JL's Link
I did a little looking around and came across the new article on hunting accidents. Good stuff. This stat sort of puts it in context. I'd rather see a stat of mishaps per number of hunters. ""The estimated incidence of a firearm injury associated with hunting activities was 9 per 1 million hunting days.""
How Many People are Killed or Injured in Hunting Accidents?
by Doris Lin
Updated November 30, 2018
According to the International Hunter Education Association, in an average year, fewer than 1,000 people in the US and Canada are accidentally shot by hunters, and of these, fewer than 75 are fatalities. In many cases, these fatalities are self-inflicted by hunters who trip, fall, or have other accidents that cause them to shoot themselves with their own weapons. Most of the other fatalities come in hunting parties, where one hunter shoots another accidentally.
Firearm Fatalities in Hunting
Fatality numbers have improved somewhat in recent years, thanks to extensive hunter education programs available in most states, but hunting does come with inherent dangers. Hunting fatalities due to firearms account for about 12 to 15 percent of all fatalities due to firearms nationally. Hunting proponents will point out that the chances of a death due to a firearm accident of any kind are roughly the same as a death from falling out of a bed, chair, or another piece of furniture—about 1 in 4,888. If you compare pure numbers, roughly 20 times as many people die each year by accidental drowning than do by accidents while hunting. These statistics are slightly misleading, however, since far more people engage in recreational swimming than engage in sports hunting with firearms.
Overall accidental death statistics from the National Safety Council can provide some context. Of all accidental deaths:
1 out of every 114 is a motor vehicle crash 1 out of every 370 is an intentional assault by a firearm 1 out of 1,188 is due to accidental drowning 1 out of every 6,905 is an accidental firearms discharge 1 out of every 161,856 is due to a lightning strike
It must be noted, however, that a great many accidental deaths by firearms do not involve hunters. When shooting-related fatalities occur in hunting, most of the victims are hunters, although non-hunters are also sometimes killed or injured. It can be said that this is a sport that does pose some danger to an entire community, not just to the willing participants.
Hunting Accident Statistics
A report published by American orthopedic surgeons Randall Loder and Neil Farren in 2014 showed that between 1993 and 2008, 35,970 firearm-related injuries involved in hunting were reported to U.S. hospitals or about 2,400 per year over the fifteen-year period of the study. That's out of a total of 1,841,269 total accidents involving firearms (about per year 123,000).
Hunters injured by firearms in this study were nearly all Caucasian (91.8 percent), young adult to middle-aged (24-44) and male (91.8 percent), who came to small hospitals (65.9 percent) to be treated. They were most often shot (56 percent) but other injuries—fractures and lacerations from falling out of trees, etc.—made up the rest. The injuries were most common in the head and neck (46.9 percent), self-inflicted (85 percent), unintentional (99.4 percent), at a school or recreation center (37.1 percent), and with an overall mortality rate of 0.6 percent (about 144 per year). The mortality rate is lower than reported elsewhere because the study included all injuries reported with hunting accidents. Alcohol was an issue in only 1.5 percent of the cases. The most common type of injury was a laceration (37 percent), not a puncture wound (15.4 percent).
It will come as no surprise that most of the injuries occurred during the hunting months of October, November, and December. The study found that the estimated incidence of a firearm injury associated with hunting activities is 9 in 1 million hunting days.
Hunting Related Accidents in Context
In reality, most of the greatest dangers to hunters are not related to firearms but occur for other reasons, such as car accidents traveling to and from hunting sites or heart attacks while hiking woods and hills. Particularly dangerous are fall from tree stands. Recent estimates say that there are almost 6,000 hunting accidents to hunters each year involving falls tree stands—six times as many as are wounded by firearms. A recent survey in the state of Indiana found that 55 percent of all hunting-related accidents in that state were related to tree stands.
The vast majority of fatal accidental shootings while hunting involve the use of shotguns or rifles while hunting deer. This perhaps no surprise, since deer hunting is one of the most popular forms of hunting where high-powered firearms are used.
The Committee to Abolish Sport Hunting maintains the Hunting Accidents Center, which collects news stories about hunting accidents throughout the world. Although the list is long, it's not comprehensive, and not every hunting accident is reported in the news.
--Mitch
PEOPLE being mostly other hunters I might presume?????????????? Rarely do we hear of a non participating hunter person being shot or even killed.
I agree hunters, self inflected, or members of their hunting partner. Rarely does a person get killed by a stray bullet.
This was the first year ever I wasn't out during gun season here since I was a kid... It's too freakn crazy around here... You could be atop one hill and hear a slug wizz over your head from a quarter mile away... Heck, I've heard slugs wizz overhead in my freakn yard... Gun season in Ohio is NUTZ...
Wife and I were driving home from shopping right before dark Sat before last. It was a doe day, so I knew the dog hunters would be out in force despite the dreery day. Few miles up the road from the house, we ran into a hunter outside his truck parked next to road. He had no gun and I figured they were trying to corral the dogs before it got dark. I then spot another truck up ahead with 2 guys outside of it. All of a sudden, a buck runs across the road from the woodlot between us and them ... 50 yards in front of them and 150 yards in front of us ... and the SOB pops off a shot at it with us in his general line of fire. Shooting from on or across a public road is illegal. I pulled up and was calm and said dude that was not cool and illegal to boot. The wife was livid and read him the riot act.
elkstabber's Link
As far as the statistics go, even one is no good, but in the overall scheme of things by and large hunting accidents are few and far between. Safer than driving to work!
But by the grace of God, it could be any of us.
-Mitch
My son tells me that so far this year, more people have been killed by salads than by AR-15s....
Just pays to THINK about what conclusions you draw.
I’ll tell you this, though.... it took me exactly ONE season hunting (3rd Rifle) in CO to decide that it was going to be Roundball & Recurves for me.
I still own a few rifles, but I’m beginning to wonder why.