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Imagine you open your door, the police tells you, "Your adult son had been shot and he didn't make it."
Your son went hunting with his mates. Now he wouldn't be coming home. He's been so terribly yanked from your life. How are you going to survive it?
This is the scenario and statistics in New Zealand. For the last 12 years, one hunter a year was shot dead by another hunter.
Why did it happen? Is it really a case of "buck fever"? Is it really that adrenaline brought on by the thrill of a potential stag causes lapses in judgment. Buck fever was when the brain took over and told the eyes what it wanted to see.
Our most infamous case was Margaret Ives, a 25-year-old secondary school teacher from Lower Hutt. She was on a camping holiday near Turangi when she was shot dead, shot in the head. She was brushing her teeth at the camp site..
Her killer, a 25-year-old young man was charged with careless use of a firearm. He shot her in the head from the road alongside the camp site, after seeing her in his spotlight and thinking she was a deer or possum.
In our latest case, Christopher Dummer, 54, was sentenced to nine months in prison and ordered to pay $7000 reparation for shooting the 29-year-old, known as Cameron, on a hunting trip in the Wairarapa at Easter. Dummer was only 16.3 metres away when he got Mr McDonald in his scope and fired once, shooting him in the head.
As a bereaved mother myself, I feel for Cameron's mum. No amount of jail term, and money reparation could bring Cameron back. I support in the McDonalds in their call for tougher rules.
http://tvnz.co.nz/close-up/cracking-down-hunting-tragedies-video-5044563
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10829192
http://reducefootprints.blogspot.com/
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