hunting accidents in Missouri
January 31st, 2006 by Administrator
Hunter safety courses have decreased hunting accidents in Missouri - As we are finishing up another season of hunter safety it might be a good time to talk about the hunter safety program in Missouri. Hunter safety started in the state of New York in 1949 because the accident rate was increasing at an alarming rate. Missouri started their program in 1957 with a four hour NRA course. My oldest son took a course at the Carthage Armory some time in the 1970s and he thought it was interesting so maybe it was a good idea. Then in the 1980s there were a lot of calls for hunter safety and very few courses in the area so I called Bob Mountjoy, the conservation agent, and became a certified hunter safety instructor. I didn’t know what a hunter safety instructor did but I was one. By this time the course was eight hours long and consisted of six chapters. For the next few years, Bob, Ed Sneed and myself taught two or three classes per year each of us teaching two chapters. We would have a class here at the Old Cabin Shop and 25-35 people would show up and it worked quite well. With this voluntary system the hunting accident rate continued to rise. Then in 1987, the Conservation Commission made hunter education mandatory for anyone born on or after Jan. 1,1967, if they wanted to buy any permit that involved hunting with a gun. We scheduled a class early that fall like we always had and 100 people showed up. There was no way all these people could fit into the building we used for a class room. We had to move out under the street light and fight the mosquitoes the first night then Bob Mountjoy found a building at the Carthage Park for the second night.
After that we took names in advance and had to turn away many people.
The hunter safety program as it is now covers many things other than firearms handling. Firearms history, hunting ethics, first aid, game identification, map reading, tree stand safety, archery, muzzle loading and the hunters role in conservation are among the subjects covered. It is a course where everyone that pays attention will learn something. Some argue it is too long for an 11 year old and adults don’t need it. Adults that take a youth on one of the special youth tags have to have had hunter safety at any age.
From some of the responses I have gotten over the years I could not agree that adults don’t need hunter safety.
I tagged along with my relatives on hunts before I was in grade school but we get many people of all ages that have never been hunting or shot a gun.
Hunting is a safe sport as only about one in 10,000 hunters are ever involved in any type of hunting accident and the accident rate has declined since hunter safety became mandatory. In the late 1960s, there two years that there were 22 hunting fatal incidents in Missouri. In the 1990s after hunter safety became mandatory for young hunters the fatal incidents have been five or less per year. In 2005, there were only three fatal incidents and 32 total accidents.
Under the voluntary system it was only the careful interested people that took the course.
Kids and adults need more time outdoors and away from the computer or the boob tube and hunting or target shooting are outdoor activities with exercise. Learning about nature and the outdoors is good for everyone and if people around here don’t have much experience with nature, no wonder people in cities don’t understand nature.
People that grew up with nature like farm kids don’t object to the course, they listen and learn then score well on the test. Over the years we have received a few positive letters and a few negative letters and comments both ways. One guy said it was the most wasted 12 hours of his life and another said it was the biggest bunch of crap he ever sat through, but I think the MDC has a good program that everyone would learn from even if they never intend to go hunting. Anyone that pays attention will understand nature better, learn a little about first aid, and know what they should do in a chance encounter with a gun. One lady that found a hand gun in a drawer after her husband passed away tied a string through the trigger guard and brought the gun into the shop on the end of the string not knowing if it was loaded or not.
A graduate of a hunter safety course should know that is not the way to do it. Then we had a man the other day that didn’t know where the muzzle was on a muzzle loader.
If you want to take the hunter safety course try to plan ahead and not wait until the fall rush. Fall classes wherever you go are full to capacity and just not as friendly as the off season classes. It just takes one person with a chip on his shoulder to cause a class to be stressful.
In Missouri, most instructors are volunteers that have experience in the subjects they teach and are interested in the future of hunting. Missouri hunter safety classes are free to everyone and include all the needed materials.
Outdoors Corner
By Bob Sheldon Guest Columnist