“The shooter is responsible for the bullet until it comes to rest” was repeated over and over in mine. I would only add “and afterward” given the issues with lead poisoning of scavengers around this area. Not understanding just how far a bullet can travel is a frequent issue I have seen, where thinking a mile or more is just not there. If there is not a backstop, don’t take the shot. Lots of hunters here use tree stands for (at least in part) this reason. If your trajectory is down, it can’t carry very far. This is not responsible hunting at all.
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Because what a State Fair, that sees 100,000 people a day for 24 days, needs is people walking around with guns to defend themselves.
Maybe Paxton should concentrate on securing an event so it doesn’t need armed citizens walking around shooting at each other. Like, I don’t know, banning guns from the event.
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[…]
Detectives determined that the victim and his buddy, 41-year-old David Leallen Kueker, thought someone may be trying to harm them so the pair stood watch outside Kueker’s sister’s house.
[…]
Something tells me this might be something else to look into.
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First, virtually all hunters must take a safety or education course. I distinctly remember mine, sitting next to my father, leafing through the fluorescent orange hunter safety book and listening to the presenter. I was impressed by the danger of guns and the importance of ensuring they are kept locked up when not in use.
Second, there are laws that apply to hunting that do not apply to other types of gun carrying. For example, in Maine, when driving the logging roads looking for game, I cannot have a weapon loaded in my vehicle. If we spot a partridge, we must stop the vehicle, step outside of it, load, and then fire. The purpose of this regulation is, of course, to promote safety, a concept that is of utmost concern for hunters. But if you are carrying a gun for nonhunting purposes? Then it’s fine to have it loaded in your car. It’s literally written into the legislation on guns and vehicles in Maine. So if you want to shoot a deer, you have to be safe about it. If you want to shoot a person, throw caution to the wind.
Third, there is a symbolic difference between owning weapons for hunting and owning weapons for sport or defense. The former is not infused with the implication of violence against humans. The latter carries with it that possibility. There are attitudinal and practical reasons why this matters. When I buy a gun for hunting, the potential that a human being may be harmed by that weapon is a horrifying thought. When not hunting, the gun hangs in a carrying case, with a lock. Contrast that with a handgun bought for the purposes of self-defense. By definition, that gun is purchased with the thought that another human may be its target. And for a gun possessed for self-defense purposes, having the weapon locked and out of reach may defeat those purposes.
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I’m missing the most important point any hunter can make in the gun debate: you do not need semi-automatic weapons to hunt. Anyone who says otherwise is only using hunting as an excuse to satisfy their gun fetish or military power fantasies.
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Absolutely true. And in fact, if you really want to be bad-ass about hunting, you use a compound bow instead.
I have a hunter on my property (with my permission, of course) and that’s what he uses. Gets his annual legal allotment every year, the truly manly way.
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I’ve seen an animal with an arrow through it, fatally wounded but still alive and suffering. Bow hunting may be great once people are good enough to hit perfect kill shots but it’s cruel otherwise, and I wouldn’t paint it as a thing manly men should all do.
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I had a friend who was a bow hunter. But she was poor & needed to supplement her food budget.
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That’s a bad hunter. The rule is: if you know or even think you’ve wounded a deer, you have to stay on it until you can do a kill shot to put it out of misery. If that means crossing private land, you can do it, although obviously it’s best to ask permission before or at least after the fact.
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That same thing happens with firearms, but more often. When hunters use rifles, they take longer, riskier shots. Plus, the odds of hitting something or someone who is not your target is pretty much zero with a bow. Every year, people are killed by rifle hunters.
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One of the older children got hold of a loaded long gun that was in the very rear of the vehicle and “accidentally pulled the trigger,” shooting the youngest child, the chief said.
“What we have here today is a terrible, terrible tragedy,” McManus said at a press briefing Monday.
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A preventable tragedy. Completely preventable.
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Listing all the steps in the chain of stupidity for this tragedy to happen is left as an exercise for the reader. Hint: start with the Second Amendment. 
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In this case, ‘Responsible’ Gun Ownership Data:
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