Wisconsin man lets 3-year-old fire a shotgun during a turkey hunt, missing the turkey and injuring the man’s child and another adult.
A 3yo is at significant risk of injury from the recoil even if they’re the only person within a mile when they pull the trigger.
Seems like Wisconsin Man is giving Florida Man a run for his money moronicity.
A three year old should only be given a .410, a 20 gauge tops.
The kid didn’t miss the turkey:
According to Thok, a 34-year-old male mentor said he saw what appeared to be a turkey fan and movement in the woods. The mentor then knelt and helped the 3-year-old stand in front of him, aim, and pull the trigger.
Instead of hitting a turkey, the 12-gauge semi-automatic shotgun blast struck a 40-year-old male turkey hunter and the hunter’s 7-year-old child.
I, for one, never knew that fowls have groupies.
Actually isn’t a Dillinger smaller, for small people?
This “mentor” any relation to Dick Cheney?
You say that and then quote the part of the story that says he missed the turkey.
Instead of hitting a turkey, the 12-gauge semi-automatic shotgun blast struck a 40-year-old male turkey hunter and the hunter’s 7-year-old child.
5’ 7" isn’t that short.
He was never aiming at a turkey, hence he didn’t miss it. He was aiming at what the adult thought was a turkey but actually were people carrying a turkey fan.
In order to miss something, you need to be aiming at it.
ETA: Being pedantic:
“The” and “a” are both articles, which are a type of determiner in English grammar.
- “a” / “an”
- Type: Indefinite article
- Use: when talking about something general or not specific
- Example:
- I saw a dog. (any dog, not a specific one)
- “the”
- Type: Definite article
- Use: when talking about something specific or already known
- Example:
- I saw the dog. (a specific dog—maybe we already talked about it)
The article uses “a” because it’s talking about something not specified. You use “the” implying that there is already a specific turkey, e.g., one that was being aimed at.
It also sounds like the toddler couldn’t have missed becythe toddler wasn’t the one aiming.
No one should suggest that the toddler, oh so conveniently, taking the blame for the shot might just be just a little bit suspicious.
From the article:
“It also puts a bright spotlight on target identification and the risks that come with turkey reaping, a tactic where a hunter uses a turkey fan or decoy as cover while moving toward a bird. Wisconsin DNR says the tactic is legal, but also warns hunters not to use it on public land or in the woods because of the safety risk.”
So the father and child who were shot were carrying a decoy in the woods, where they weren’t clearly visible to other hunters who shot at something they couldn’t clearly see.
It sounds like there was a lot of stupidity all around.
It reads as if the 3 year old had little, if anything, to do with this, other than possibly distracting the adult enough that he didn’t realize what he was shooting at. This would be like a headline that reads “3 year old runs over mother with car” but when you read the article it explains that the dad was moving the car off the street and in the dark didn’t realize the mom was standing in the driveway. The kid was just sitting in his lap and was only ‘driving’ to the extent that he had his hands on the wheel.
On an aside, it always bugs me when articles like this use the phrase ‘semi automatic’. I’m not a gun defender, but it always seems to me when an author says that, that they’re trying to make this sound worse, more violent, more intentional, like they’re going out of their way to compare it to a machine gun (implying it was just short of being one).
I know most people know this, but for those that don’t, ‘semi automatic’ just means that when you fire one round, the next one is automatically loaded (not fired, just loaded). The fact that, in this story, a single shot was fired, means the ‘semi automatic’ part is moot. The same accident would’ve happened with a single shot or pump/bolt action gun.
Whatever happened to wearing a bright orange vest when hunting?
“In Maine, our fall turkey season overlaps our firearms season for deer and moose. Maine has a “hunter orange” safety regulation that requires anyone hunting any species (except waterfowl) with a firearm to wear two articles of hunter orange clothing during the deer season and one during the moose season. Can turkeys detect the color orange?”
— Question submitted via email.The short answer to your question is, “Yes, wild turkeys can detect the color orange.” The visual acuity of wild turkeys is legendary among turkey hunters. As is the case with other daylight active (diurnal) birds, color vision is one of their attributes.
Turkey Vision - The National Wild Turkey Federation
But unless the turkeys associate orange with danger, them seeing the color orange doesn’t necessarily amount to much.
The neighbor who hunts my land was carrying a decoy in the woods. There aren’t supposed to be any other hunters in my woods (aside from the rest of his hunting party). You’re not supposed to fire unless you’ve got a good enough look to be sure what you’re aiming at. While I agree that carrying a decoy in the sort of situation in which the woods may be crowded with strangers isn’t wise, the serious stupidity is almost all on one side here.
They only have to associate it with humans; if that. Wild turkeys generally avoid humans. And any wild species is likely to pay extra attention to anything unusual.
I don’t doubt it, but we’ve had aggressive neighborhood flocks for years. Having a tom drop out of a tree and march toward you is terrifying.
Yeah, I don’t think hunters wear orange vests to become invisible to turkeys.
You just standing there looking cute
and when something moves - you shoot
- Tom Lehrer
There’s a sadly untranslatable German joke, because it’s a pun: the verb “treffen” has several meanings, including “to meet” and “to hit a target (when shooting)”, so the joke goes:
Treffen sich zwei Jäger. Beide tot.
Two hunters meet/hit each other. Both dead.