Let's keep it to exactly what's described.
I'll start with 5 years worth of Hunting Incident Reports published annually by the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
Sources:
Spreadsheet (Cliff's Notes)
Takeaways
59.34% of all reported accidents in Alabama were Treestand-Related
23.07% of all reported accidents were 2-party (somebody else shot the victim)
You're about 2.5x more likely to have a treestand accident than for somebody else to shoot you.
You're about 3x more likely to shoot yourself or fall than have somebody else shoot you.
37.83% of firearms accidents were self-inflicted
This is a limited study, but in line with what @kyler1945 has mentioned elsewhere, I think there's disproportionate amounts of attention focused on the statistically unlikely ("If you hunt from the ground, some yahoo will shoot ya!!") vs the statistically likely ("You're gonna hurt yourself, boy.")
It's also interesting to note that a brief perusal of the data seems to me to suggest that many shooting incidents are turkey/duck/dove/fowl related instead of deer related, and alcohol plays a seemingly significant role. I haven't crunched numbers that hard though, so I could very well be wrong. If I'm right, the risk of somebody else shooting you vs falling in the deer woods grows even further apart.
I'd love to see a thread full of these reports from other states, and maybe eventually some comparison between states to see if the statistics actually change in areas with higher populations, longer gun seasons, less public land, etc.
I'll start with 5 years worth of Hunting Incident Reports published annually by the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
Sources:
Spreadsheet (Cliff's Notes)
Takeaways
59.34% of all reported accidents in Alabama were Treestand-Related
23.07% of all reported accidents were 2-party (somebody else shot the victim)
You're about 2.5x more likely to have a treestand accident than for somebody else to shoot you.
You're about 3x more likely to shoot yourself or fall than have somebody else shoot you.
37.83% of firearms accidents were self-inflicted
This is a limited study, but in line with what @kyler1945 has mentioned elsewhere, I think there's disproportionate amounts of attention focused on the statistically unlikely ("If you hunt from the ground, some yahoo will shoot ya!!") vs the statistically likely ("You're gonna hurt yourself, boy.")
It's also interesting to note that a brief perusal of the data seems to me to suggest that many shooting incidents are turkey/duck/dove/fowl related instead of deer related, and alcohol plays a seemingly significant role. I haven't crunched numbers that hard though, so I could very well be wrong. If I'm right, the risk of somebody else shooting you vs falling in the deer woods grows even further apart.
I'd love to see a thread full of these reports from other states, and maybe eventually some comparison between states to see if the statistics actually change in areas with higher populations, longer gun seasons, less public land, etc.
