Outdoors: Responsibility At Any Age
Written by playerpress.com, Friday June 12 2009
No sport carries the level of responsibility that comes with hunting. Carrying a weapon is a huge commitment to responsible behavior. Contact sports can maim and kill, but you enter in to those activities armed with that knowledge. Irresponsible actions with a weapon can have catastrophic effects on innocents. A horrible reminder that anyone who carries a gun must do so with the greatest of care, attention and observance of the rules of safety occurred in Washington State last year and the subsequent trial ended this week with two teenage boys charged with manslaughter in the shooting death of a hiker they mistakenly took for a bear.
Pamela Almli was 54 and an experienced hiker. She was on a marked hiking trail in August of 2008 when she stopped to remove her blue jacket and place it in her backpack. As she bent over on the trail a bullet struck her in the head and death was instantaneous. August 2, 2008 was a foggy day on Sauk Mountain, but the 14 year old boy who fired the shot and his 16 year old brother were on the mountain alone with their rifles. Their grandfather was sleeping in the truck and left them on their own.
With the heavy fog the boys were ready to call it a day when the 14 year old saw movement on the trail, looked through the scope of his rifle and told his brother he spotted a bear and had it in his crosshairs. His brother told him to fire at will. Neither of them confirmed the sight with binoculars. That is the requirement that comes with the state mandated course for a child to have a hunting license. However, since the 14 year old had the lesson when he was 9 perhaps it didn’t stick in his memory. Almli was not alone on the trail. There was another hiker who dove for cover after the shooting. Neither boy sighted the second hiker, so their vision was truly impaired by the conditions. This week the now 15 year old boy was found guilty of second degree manslaughter and faces three months of sentencing. It will not make up for the act, or the number of errors committed by the boy and their grandfather who, at that moment, was their legal guardian.
Any experienced outdoors person would not have allowed two minors to roam a fog shrouded mountain armed and unsupervised. Too many people wait for something like this to occur to demand overhauling of hunting regulations. One man’s senseless act damages all of the hunters who both practice and preach safety with weapons and go to great lengths to teach minors how to properly use and care for a gun. More importantly, they stress the importance of respecting what a gun does. A commitment to the outdoors is one of the most serious commitments a sports person undertakes. Lack of that commitment can have devastating consequences. Ms. Almli’s life has ended and a young man’s is damaged irrevocably. Firearm responsibility knows no age limit.
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