Stupid hunter who doesn't understand basic safety..

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I started to put this in the pit, but it simply lacks the necessary je ne sais quoi for that forum, so here it goes. Move if/when necessary. :slight_smile:

I live in what is affectionately known as ‘the back edge of the middle of nowhere.’ The drive to work is about an hour, and perhaps half of that is on a two-to-three lane road through heavily wooded areas.

The other morning I was tooling along when there was a sudden pop and a lovely star-shaped hole appeared in my windshield, directly in front of me. No other drivers were around, so it wasn’t a rock kicked up by a car. The road was fairly wide at that point, no houses around, so unless someone was really, really, really good (or using a slingshot and really good) it wasn’t a kid throwing stuff at passing motorists. I called Mr Kitty to tell him what happened, and that I would probably need him to start looking at the local junkyards for a replacement windshield. We had the following exchange:

Me: It was so weird- there’s no other cars on the road. If it was a rock or something, I don’t know where it came from. You know, deer season did just start up; maybe…

Mr K: If it was a caliber large enough to take out a deer, there’s no way you’d still have a windshield. You didn’t get shot at. Are you sure there weren’t kids around or something?

Me: I suppose you’re right; but, no, no one was around.

Mr K: Maybe the deer were throwing rocks.

Me: They’re Palestinian deer? :dubious:

Mr K: You never know.

I babied the car to work and back home. The hole went through the first layer of ‘glass’, through the plastic barrier, and into the second layer of glass (no incriminating object tucked in the hole, sadly); three of those fix-it-kits later, there’s still an obvious divot, but I won’t have to replace the windshield at the moment (thank og).

BUT.

After insisting that there was NO WAY the car could’ve been the ‘victim’ of a hunting miscalculation, Mr Kitty took a closer look when he was applying the second kit, and found what basically amounts to a spray pattern- little divots across the windshield, and ‘scratches’ (I can’t think of a better way to describe them) on the frame at the edge of the windshield- that had not been there prior to my incident. :mad:

So he amended his statement- the car probably was shot (not necessarily at), but with birdshot rather than a larger caliber/buckshot. Would have sucked if I’d been driving a little faster with the passenger window down, but it probably wouldn’t have killed me. I filed a (non-emergency) police report, the cops came out, agreed that the damage probably was the result of birdshot, and said they’d check out the folks that typically hunt in that area to see if they’d… er… noticed anything. :rolleyes:

Look, I don’t like hunting. I’m not a huge fan overall of guns. But I get that it’s important to folks around here, so I don’t make a big deal out of my objections. UNLESS YOU’RE A DUMBASS, like the folks a couple years back who were shooting deer and just taking the antlers, leaving the carcasses on the side of the road. Or like the FUCKING MORON WHO SHOT MY CAR. Accidents happen, and perhaps you aren’t aware how far your chosen projectile can travel if you miss your target. And yes, a Jeep can look an awful lot like small game, especially when it’s traveling along a paved road at 65mph. But is it too much to ask for you to maybe double-check before pulling the trigger? Or use a little bit of math skills to figure out shooting in the direction of a well-traveled road isn’t a good gamble??

Please, a little common sense goes a long way. I was lucky as hell; the next time someone else might not be.

[sub]* Seriously, the parcels of land out there average in the hundreds, because it’s primarily multi-generational pulpwood land that someone happened to have stuck a trailer on at some point- our neighbor across the road has 150 acres, and that’s considered small. Our parcel, at 16 acres, is miniscule, but it butts up against 3300 acres of pulpwood land, leased by the local law enforcement for hunting, so if you shot away from our house, it would be a long time before the bullet got to anything resembling a road or dwelling.[/sub]

2

That asterisk goes at the end of the word ‘gamble’. :smack:

3

Birdshot, even large pellet sizes like BB and #2 (used for duck), doesn’t travel all that far, maybe 200-300 yards before being so dispersed and slowed by drag that it basically can’t penetrate anything. “Gooseshot” (T and TT), especially bismuth shot in a magnum shell, can go further, but if it was far enough away that it didn’t do more than chip the windshield it would have either been coming in from an oblique angle and hit the bodywork, or it would have been sufficiently dispersed that it would have sprayed the bonnet and roof. Are you certain that this wasn’t someone taking a deliberate potshot at you, either out of malice or gross vandalism?

In any case, it is certainly an example of egregious disregard for safety rules, and the shooter (if located) should be both sued in civil court for damages and prosecuted to the maximum extent of the law. A shotgun is no different than any other firearm in this regard; you are still responsible for your backdrop.

Stranger

4

Last year, around here, on the very first day of hunting season we were driving through the woods (never a good idea).

Hunters lined up and down the road waiting to pop bambie as she scampered across the road.

As we drove by, not one of em either bothers to make sure the gun was pointed up, down, or away from us as we drove by. One even sorta kept his gun aimed in our general direction as we went by.

Dipshits like that should be shot. Of course they often are, by their equally dispshit friends.

AFTR, I don’t like to hunt, but am fairly pro hunting (when its done responsibly). And if you wanna shoot some criminal in the middle of the stealing your Tivo, have at it. So, its not like OMG guns!

5

I’m not convinced this was a shotgun. If someone had fired a shotgun close enough to the car to do that kind of damage, the OP should have heard it. A shotgun doesn’t sound like anything else. A small caliber rifle, like a .22, would be quiet enough that a driver might not hear it at range, and the damage to the windshield sounds like it could be done by a .22, with the extra divots either being the bullet fragmenting, or maybe glass spray blown back into the windshield as she continues driving.

6

I’m thinking it was a .22 also. Somebody shooting squirrel or other varmint. We didn’t see the hole though.

7

In regards to the OP

Somebody could have been a fair/respectable/safe? distance away shooting way into the air (at something one hopes). By the time whatever it was was coming back to earth it might be and probably was falling slowly enough to not hurt someone or something. HOWEVER, your car was STILL tooling down the Hwy at 60 mph give or take. So, it might not be irresponsible shooters except in the more stricter senses.

8

I thought this thread was going to be about Jason David Cloutier.

9

It seems to me like we live in an entire stupid society that doesn’t understand basic safety.

We make a hobby out of getting drunk and wandering around in the woods with guns, shooting at things that move, and enshrine the ability to do so in our Constitution. Even when our Vice President shoots his friend in the face, we still get downright nasty about the notion that this should change.

I dunno… maybe it IS me that’s crazy… that’s a more plausible explanation, I guess…

10

A shot that even goes in the vicnity of a road, buildng, or any other place where people are likely to be is irresponsible, and the shooter is obligated to know the backdrop and lay of the land.

You really should tape before you paint with that broad of a brush. Most hunters are eminantly responsible and safe. It is often the people who have not grown up with hunting and whose only exposure to firearms is what the they see on the televisor and in video games who behave so irresponsibly. These are also the people (like Dick ‘Mad Panda’ Cheney) who lack the skill and patience to hunt properly and instead participate in canned hunts.

Stranger

11

Thats why I said stricter senses.

Around here, the trend apprears to be more and more requiring hunters for the most part to shoot from tree stands for deer hunting. Part of the theory being they are always aiming down at something, so “friendly fire” is much less of an issue.

12

Few weeks ago I’m driving through a nearby quaint little town. Little boom boom booms on the roof of my car. WTF? It startled me and I’m still in the “new car” stage where I notice every little thing like that…

So what was it? Acorns falling from the trees on that cute little tree-lined Main Street… Note to self: don’t drive through that town for a week or so… :slight_smile: