well the army dont shoot their own,, we need to find out what they are doing that the hunters arent and add it to the procedure for getting a licence, if it costs more money to do, pass the cost on to those after a licence
Ummm! The army don't shoot their own? Maybe that is because the NZ Army can't afford real bullets. The US Army certainly do. You want to read John Krackauer's "Where Men Win Glory"
yeah well the us army are trigger happy,
I wonder how much of this is to do with how rushed we are as a society now .
Back in the deer culling days there weren't many hunters shooting each other . Two hunters would be hunting a block together but were seldom together and perhaps hadn't seen each other for days, not knowing quite where the other was . They had no hi-viz, no GPS or walkie talkies .
I think people are rushing it, they work, work, work, then get a long weekend or a few days off and then rush into the bush on a friday night and know they have to be back sunday night and are mad keen for a kill .
Or maybe more people are hunting now that aren't as capable with guns as people were in the past . More people from the city who live near a hunting and fishing store, it is so easy to get a gun now, so many brands and so many prices . You can get a license like that grab a gun for a little over five hundred dollars and be firing rounds willy nilly that afternoon if you wanted . They don't use firearms as often as people from a rural background . Everyone seems to be an amateur hunter now, the hills are filled with hunters, I guess it only makes sense that there will be fatalities .
Or maybe all these mod cons we have today are actually making people more lax in their attitudes to safety, they have done a hunts course, have all the hi-viz gear, fancy scopes, GPS's and walkie talkies so aren't as focussed as they should be, or would of been in the past .
I am not sure but is sure sad, I'm sure most cases are avoidable, but I can only see it getting worse .
almost any teenage bloke can afford a car now and head off to the hills on their own or with their young mates, the inexperienced with the inexperienced.
years ago, young people would probably be going with more experienced people since the young person would be less likely to have a car.
its just one suggestion of a number of reasons why people are probably being shot.
deer stalker clubs should be used to mentor new hunters as mandatory and they should have the power to suggest to police whether those hunters should be allowed to keep their licence. only when the hunter displays the necessary skill can they hunt without the guidance of a trained deer stalker right beside them, and they should pay the deer stalker club for their time and effort... look at how long it takes to get a full drivers licence, look at how easy it is to get a gun licence and shoot just about where ever you want in the parks....
Gaitors and waynowski have identified possible "root causes" and the comments they make are valid.
Just in my short occupation of the planet, lifestyles and priorities ,technology and populations have grown at an astronomical pace.
I dont think its easy to get either a gun or vehicle licence.....but its what happens after that that counts.
As an example i have a 17 year old grandson, he has three sisters(11, 15 and 20 yo) and one brother (21 yo) . He has just got his provisional licence and has had one minor accident (backed into a parked car). He has no practical experience whatsoever , will not heed advice , ie knows it all.This is just an example ....we live with it and pray that he will see the error of his ways ,he gets plenty of support
How do we minimise the possibility of accidents ?
There are many documented cases , the news is always bad when it comes to motor vehicle/cycling/motor bikes and other road accidents,which are far and beyond the number of gun accidents.
Firearms and there use/ownership have always been an emotive issue ,like 1080 , remember the Alpers bloke who didnt want any guns at all? He left the country.
I was a Mountain Safety Council Firearms instructor for many years, and always when delivering my message to prospective gun owners i spent lots of time on my own experience of being shot and other examples of hunting accidents.
There is no easy solution to the gun accident question , like vehicle accidents they will happen .
Individuals have to take responsibility for their actions knowing that they will have to live for the rest of their life with the possibility of being the cause of a mates (or a member of the public)death or worse a serious debilitating injury.
people are shooting at a target they are identifying as a "small part of a bigger animal" their brains are filling in the missing pieces to tell them they are shooting at their desired target....
they should also be thinking well what if this is part of a person can i put together a person from the part i am seeing?
even experienced hunters are shooting people. either because the have never really mastered the ability to correctly identify their target or they have become arrogant or ignorant about identifying their target correctly possibly after identifying their target numerous times before....
deer in nz are very skittish except in the roar. the hunter knows they may only have one shot and the deer is gone, that creates added tension and a desire to shoot before the deer moves off... a deer is a totally different shape from a person, the people shooting the deer just arent able to see enough of the target to correctly identify it as a deer. they are using too much guesswork, if you cant identify a SIGNIFICANT portion of a deers anatomy when you're pointing a rifle at it don't shoot, the less you can see the more likely you are to get it wrong people are shooting based on seeing a small amount of a texture and or colour.... often in low light conditions.... our brains are wired to try and make a meaningful shape from the unmeaningful.. just look at clouds for a while.... oh look i see a deer in the clouds, i'll shoot that.....
Agree with you OldGoat (a rare thing, I realise) when you say that car accidents and the per-capita risks from them far exceed any risks from hunting 'accidents' - even on a bad year like this.
However, close to 100% of the population own a car, whereas whole groups of the urban population don't even know any hunters, never mind hunt themselves.
So when there's a car accident, the response of the masses is 'They should do something about those roads'. Whereas when there's a hunting 'accident' the public response is 'They should do something about those hunters'.
If there's a knee-jerk reaction to a car accident, it's to improve the driving environment. Whereas, if there's a knee-jerk reaction to hunting accidents, it tend to be to prohibit / limit hunting. Which is where I fear this ends up. I agree we need to make hunting as safe as possible - but it will be a very sad thing if one day we end up losing the ability to hunt freely on crown land as a result of accidents that should be preventable.
thers a difference with car accidents and shooting. in accidents people werent deliberately trying to hit anything
in shooting they are....
in a way hunting is more black and white. if you identify your target properly there won't be any fatalities,
with car accidents there are so many variables to the accidents where do you start to find fault. i'd argue its a lot easier to have a car accident even when you're being careful hunters only have to worry about a few simple rules such as identify your target, consider your firing zone. safety catch on, dont chamber your round until you need to.
There doesnt seem to be much difference between shooting someone and causing a motor vehicle accident if one considers the outcome-serious injury,death,financial loss, family trauma etc
Statistically you or your family stand a much greater chance of being in a motor accident , whether you cause it or someone else does,than having a firearms accident.
Scene examination of accidents(motor vehicle) are very thorough and identify causes -usually fairly quickly because there are dedicated staff allocated to this type of work.
Accidents with firearms are usually limited to one victim ,and one perpetrator- scene examination can be difficult ,if not impossible because preservation of the site can be compromised.
There are documented cases of vehicles being used as weapons,waynowski.
Firearms accidents will continue to happen , unfortunately, but at a considerably less rate than motor vehicle accidents.
Again i will stress that it is up to the individual when hunting to observe all the rules ........"no meat is better than no mate"
