Oso Woman Fatally Shot By Hunter
In the heart of Cascadia, it is apparently open hunting season on human hikers.
Articles here and here and elsewhere tell us the story of a woman hiking with a friend in one of our National Forests, minding her own business and enjoying herself. When she stopped on the trail to put something in her backpack, she was shot dead by a father and son also enjoying the forest by attempting to shoot and kill it’s living creatures. Imagine the horror of this poor woman’s friend and hiking companion.
The child who committed this act did so with the approval of his father who was present. I would love to hear that conversation. “Go ahead and shoot it. It’s moving and in the forest, so it must be a bear.” Jail is not a good enough punishment for this father and son. The state and the judge should seriously consider inpatient mental health care for them.
Please let me sum up our society in this way:
- If we shoot and kill the neighbor’s dog, we are sick and perverted psychopaths.
- If we shoot and kill farm animals, we are either also mentally ill, or we are liable to damages to the farmer.
- But if we shoot at wildlife in a forest, it is celebrated as sport.
- If we shoot and kill hikers in a forest, it is simply an accident.
I say that if we go out shooting hikers in the forest, or for that matter bears in the forest, that the people who do it should be treated with the same contempt as if they went out and shot at the neighbor’s cat or dog. It only makes sense.
August 5th, 2008 at 3:03 am
Just to add something that I believe is a parallel situation to the hunter shooting a hiker:
We acknowledge in our society that accidents DO happen sometimes. For example, sometimes cars will hit people and cars will hit other cars, and innocent people will be injured or killed. Unless there was malice intended, and the driver was not grossly negligent, we know that sometimes accidents WILL happen, as sad as that is. We forgive these incidents.
That being said, it is part of our law that if you get drunk and then drive a car, you will be charged with a crime if you injure someone. Of course, it will have been “just an accident” because malice was not intended by the driver. But we hold the drunk driver to a higher standard. The fact that they were out driving while they were impaired makes the “accident” a crime.
I submit that if a person were handling a gun and through some accident the gun discharged and injured someone, we can call that an unfortunate accident. But I also believe that if we take the gun outdoors and actively shoot at moving, living things; we cannot be excused if the gun kills a human. The gun did not accidentally discharge. The shooter intended to go out and kill something, and should be held criminally liable if that action kills a person.