Re: [at-l] In season

["Tom Griffiths" <datto999@hotmail.com>]

All kidding aside from me for a second..

One of the things that bothered me Sunday morning was what seemed to me 
to be a severe lack of training on the hunters part. Maybe some of them 
had just bought the guns and were out with them for the first time. I 
don't know.

Believe it or not, I actually was sitting in my car considering waiting 
to go into the woods 30 minutes after the hunters had entered the woods 
and continuing to hike anyhow. I get nutty sometimes and have fits of 
indestructability. Then one of the 10-12 year old kids came running 
right back out of the forest tunnel, obviously having forgotten 
something. He found it on the pavement, picked it up and started running 
back into the woods holding his rifle such that the barrel is pointed 
down the path toward the other hunters. Hmmm, kid, running, gun, aimed 
down the path.

Way back when I last handled a rifle, seems like I was taught to point 
the thing angled down or out the side of the trail when I was walking. 
It's been quite a while though. 

Is this what they still teach at NRA school or wherever now or is there 
something new about how one is to carry a rifle? I'd think other hunters 
would be a bit paranoid if you even came close to pointing a supposed 
unloaded gun in their direction but maybe most hunters a more laid back 
about it that I would be.

I suppose you can't actually require training in how to safely use a 
rifle. Probably stepping on someone's rights with that idea too. Seems 
you have to pass a test to get your automobile drivers license but you 
can go and buy a gun anytime you want to and just start firing away 
whenever you think it is safe.

Datto


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