Sunday, November 22, 2009
Include victims' message in safety class
Mark Taylor is outdoors editor at The Roanoke Times.
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Ralph Graybill got the news midday Wednesday when he called his wife to check in from his deer camp in Botetourt County.
The evening before a hunter in Franklin County had shot at three Ferrum students after mistaking them for deer, killing one student and injuring another.
"My heart just sank," Graybill said.
How could it not?
Like every serious hunting-related accident this is a tragedy for many, and on many levels.
The family and loved ones of Jess Goode, the student who was killed, are completely shattered.
And while there may be less sympathy for Jason David Cloutier, the man authorities have charged with manslaughter in the case, those close to him are crushed as well.
The guilt that's certainly saddling Cloutier will remain long after he finishes any jail term he may receive.
For hunters there is a mix of emotions, a combination of sympathy for those touched by the accident and frustration that the shooting has provided the general public with a reason to fear and distrust the entire hunting community.
Graybill is more deeply vested than most in the subject of hunting safety, having spent countless hours during the past 17 years volunteering as a hunter education instructor.
"It's frustrating when you dedicate all those hours to hunter education, and a story like this gives everybody a black eye," Graybill, a retiree from Roanoke, said after first saying that his heart was with Goode's family and friends. "It causes people to say, 'Well, all those hunters are out there shooting at anything that moves.'"
That's hardly reality.
Statistics show that the hunting accident rate is low.
Figures compiled by the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries show that there have been 393 serious hunting accidents involving firearms or treestand falls since 1998.
That's a rate of about 12 accidents -- most nonfatal -- for every 100,000 participants.
The 39 fireams-related fatalities during the period amount to a rate of about 1.2 per 100,000 hunters.
About one-third of the incidents are two-party firearms accidents, and many of those are cases where the shooter mistook the victim for game.
Few of the incidents involve nonhunters. According to the DGIF, the Ferrum shooting is the only such fatality during that 10-plus year period.
When firearms hunting accidents happen, it's always news.
The incidents, like serious accidents caused by drunk drivers, should be news.
Unfortunately for the vast majority of hunters who do things the right way, those hunting accident news reports do contribute to a generalized perception that the woods during hunting season are a danger zone.
And it's a perception some are all eager to perpetuate.
For example, when news regarding proposals to expand hunting opportunities appears in this newspaper, the stories often generate letters from the Humane Society of the United States.
Those letters often reference, as examples of why hunting is a threat to society as a whole, specific incidents involving nonhunters who have been injured or killed because of hunter carelessness.
There are other digs.
A couple of years ago Walkabout Outfitters, a Roanoke hiking and outdoors store, was selling blaze orange vests that carried the written message: "Don't Shoot! I'm a hiker."
The only way to eliminate that attitude is to eliminate all accidents.
It's an admirable goal, but one that's not realistic.
But it doesn't stop Graybill and his fellow 900 hunter education volunteers from trying and making progress.
During those 10-hour hunter education classes, they pound the "Be sure of your target and beyond your target" message into the heads of their students, about 14,000 of whom go through the training annually.
They show a "Shoot? Don't shoot?" scenario video.
They talk about how once that bullet leaves the gun there's nothing that can bring it back.
Positively, serious hunting incidents have declined 25 percent since hunter education became mandatory in 1988. Frustratingly, in seven of the 16 two-party firearms fatalities from 1999 through last year, the shooter had taken a hunter education class.
How can it be improved?
First, why not make sure everyone who is supposed to be hunter education certified is actually certified?
If other states can require license buyers to provide a hunter education certification number, so can Virginia, especially now that the license system is all computerized.
It will take time to implement that kind of system, but why not start?
Then, in the training, go beyond verbal warnings about the potential consequences of carelessness, putting faces and names with the lessons.
Produce videos showing interviews with those whose lives have been shattered by a hunter's carelessness.
And let's hear from some of those careless hunters, too.
Think images of a hunter permanently disfigured by a self-inflicted gunshot won't have an impact? How about words from someone who is behind bars serving a manslaughter sentence?
Those who have made tragic mistakes can't undo them. But if they are willing to tell their stories maybe it will help keep someone else from shattering other lives.
