This is the tragedy I always think of, with some good old-fashioned victim blaming too!
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Merciful heavens! Rules around gun use? You Germans are crazy. Don’t you care at all about freedom?
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Well, just to clarify, every state also has hunter safety courses and passing a test is required before you can get a hunting license. It sounds like it isn’t as long or as robust as Germany’s, but the US does have them.
The problem is people who don’t follow the rule and protocols like they should. 
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Fortunately, in eastern PA there are a lot of smaller parks, arboretums, historic areas/estates, and trails where hunting is not permitted. So, we still have the opportunity to enjoy nature without that particular risk.
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While it is obviously not really that easy to misidentify a turkey as a human, I do think a lot of people do not realize how big, horrible, and angry wild turkeys look and act. They’re not like farm turkeys. They can be big, mean , and fast.
I’m the same. I don’t really trust hunters when I’m out in the woods and try my best to avoid going out during the major seasons (like deer). Add to that the amount of alcohol people drink when they’re in the back country and it’s an accident waiting to happen.
The last time I was out people were using their guns to communicate with each other and celebrate getting a deer and it was freaking me out. I was bight and obvious (sitting in the middle of a lake in a yellow canoe), but some idiot firing his gun in the air to single it’s lunchtime is all that’s needed.
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In Texas, you don’t need to take any safety course to get a hunting license if you’re over 50, are a current or past member of the armed services or law enforcement, or you pay $10 for a deferral (only good for a year, but still one can legally go hunting without passing a hunter’s safety course for $10).
In Louisiana being over 52 gets you exempt, but for those under 52 only an online test is required. Nothing involving actual live guns and its intended for everyone to pass
Don’t know anything about other state’s requirements, but I don’t imagine Wyoming etc would be any more restrictive
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I think those laws were put in place back when they set up the hunter safety laws. The reason being someone who was 50 years at the time had been hunting for decades and to make them sit through a course would be insulting. (Though, IMO, some older hunters could use some formal instruction.) I could be wrong about the reasoning.
Still, today, I wonder how many first time 50 year old hunters with no experience are out there.
I suppose it makes sense that law enforcement and military know how to handle firearms. Though they could benefit from some of the safety training too.
Yes, each state is different with what rules they have. I am sure how the courses are done have changed since I took them. I still have my Kansas hunter safety card somewhere, which was 2 day course I took in 3rd grade, with my dad and my best friend at the time, Ben. It didn’t have shooting instruction, but it did have handing instruction, namely crossing fences, clearing firearms, and the like.
But anyway - point being that there is SOME course requirements, generally, and licenses required. (Again, with exception. I think many states waive the need for regular hunting and fishing licenses after 65, but require specific tags/stamps still, like ducks, deer, etc.) One could argue it should be more. Though I would note hunting accidents are pretty uncommon. Though everyone should be working to get that number to zero.
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I dunno, isn’t this par for the course? Unleash enough people with rifles and such things will happen.
In Travels with Charley J.Steinbeck relates some anecdotes:
- people walking around with a white kerchief (the color of some deer’s backsides) and getting shot in the head,
- a farmer painting the word COW in big black letters on the side of his big white “milk factory”, but she gets shot anyway,
- a wily fella adorning a fallen tree-trunk with a pair of deer’s antlers, and then selling the many pounds of lead shot so harvested.
It was written in 1962 I think, but some things never change.
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“Tante” Inga, my Bavarian boss at the German deli where I worked in California, told me about what’s involved in acquiring a German hunting permit. I was amazed. It should be universal.
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Was August A. Busch the last hiker mistaken for a turkey by a hunter who failed the don’t pull the trigger if you can’t identify what you are aming at test? /s
“…he looked a lot like the turkey i saw with my wife the other night” said the hunter
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