Thread: Man who shot teen dead in hunting accident 22 years ago loses firearms licence bid

@Moa Hunter

I agree with your description of how things are currently viewed, but the current public, legal and court logic is wrong:

1. Gun purpose: kill animals, hole targets.
2. Car purpose: get places, carry stuff.
3. Car & gun used to accidentally kill someone.
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4. We persecute the shooter.

The logic break oi course occurs between (3) and (4). Something else happens there, based on a strong mental association between guns and war / murder... So we are deeply resistant to process the idea of gun accidental deaths.

To increase the contrast, Hollywood rarely portrays how devastatingly effective cars are at killing people, occupants and bystanders alike.

So in the end it comes down to a simple 'guns are evil, cars are not' delusion, widely held, even by many shooters.

That is why the latest court case (correctly IMHO) got hailed as a victory for gun control.

Mad? Yes. For real? Yes.

Originally Posted by Cordite

@Moa Hunter

I agree with your description of how things are currently viewed, but the current public, legal and court logic is wrong:

1. Gun purpose: kill animals, hole targets.
2. Car purpose: get places, carry stuff.
3. Car & gun used to accidentally kill someone.
----------
4. We persecute the shooter.

The logic break oi course occurs between (3) and (4). Something else happens there, based on a strong mental association between guns and war / murder... So we are deeply resistant to process the idea of gun accidental deaths.

To increase the contrast, Hollywood rarely portrays how devastatingly effective cars are at killing people, occupants and bystanders alike.

So in the end it comes down to a simple 'guns are evil, cars are not' delusion, widely held, even by many shooters.

That is why the latest court case (correctly IMHO) got hailed as a victory for gun control.

Mad? Yes. For real? Yes.

Of Course we are all totally shocked, sickened and saddened by the accident photos in your last post Cordite. If I may make a comment that I believe represents the view of others here without actually asking them, however I doubt that I am wrong.
As to the quoted post above: When a hunter makes the decision to squeeze the trigger and fire a shot, they have made a decision to Kill. Not disable, wound, incapacitate or maim but to 'Kill' the animal they have taken aim at. This is quite a different situation to that when a person for example picks up someone else's firearm and accidentally discharges it killing another person. Or perhaps an inexperienced poorly trained person trips in the field and discharges their firearm with the same result. To my mind these handling errors are more comparable to a driving error that leads to a fatal accident. Crazy mad high speed reckless driving is different. We might perhaps consider that a fatality from reckless firearms use like firing a high-powered semi auto for fun into a block of trees might be considered accidental. But now back to our shooter who has fired that deliberate shot with the intention of killing, he has achieved his intended goal and killed, but sadly not the deer that he imagined.

Originally Posted by Moa Hunter

Of Course we are all totally shocked, sickened and saddened by the accident photos in your last post Cordite. If I may make a comment that I believe represents the view of others here without actually asking them, however I doubt that I am wrong.
As to the quoted post above: When a hunter makes the decision to squeeze the trigger and fire a shot, they have made a decision to Kill. Not disable, wound, incapacitate or maim but to 'Kill' the animal they have taken aim at. This is quite a different situation to that when a person for example picks up someone else's firearm and accidentally discharges it killing another person. Or perhaps an inexperienced poorly trained person trips in the field and discharges their firearm with the same result. To my mind these handling errors are more comparable to a driving error that leads to a fatal accident. Crazy mad high speed reckless driving is different. We might perhaps consider that a fatality from reckless firearms use like firing a high-powered semi auto for fun into a block of trees might be considered accidental. But now back to our shooter who has fired that deliberate shot with the intention of killing, he has achieved his intended goal and killed, but sadly not the deer that he imagined.

@Moa Hunter,

Thanks, I agree handling errors are perhaps excusable if it is someone not licensed/trained in firearms handling, less so by a licensed person, but then again currently there has been no practical safety training in handling guns. But are we to make breaking the target identification rule the unpardonable sin, but pointing a possibly loaded firearm around in unsafe directions somehow more forgivable? Maybe you're right, since target misidentification is often committed by experienced hunters, whereas the other types of error seem more like untrained ignorance.

You are correct to specify that the "intent to kill" we speak of when pulling the trigger is an intent to kill an animal, not an intent to kill a human. And therefore we cannot transform it on hindsight into intent to kill another person.

IMHO going for a drive and shooting at an animal to humanely kill it are morally neutral. That is, nothing inherently wrong with either act. If we accept that, it follows that accidentally killing someone by car or by gun while carrying out the above respective activities are also morally neutral and should be treated equally by our Courts. That is, neither as a crime as crimes require "malice aforethought".

But should we correct matters by going lighter on gun-accidentees, or by going harder on car-accidentees? Both certainly warrant a serious response, no doubt we agree.

Would it be a fair view to take regarding both hunting and driving accidents that we should expect to make mistakes and that we therefore need to be actually trained in how to identify those high danger areas and situations and how to mitigate them. Through better training and more stringent testing of both hunters and drivers the general standard would be higher for one and any borderline individuals across the testing programme would be weeded out - that is people who may not be able to keep it together and drive defensively when the really need to for example.
My Mrs is a German import, over there she did night classes three or four nights a week as well as practical training on weekends for three months as part of the driver licence training.
IMHO German drivers have a much higher skill level than Kiwis.

Originally Posted by Moa Hunter

Would it be a fair view to take regarding both hunting and driving accidents that we should expect to make mistakes and that we therefore need to be actually trained in how to identify those high danger areas and situations and how to mitigate them. Through better training and more stringent testing of both hunters and drivers the general standard would be higher for one and any borderline individuals across the testing programme would be weeded out - that is people who may not be able to keep it together and drive defensively when the really need to for example.
My Mrs is a German import, over there she did night classes three or four nights a week as well as practical training on weekends for three months as part of the driver licence training.
IMHO German drivers have a much higher skill level than Kiwis.

@Moa Hunter

Your Mrs too? My German taught me to drive better, she still does in fact....(-:

@Cordite you are a fuckwit I don't no what makes you think its ok to post such sic images you mite find it funny but I do not nor would any member of my family looking at that shit , your a queer cunt take your sic images & fuck off

Originally Posted by Boaraxa

@Cordite you are a fuckwit I don't no what makes you think its ok to post such sic images you mite find it funny but I do not nor would any member of my family looking at that shit , your a queer cunt take your sic images & fuck off

Boaraxa, I will take some responsibility for the photos Cordite posted on my shoulders. I am the one who is debating gun shot deaths against road deaths with Cordite.
I have never in my life seen road fatality images like that before, they are shocking. I didn't even ever imagine that is what it could look like. I would like to see the actual photos of the teenager shot by Diack posted too.
Not through some morbid fascination, but because shooting fatality photos need to be shown to gun users especially new licence holders and those motor vehicle accident photos should be shown to our sons and daughters before they drive. We are hiding from the truth with our sanitised media coverage and that is not helping to save anyone else's life into the future. I will be showing my son those photos in the future and telling him "this is truly how you and your mates could end up in an accident, so think when you drive and don't fuck it up" My 2c

Originally Posted by Boaraxa

@Cordite you are a fuckwit I don't no what makes you think its ok to post such sic images you mite find it funny but I do not nor would any member of my family looking at that shit , your a queer cunt take your sic images & fuck off

@Boaraxa

Sorry to have offended you, but mind your language if your kids are about on the forum. Mods, fine to blank the carnage images. This is what happens on roads but we take more note of hunters making mistakes, so who is sick?