Daily Kennebec journal., 1913-12-15
How to Prevent
Hunting Accidents

Bangor, Me-, Dec. 12.-The many
hunting accidents in the Maine woods
could be prevented by not allowing
hunters to carry high powdered rifles is
New Haven, Conn.,. who has been
visitor to the Maine woods after game
ror many years. Mr.. Hildreth has
other conclusions in favor of safety
while hunting which he has set before
Chairman Wilson of the state Game
Commission, and which MrA Wilson
favors.
He believes that some applicants
for hunting licenses should be exam
ined as to their physical and mental
fitness to be trusted to go at large In
the woods with firearms in their hands
and also should be examined as to their
knowledge of carrying gun with re-
CARDS to their own safety.
In talking to reporter he said
man no more needs a 44.90 in the woods
than ne needs an 11-inch disappearing
gun, and that the average man can't
shoot very we'll anyway, and If he hap
pens to miss his mark with a projectile
such as gun of this size ana power
fires, there is no telling where the bull
let will land. He knows of case In
which a bullet struck building ana
fell, not having power enough lett 10
enable it to penetrate any, which upon
investigation was proven to have peen
fired more than two and half miles
from the place where it landed.
Mr.. Hildreth has never heard or a
man taking successful shot at deer
at a range greater than 500 yards. Ii he
does he is taking SUCH long chances
that for the safety of mankind in gen.
eral he had better not be allowed to go
into the woods A gun that carries a
fairly large, soft bullet and that will
shoot with fair accuracy up to $40
yards would, he says, be about his idea
of what is right. But the new models
and the other kind of models that were
meant, as he expressed it, to shoot
from New York to California have no
place IN the woods when there are hun
dreds of people moving about in them
in all directions.
But the mistaken for deer kind
which is far too frequent, would have
to be dealt with in a different way and
then the accidents such as the one
which befell Mr.. Umstaetter, editor OF
The Black Cat, who was killed as the
result of shot from his own gun,
which he was pulling over stone wall
by the muzzle, after having climbed
over himself would have to be handled
in q wholly different manner from
these
You cannot put caution into a mans
makeup when he is wholly without it..
But by long and careful training it is
possible to get men away from num-
her of careless tricks that some of them
have had for long time and which
may Kill them sometime.
1T would in all probability be held
a cruel and unusual form of punish
ment to subject gunners to a test for
sight, hearing, sense of direction and
general steadiness and other things
that should be taken into consideration.
Yet, l can name as many as dozen
men in his own city who ought never
to be allowed to sc into the woods with
q gun because of their nervousness and
tendency to jump first and think after
wards. It is fully as important that a
gunner should be the right Kind of a
man as it is that policeman should.
and he feels that the public, whose
lives are liable to be imperilled by the
men who fire every time they see a
bush move has some right to require
that the gunners shall first prove their
steadness and fitness to be entrusted
with fire arms. before they are allow
ed to have hunting licenses and turned
loose in the woods.
The class of accidents in which peo-
pie shoot themselves by dragging guns
toward them by the muzzle. could be
somewhat lessened If men were requir-
ed to study some rules for handling
guns and pass an examination on them
before being allowed to go into the
woods or in fact to handle firearms
anywhere. They might think 1t was u
hardship but IL would oftentimes prove
the difference between life and death to
them and that surely means some-
thing"