Game warden sounds like a real tool. Of course 17 year old boys don't look like turkey's, but that's not the only mistake a hunter can make.
I hate to see any kind of hunting accident, and have a hard time believing something like this could be anything more than just pure accidental. But, ENO is right, I'm sure more details will emerge as it's inspected more closely.

Offcourse hunters should be prosecuted for hunting accidents.. we r not ganbangers, we dont run away from our crimes, but take our punishments.. cos one of the fundamental vectors in such a shooting is identifying the prey be4 pulling the trigger.. so in such a case we do something so wrong others could be killed.. Cheyney should be in jail still.. that this tragedy had mortal ramifications for a family member, a son, is no excuse..
But i understand that this guy cant be punished anymore by sitting in a locked cell a decade.. what he did was unthinkable and they r gonna need to watch him closely and make sure he dont off himself while in jail..
and get him counseling after.. But as a hunter we need to ward that triggerfinger doubly closely after hearing of such an event.. WE r the keeper of our triggerfinger and might just have a split second to decide weather we shoot or not and sometimes we loose prey cos we ainth totally sure and that we have to respect.. And not be greedy.. let one get away more often if your not dang sure and teach your kids the dangers involved and not to moove into anothers shootingzone cos it might get them killed..
this dad missed on both things and was doubly wrong, but the punishment was just in this case i feel..
And getting automatically persecuted will deter anyone from covering theire murders as hunting accidents like in a previous article putting a clear division between accidental shooting otherwise and hunting..
peace out!

This sounds more like an accident than a crime, but either way the dad made a serious hunter safety mistake. I think ENO is right--there's more to the story. The story doesn't really say how or why he pulled the trigger. If he just shot blindly at a sound or movement, that's reckless. I hope for his sake that there's a better explanation than that.

While I certainly feel for the father and I'm sure it was an accident, if the shooter had been a third party would we expect "him" to be prosecuted?

It's a great lesson for us all. No matter how experienced we may be, always, always, always identify your target.

Jim

We don't prosecute people for running red lights and killing people. I've never seen a red light that looked green. It should be investigated, but if it was an ACCIDENT then let the family grieve. http://www.dovehunting101.com

Reckless Homocide.

The word "accident" is used too much to bail people out of unsafe irresponsible behavior.

handling firearms is a great responsibility, each case has to be considered on a case by case basis. i have seen incidents where someone was on a drive shooting at a deer and sprayed buckshot into standers well over a hundred yards away in heavy cover. the shooter had no idea the standers were there, and to be honest i can't believe the buckshot made it that far in heavy cover. however they were shooting at a deer. i can't really come up with a good excuse for shooting at something and not knowing what it is. which sounds like it is exactly what happened here. the father shot without knowing what he was shooting at and hit another person. that is basically textbook recklessness which resulted in a death. regardless of who died this man broke the law and should be punished accordingly by the law. yes it may have been a mistake but if he ran over a baby carriage with a car he'd be in the same mess.

As i said this dad was charged and got the right sentence.. if all accidents was charged, but djudged individually then i dont see any problem.. he might have gotten a 10 year probationary sentence, but hes gonna live the rest of his life knowing he ended his sons life.. But still he shouldnt have shot at anything he couldnt identify atleast 99.99% surely..
peace out!!

The writer implies, by associating this deaths with others where it seems to have been the case, that the father shot his son because he thought he was a turkey in the brush. If that's the case, and assuming his son wasn't carrying a turkey decoy or something, there was negligence involved, and an appropriate charge should be leveled.

But since that cause for the firearm's discharge is only implied, I have a hard time reaching any definite conclusions. Did the father rise to greet his son, causing his trigger to snag on a branch, firing the gun? (If so, his muzzle was in an unsafe direction, but I don't think that's criminal negligence, IMO.) Did he shoot at an actual turkey while his son was simply unseen nearby? All we know was that the son was in his father's hunting area when the gun went off. Until we know more, there's no point in drawing too awful many conclusions.

On a mildly unrelated note, I think that one of the biggest problems with gun safety education in the U.S. today is that it treats the person being instructed as though he is a.) dumber than a rock and b.) mentally a child, to boot.

I figure this is (at least partly) because lots of gun safety material is designed for children just starting out and because people want to be very sure they communicate essential, basic messages.

But I also think there's an element of holier-than-thou gloating in a lot of these directives. And I think the cumulative effect is positively (and perhaps occasionally fatally) counterproductive.

Instead of treating gun safety like an adult matter that any mature person intending to handle a firearm should make a serious effort to master, we act like big kids lording it over little kids. And that leads people to dismiss gun safety — not because of the relevance of its content, but because of the vaguely insulting way it's often delivered.

There a certain responsibilities you take when you arm yourself. One is not to shoot anyone or anything other than your quarry. An accident would be if he tripped and fell and his gun discharged. Taking aim and shooting without indentifying your target 100% is a crime of gross negligence. It is tragic that he killed his son. He will be riddled with guilt as long as he lives. Sad for sure, but he was criminally negligent when he shot at his son instead of a turkey. I do not want to hunt with or near anyone who calls this type of behavioer an accident.

potentially lost i meant....

Are accidents crimes - not usually... I can feel for the Wisconsin Warden because I am a warden myself, but I will say this:

It is the hunter's responsibility to know EXACTLY what his target is BEFORE the trigger is pulled. One of the most important gun safety rules to be certain of your target - and beyond. Without knowing fully the circumstances of the events that took place that day to leave a 17-year old boy dead, I can't say what I would do. I can say though, at least in Colorado, charges like manslaughter are brought on by the District Attorney's office, not officers...just something else to think about.

No matter how it ends up, I think it is a very sad story, and I wish everybody involved in this the best.

With that being said, for all the hunters that are reading this - NEVER pull the trigger on your gun, or release an arrow before you are absolutely 110% positive of what you are shooting at and, in the event you miss, what you will hit behind the animal. 99.9% of the time these accidents could be prevented if we, as hunters, would slow down and pay attention to the environment around us. Don't get tunnel vision and forget what you are doing and forget what that thing you are holding in you hands can do.

I agree with Del. It's a case by case situation. I've never understood the ratio of hunter accidents associated with turkey hunters compared to other game hunting but this warden sounds like a real power loving dumb ass.

I personaly know of 2 people that were shot in turkey season,luckly they are still alive.Tim was shot in the shoulder with a scoped .243 I dont know how you could do that.As far as accidents In my opinion the only way it could be a accident is if you shoot at or thru a animal and the projectial travels past your game to a person who couldnt be seen,as far as the guy who said about the buckshot traveling to the watchers or standers any of the drives I was ever in, driver's were not permitted to shoot unless the animals came behind you and watchers were not permitted to shoot till the deer or bear made it past the watchers, putting on a drive and shooting into it is asking to shoot your buddy and it happens every year.It is everybody's own responsability to make sure of what you are shootingat, if I ever shoot a person by mistake I deserve to be in jail.

Regardless, the shooter is responsible for the projectile or projectiles from departure from to the final resting point and hope no one will ever step on it to slip and fall or an arrow in the grass to stick someone in the foot or any other injury or damage it may cause.

If I was the Judge,

I support the ruling of reckless homicide

However!

The charge of reckless homicide would be dropped because of the statement of Sheffield-Wheelock Fire Chief Marc Brown.

I would have ruled because of Mr. Klaseus academia and what he has went thru would make him a valuable person and ordered him to perform 400 hours of community service to assist Instructors in Hunter Safety courses in a satisfactory proactive manner. Also to assign a “PROSPORTSMEN” Mental Health Doctor to treat and monitor Mr. Klaseus condition for post accident stress and suicide prevention.

The 10 Commandments of Gun Safety are designed to prevent "accidents". They happen, but it almost always results from failure to follow the rules. I'm not saying I haven't broken them myself, just that when tragedy strikes, like in this case, it usually means someone made a bad decision.
That being said my heart goes out to this guy, at fault or not. If it happened to me they would probably be bringing two body bags to the site. He will definitely need all the counseling and suicide prevention possible to deal with the consequences of that trigger pull.

Stupid id as stupid does and manslaughter is manslaughter. If the jury decides for mercy, so be it, but this is why we have courts. The warden did his duty. The father will suffer emotionally, as will his family and community, but the law is not about emotion.
And I agree that Cheney should be in jail for shooting his buddy on a canned hunt, just as Huckabee should have lost his hunting licence for pointing his shotgun at the media. You don't aim at anything you do not intend to blow away, whether the gun is loaded or not.
As for this case, gross negligence or pure accident has to be decided in court.

This topic instigated some great discussion and debate. The one thing I think we all agree on is to be sure of your target before you shoot.

Two accidents we know of now, one with this Father fatally shooting his son and Vice President Cheney.

So what’s the difference here?

The Father should have indentified the target before even shouldering his gun.

As with VP Dick Chaney, the fella who was shot should have gotten everyone’s attention especially VP Chaney’s he was present and location, not just jump in and start hunting.

Lawyers are helping to ruin our country no offence. I mean the bad ones. Warning stickers have to be placed on mowers saying no putting your hands near the blades! One even tried to sue God! Now a case where an accident happens and the father is charged with manslaughter. Imagine the sorrow the father has, and he gets imprisoned? stuff happens, and getting up every morning we need to be aware that we take risks by placing our feet on the floor and facing the day. I can only imagine the emotions the father felt by ending a family member's life. God bless that family.

this is why firearm safety is stressed so much. there are no exuses for apathy towards safety. you should always point your gun in a safe direction, treat every gun as though it were loaded, make sure the safety is on until you shoot, keep your finger off the trigger until your shooting, make sure guns are unloaded when not in use, positively identify your target, and teach and stress safety on to others. if you do all that and shoot someone then it is for sure an accident. if you were not being safe and careless then you diserve your convictions

from CarolineTC wrote 2 weeks 5 days ago
You should google "hunting accident and cash" they have a loooooong list of "harvested" hunters even their own children. Well, that is what happens when you destroy inncoent sentient lives and personally I have no sympathy for the families when this happens because they had absolutely none for the innocent animals. An eye for an eye thats is what many of us believe.

That is an utterly cruel and heartless thing to say. I dont believe ive ever been this disgusted. Its because of people like you calling our servicemen and women "babykillers" and "war criminals" that posttramatic stress is higher than ever. I hope your proud. Im also curious to know how you sleep at night.

I can see how some people would say that it was just a very bad mistake. But there is no way in hell I would shoot at something that I "thought" was a turkey. I would have to be 1000% sure of my target before I pulled the trigger. The father should have been WAY MORE CAREFUL.......!