Hunting Sense

Today while surfing the net, I came across a number of articles about people being shot either while hunting or by hunters. There were three on just one RSS Feed I subscribe to. Being a lifelong hunter, I have to say it makes me want to hang my head in shame and embarrassment.

Hunters constantly fight negative stereotyping and incidents where we ‘accidentally’ shoot one another or other innocent people only makes us look like careless fools. Of course I know accidents happen, but I have to wonder how many of these could have been prevented by just paying attention and using common sense. The way I was raised and taught, you never point a gun in the general direction of another person.

Yes, there is excitement at the sight of game, but that shouldn’t let common sense and safety rules go out the window. Knowing where you hunting buddies are located and making sure there is no one or nothing that may be hit by the bullet if you miss or the bullet goes through the animal should always be something we think about. If doing so just makes you think about a missed opportunity, then you don’t need to be hunting.

I also have to wonder about how many of these accidents are caused by inexperienced or new hunters who just decided they could pick up a weapon and go out and kill something. I’ve been on a couple hunts with people like that and they scare me to death. Every time the weapon ended up being taken away from them no matter if they got mad or not. I’d rather have someone mad at me than to have someone injured or dead.

If you don’t know the basic rules of safety while handling a weapon and hunting, then go along without one to learn before picking one up. If all of it is wiped from your brain when you see an animal to shoot, then you need to stop hunting until you get over being stupid. It’s as simple as that.

Go take some safety courses, or take them again, and then come back and show us that you aren’t a careless fool and aren’t going to make the rest of look that way too.

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