on average, there are about 40 incidents a year with about 3 being fatalities.

In 2006, there were 31 incidents of which four were hunting deaths, of which 1 was self inflicted, three were by other members in the same hunting party, one of which was a dog.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=681772&appSession=43657308526181
 
Also, the stats don't include all the boneheaded acts that failed to result in injury to people.
Click to expand...

This is true of ALL accident statistics. They don't tell you about the guy dialing his cell while drinking coffee and steering with his knees on his way back home from drinking at the bar who blew through a stopsign but luckily no other traffic was around.
 
OK, you guys have forced me to be serious here...

Freedom comes at a price, In the case of the universal availability of firearms that price is having firearms in the hands of those less than responsible for their handling. Unfortunately accidents, even fatal accidents are one of the prices of freedom.

Society has a choice, either put the responsibility on the people that are careless or put it on the item used in the insult to the peace and dignity of that society.

In short, it can be about hunting, it can be about firearms or it can be about criminally careless people. I chose to believe it's the one careess individual that needs to be dealt with not the half million plus responsible individuals. After all, if a single irresponsible behavior can be put on the shoulders of the responsible where is the motivation for our children to be responsible?

Selena
 
Dittos to what Selena said. Hunters are, like everything else, a cross section of the population. There are good and bad, carefull and careless, thoughtful, and downright stupid. Those same people are that way when they're driving, working, golfing, or anything else they do. Personally, I'm big on the "identify your target" rule. I pass up lots of opportunities for game because I have doubts about the target or whats behind it. Others dont think that way, getting the game is all important, and chances are they will be more sucessful than I, and will never find themselves in the soup for shooting another hunter. But, it only takes one time, that snap shot at the deer on the ridgeline, or shooting at the brown spot behind the moving bushes where your "pretty sure" you just saw a deer. That fellow that killed his grandson will be tormented by that for the rest of his life, no matter what the law does to him. Just a guess, but I would say that a very large percentage of the population that hunts, seldom touch a firearm except during the hunting season. Many dont even sight in or target pratice before going affield. They take their rifle out, carry it around for a week, and put it back in the closet. This of course is not based on any in depth research, just my discussions with people at work and in the local community. Yes, I also know lots of good, serious hunters, but urbanites who only dust off the rifle when its time to go to the annual huntingtrip/poker/beer party, are plentiful, and thay are affield with us. Hunt defensively.:scrutiny:
 
Selena,
Right, but at the same time, proclaiming hunters as safe because only one person was killed over a two day period is similarly misapplying the identification of responsible parties.

We could look at the stats in another manner. We all know the horror stories of folks being attacked and occasionally killed by mountain lions. We have several threads on this forum dedicated to defensive guns or calibers for use against these hugely predatory animals. We all acknowledge them as being very dangerous. On yearly average, you are more likely to be wounded or killed while hunting in Wisconsin than you are by being attacked or killed anywhere in the United States and Canada by a mountain lion. In fact, you are about 7+ times more likely to be injured while hunting and nearly 4 times as likely to be killed in Wisconsin than being attacked or killed anywhere in the US and Canada.

See http://tchester.org/sgm/lists/lion_attacks.html

Similarly, we fear the dreaded bears. On average, you are more likely to be killed while hunting in Wisconsin than being killed by a bear anywhere in the US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_bear_attacks_in_North_America_by_decade


So maybe Wisconsin hunters aren't as reckless as the antis claim, but they are definitely more reckless than Shawnee's information indicates. They are certainly more dangerous than the threat posed by mountain lions or bears.

The sad part is that all of these dangers could be significantly mitigated if folks were more careful while they were out and about, either just while enjoying nature or while hunting.
 
Hi OO,

Right, but at the same time, proclaiming hunters as safe because only one person was killed over a two day period is similarly misapplying the identification of responsible parties.
Click to expand...

Considering the numbers involved as well as the tools being used, I would say two incidents would be far above the norm of care in the general population. Do a compare and contrast with automobiles v. hunting accidents. Proclaiming anything safe is foolish. Living itself is a study in danger and every action we take is a risk/reward decision.

Item last: My Dad was telling us this afternoon that in Pulaski County (IN) there were 57 car/deer accidents this year. There have been no hunting accidents (to date) in the county. If not for the yearly harvest keeping the deer harvest down it's logical to assume there would have been more car\deer accidents. Taken in that light, deer hunting has a built in function of safety.

Selena
 
So on average, there are about 40 incidents a year with about 3 being fatalities.
Click to expand...

I don't want to take that lightly, but is there any other activity where 600,000+ people could participate in for a week every year and where we would not statistically expect there to be 40 injuries and 3 fatalities to occur, especially considering that its a physical sporting activity? If the antis were to take a look at high school sports and were intellectually honest :)rolleyes:) they would have a huge laundry list of other activities to ban before they go after hunting.
 
DNS

Whoa there if all you are basing your conjectures on is manipulative data, I am gonna take THR and say did you do the Hypothesis, Testing, and Dissemination of the data. If not dont quote others, they may not be so upstanding.
 
I hope you guys take this as it is meant... growing up in PA there was no florecent orange requirements.. they went into effect when i was 12 or so... rarely did you hear of anyone being shot ..even tho the amish wore their brown coats out hunting. parents pushed identifying your target hard. today we all assume everyone will be wearing orange.. imagine how strange it was to me to find out state of texas recommends orange but doesnt require it on private ground. all i know is.. i have always pushed making sure of your target to my kids. im glad this is one thing they seem to listen on. accidents can happen to anyone and it is always tragic. i pray its never me or my kids in the position of firing on someone .
 
Well Doc, if you have a problem with the data, just say so and point out exactly which data are bad. You can't claim it is false just because it isn't my original research...which I take as a compliment, thank you. However, I have checked several of the incidents from the sources I have cited and have found none to be contrary to what has been reported.

However, maybe my point was overly obtuse. Simply put, I can use the same sort of logic used in the original post that says only one death over a weekend proves the antis are wrong about reckless hunters and show that Wisconsin has lots of reckless hunter episodes that result in injury or and sometimes death to hunters and that as a hunter in Wisconsin, you are more likely to be killed while hunting than you are likely to be killed at any time during the year in the United States by known and greatly feared predation by Mountain Lions or Bears.

The big difference is that Mountain Lions and Bears are predators who prey on animals as part of their natural programming. They don't have morals and other such considerations such as hunting licenses, government hunter training, and are told of the rules of safe hunting. Compare this to the humans who hunt and end up shooting themselves or one another. There is NO REASON for this to be happening.
 
Hunting is still one of the safest sports out there. I know in Nevada at least it was determined at one time that TABLE TENNIS was more dangerous than hunting. And Nevada has no blaze orange requirements.
 
We get 4-7 shootings a year within a 50 mile radius of me.
Lots of "city folk" out in the woods!!!
And my friends ask why I don't hunt any more???

MRI
 
I read a few years ago in the Madison paper that deer hunting in Wisconsin brings more than $6B into the Wisconsin economy. It's Wisconsin's biggest money maker. The University of Wisconsin system is second.

There's probably a lot more accidents and fatalities operating a bunch of Universities than running a few weeks of deer hunting.
 
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