Should I be mad at the old guy, the kid, her parents, or the columnist?

The BBQ Pit
1

Got a horse when I was nine in late summer. That same hunting season my parents bought me a blaze orange sweatshirt and a blaze orange halter for the horse. When we went to the tack shop there were blaze orange flysheets, blaze orange vests, blaze orange socks, blaze orange reins, blaze orange … well, you get the picture.

This is why we were so into blaze orange.

So help me out here. Should I be mad at the guy with the gun, mad at the girl for not either wearing something blaze or putting something blaze on the horses, mad at the girl’s parents for not making her do the same, or mad at the columnist for not even mentioning it?

2

I’ve got to agree that at the very least the rider should have been wearing blaze orange, fluoro green or some other colour which clearly identified her as “not a deer”.

But I’m also wondering how good the old man’s eyesight is at the best of times - for my money, if he couldn’t tell the difference between a horse with rider and a deer at that distance, he has no business having a gun licence in the first place; what if his aim had been a little higher?

It’s good to know that both rider and horse are OK.

3

Why would you be mad at the columnist, or the kid?

Actually, why be pissed at the parents either? It happened in their friggin driveway. It’s not like she was even scampering around in the woods.

Old guy’s eyes might be going bad, but he’s a hell of a shot. 200 yards with a shotgun slug. Anyway, hate him.

4

I read that too, and I was alternately shocked and amused.

The horse in question is white. The 89-year-old man was hunting from a chair. The thought that ran through my mind was “Yup, I done shot me an albino deer, but then the antlers got off and ran to get their pa!”

5

I don’t get the idea of taking a shot at an animal for no reason. It doesn’t sound like this guy had any intention of going to put the injured “deer” out of its misery, so he sure as heck wasn’t “hunting” by any definition of the word with which I’m familiar. And he most certainly knew he was shooting towards his neighbour’s property. Take the old gits guns away before he really DOES kill someone.

6

Yeah, really. Who has ever heard of a white deer?

Poor girl. I hope Princess will be all right.

You know-the fact too that he shot the horse in her grandfather’s DRIVEWAY is pretty fucking scary.

7

Ugh. I live in Knoxville and have to put up with ugly orange as well.

8

Sometimes I REALLY wish I wasn’t too lazy to learn how to make Flash cartoons. I run across so many weird ideas like this it’s erm, funny. :p</p>

9

Actually, you can find them in the forest preserve around Argonne Laboratories in the suburbs of Chicago, but probably not many other places.

No reason to be mad at anyone other than the old guy, I think.

10

No charges have been filed? Why not? What if he had hit the neighbor’s granddaughter in the leg? I’m sorry, but deer season has nothing to do with this - you can’t just start opening fire wherever you want because it’s deer season - you have to have a license, and you have to be hunting in designated, posted areas. There’s no reason why the granddaughter should have thought she needed to wear safety orange in her grandfather’s driveway, deer season or not.

This sounds like nothing more than some trigger happy old guy looking for things to shoot at from his front porch.

11

I still can’t get over the part where the shot hit about six feet lower than what the guy was aiming at. Maybe it’s just me, but I haven’t seen any 12’ tall white deer running around here. And, not being the hunting type, am I a little off to be thinking that you don’t hunt deer with a shotgun?

So, either we’ve got a geezer with really bad aim - six feet off of where he would have aimed for the “deer” OR he’s a bastard nutcase shooting at kids. Either way, I think he needs to have his gun taken away from him.

12

He might have though he finally found Virginia Dare .

Or he could have been a nut with a gun.

13

  1. Shotguns are used for deer hunting, especially in states such as Ohio where it is illegal to hunt with rifles. Slugs are used, instead of the pellet filled shotgun shell most people are familiar with.

  2. When taking a long range shot and expecting the round to drop vertically before covering the horizontal distance, it is customary to adjust the shot for the vertical drop - that is ‘aiming high’.

  3. Neither 1. nor 2. should in any way be taken to condone what this old guy did or suggest that he was anything less than 100% in the wrong. He broke damned near every rule of hunting safety I can think of including being sure of his target, not hunting within 100 yards of any occupied building (includes barns and dog houses), and not making a single move once he knew he made a dreadfully wrong decision.

This girl is lucky to be alive.

14

Uh. No. That’s not true, at least not here. Around here if you don’t want other people hunting you post your land. Which doesn’t mean you can’t hunt your own land.

And, yes, there is a reason she should have been wearing blaze - a couple of them, really: 1) Bullets travel. You don’t shoot towards orange. If you see a perfect 12 point buck in your sights, you don’t shoot if there’s orange in the background. 2) She was leading a ‘dark bay gelding’, roughly the same color as a deer - and it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if it was the bay at which the old guy was aiming. 3) It’s the middle of deer hunting season. I wouldn’t go for a walk without wearing blaze - because bullets travel, and you don’t shoot towards orange.

15

I’ve heard of deer hunters (usually visiting from the Chicago suburbs) shooting Holsteins during deer hunting season. I don’t know of too many deer that are white with black spots!

16

Didn’t realize this was different in different States - my bad. Arkansas (where I used to hunt with my grandfather) won’t let you hunt unless it’s posted, and they specify those areas away from people’s property unless the property owner agrees to it ahead of time. And, even if you’re hunting on legal property, you may not fire w/in 100 yards of any occupied structure.

17

If they’re not filing criminal charges, I sincerely hope this kid’s family sues the 89 year old doofus for the cost of the veterinary care at the very least. This guy was extremely irresponsible. Who the hell hunts from a chair on his porch?

Jeez.

18

In order to head off what this thread may probably become, I present “The deer thread: Reader’s Digest version”.

Anastasia: See, I think deer hunting is inhumane. This wouldn’t have happened if deer hunting were banned!

Bathsheba: No, deer hunting is necessary to thin the population, otherwise the deer would die a slow death of starvation.

Coriander: That’s true. There’ve been more car accidents involving deer in Minnesota this year than the usual, and that’s attributed to the larger deer population than normal.

Anastasia: But if the deer starve and die off, then they’d reach equilibrium with the environment eventually, and there wouldn’t be a need to thin the population through hunting!

Delilah: Doesn’t go far enough. He could have killed that little girl. Guns should be banned, not just hunting.

Elmo, Tickle Me: Hee hee!

Bathsheba & Coriander, simulposting: Let’s not turn this into a gun control debate.

Bathsheba & Coriander, simulposting: Simulpost!

Fo Shizzle Mah Nizzle: Look, this isn’t an argument about hunting, either. Some people do it, some people don’t.

Elmo, Tickle Me: Won’t anybody tickle me?

Frank, The Blue-Collar Mod: This thread is closed.

There. Now that such a digression is forestalled, back to the 89-year-old man hunting from his front porch.

19

“Ma? Get yer cookin’ pot ready. I shot me a BIG one!”

20

My uncle lives in a rural area Wisconsin area about a hundred yards from a riverbank. He and his buddies used to “hunt” from inside his garage.