In many states, young kids may hunt alone

Sad story.

For the record, I never hunt alone, although I think the writer meant "alone" as without an "adult".

FMCDH(BITS)

I wish kids could hunt alone in Maine. My son is desparate to hunt but has no one to take him. I may end up takign the hunters course so I can stand in the woods while he hunts.

I’m all for kids shooting and hunting at an early age, but they need to be supervised by a more experienced hunter... especially when hunting larger game that might be taken at greater distances.

Let them solo hunt on the small stuff, rabbits and the like.

Unfortunate story all around.

a) Stupid to allow hikers and hunters in the same area without the requirement for both to wear bright orange. That alone was a disaster waiting to happen.
b) Stupid to charge the kid with manslaughter, it was an accident!! Especially with (a) in place.
c) Stupid to go after the age and not hunter education. Some individuals no matter how hard you stress to make sure your target is identified fire anyway. Education is the key.

My Father was a military man and he taught me early the rules with a weapon. I started hunting squirrels alone at 12. Now my Step brother was just plain dangerous starting when he got his first .22 and is to this day 35 years later.

Geez one accident, which even an adult could have caused and they are freaking out on kids hunting alone. I hunted alone at an early age, I can't even remember how old I was. My son hunted alone as soon as he hit 11 (legal in MO).

I'm more worried about the unsupervised kids in the city with guns, drugs, bats, knives and cars killing people.

How old is your son? Is he a avid reader? If so, Robert Ruark’s “The Old Man and the Boy” has many hunting tales, and imparts great wisdom about the responsibilities of the hunter as well.

He is fourteen. He just recently read The Pond and was surpised and jelous of the freedoms the young protaginist had in the early twentith century to drive, to hunt and to make a self.

He has had the Royal Ranger gun saftey courses and woods safety courses. He is a good and careful shot.

He is fourteen. He just recently read The Pond and was surpised and jelous of the freedoms the young protaginist had in the early twentith century to drive, to hunt and to make a self.

He has had the Royal Ranger gun saftey courses and woods safety courses. He is a good and careful shot.

I hunted alone after about aged 13 or so from a groundstand for whitetails

i can just see more nannystate here...it never ends

When I was 14 I was shooting at high school... there was a rifle team and the range was in the basement. I guess that makes me older than dirt. In the early 20th, the Winchester Junior Rifle Corps encouraged youngsters to start their own rifle clubs and compete, and was very successful until the depression.

“The Old Man and the Boy” is stories about a young man growning up in the Carolinas in the 30’s and hunting and fishing with his Grandfather, who imparts wisdom of all manner to him. (Ruark’s more adult novels, where he tried to “out Hemmingway, Hemmingway” I would not consider that suitable for a 14 year old, but this one is...)

FReepmail sent.

I remember growing up in eastern South Dakota. My brother, my friends, and I got our .22’s when we were about 12 or so. On Saturdays we would all get together and walk through town to the local dump with our 22’s over our shoulders. We would sit at the top of the hill all day and shoot rats. Walking through town we would stop at the bakery and get a doughnut, or even talk to the local cop, all of us with our rifles. No one gave it a second thought. I wonder what the reaction in the media now days would be of us walking to the dump loaded for a full day of rat hunting. “Armed youths terrorize rural South Dakota town.”

Lives inextricably intertwined by tragedy. Very sad. Even experienced hunters have made tragic mistakes.

Sad.

Poor training.

Vermont hunting tragedy draws crowd to court

"We talk about the 10 commandments of hunter education and one of the primary ones is target identification," said Vermont's chief game warden Col. David LeCours. "When you shoot at something and it isn't what you wanted, you didn't properly identify your target."

This is how my younger brother died. His idiot (I cannot use the term I want because it is not lady like) friend saw movement and shot. Several of the shotgun pellets hit my brother in the neck. He bled to death on the way to the hospital.

I was living in NH when this tragedy happened ... After that, it was hard to go out in the woods without a gnawing suspicion.

This is from a blog in Vermont:

If I've ever done a blog post that was harder to write than this one, I can't imagine what it would have been.

Those that know me know that I depart from what is often perceived as the orthodoxy of the left in that I am an unflinching supporter of the right to keep and bear arms.

I view phrases like "assault weapon" and "common sense gun control" in exactly the same light as I view phrases like "partial-birth abortion", "defense of marriage", and "rationed care."

One of the many, many things that endears Vermont to me is that I do not have to live under the thumb of what I call "teh 'gun control' st00pid".

It is for that reason, along with the fact that I am the only GMD front-pager that calls the Northeast Kingdom home, that I feel compelled to write this.

On October 22nd of 2008, 55-year-old Calvin Noble of Granby was hunting moose as a sub-permittee on a permit held by his son. While seated on a stump using a moose call, he was shot by a Pennsylvania man, who mistakenly believed him to be a bear.

John Boppel, 46, was initially charged by Essex County State's Attorney Vincent Illuzzi with reckless endangerment.

Calvin Noble survived, although his injuries are severe: his right leg had to be amputated, his gall bladder had to be removed, and his right hip was fractured.

Later that month, Illuzzi filed a second charge against Boppel of simple assault with a firearm, while the Northeast Kingdom rallied around Calvin Noble with blood drives, fundraising events, and drop jars.

Then, in late November, a THIRD charge was prepared against John Boppel:

"The Vermont Supreme Court ruled this week that a hunter who mistakenly shot another hunter can be charged with and convicted of felony aggravated assault," Illuzzi wrote in an e-mail. "Up until this time, it was unclear whether that charge could be filed in a hunting accident where only injury and not death resulted."

No one objected to that. Far from it, I can tell you that the street buzz led one to contemplate the possibility of a lynch mob.

In the matter of Kevin Kadamus, the Lyndon Center man who is charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death of his son on the opening day of turkey season, the buzz is quite different.

Yet the two cases, as different as they are with respect to the individuals involved, have a commonality that overrides all other considerations.

If the facts alleged by the state in both matters are true and correct, both men discharged a lethal weapon at a target without being 110% certain of what that target was.

Jump.

kestrel9000 :: In the matter of Kevin Kadamus

Game wardens say it's not an accident when someone fires a weapon at the wrong target.
"We talk about the 10 commandments of hunter education, and one of the primary ones is target identification," said Col. David LeCours, Vermont's chief game warden. "When you shoot at something and it isn't what you wanted, you didn't properly identify your target."

L: John Boppel R: Kevin Kadamus

__________________

WHEELOCK, Vt. - By the time the game warden arrived, Kevin Kadamus was sitting down and holding his 17-year-old son in his lap, a blanket covering the boy's bloodied body."He was trying to talk to his son, encouraging him to hang on," Warden David Gregory said.
Jacob Kadamus couldn't hang on. With a 12-gauge shotgun, his father had mistakenly shot him in the torso on the opening day of Vermont's turkey hunting season. He died at the scene.

On Monday, Kevin Kadamus was arraigned in Caledonia District court on charges of involuntary manslaughter. He is being defended by attorneys David Sleigh of St. Johnsbury and Duncan Kilmartin of Newport.

Prior to the arraignment, attorney Kilmartin filed a motion to quash on the basis of information he'd received that the judge had failed to find probable cause in the matter. That information turned out to be incorrect, and the motion was denied.

A motion to dismiss the charges was filed by attorney Sleigh:

In the motion, Sleigh states the state cannot show Kadamus acted in a criminally negligent manner. He argues Jacob Kadamus and his father agreed where each hunter would take up a position and where each of them would remain.
According to Sleigh, Jacob was not supposed to be in the area in which he was shot.
According to the defense's motion, the defendant's failure to perceive his son's presence was not a gross deviation of any standard of care and concludes, "It was an accident that could have happened to anyone under similar circumstances."

That motion was, likewise, denied.

Far from being a scary-looking flatlander, Kevin Kadamus is well-known and well respected in his community.

"How is justice really being served here? What's the underlying reason for this prosecution? To me it seems like there's more of a sense of vengeance than justice involved here," said Bill Beaulac, 53.
Beaulac is a neighbor of the Kadamuses in Lyndon and attends the same church.
"He's a great family man, a civic leader, a church leader," Beaulac said. "It's just a really sad case."

Following the arraignment, Kevin Kadamus' supporters gathered in the park adjacent to Caledonia District Court. They were addressed by Tom Loftus, Kadamus' brother-in-law:

Loftus described Kevin as "one of the finest people I've ever met" and said Kevin is a church youth group leader, and a sports umpire and referee.,,Loftus said prosecuting Kevin would add an additional unnecessary burden to the Kadamus family. He also said, "These criminal charges would bring no benefit to anyone."

As is not only to be expected, but as is entirely proper and correct (indeed, I would be shocked and disheartened were this NOT happening) Kadamus' family and friends are rallying support for him in the Northeast Kingdom and beyond.

In today's Times-Argus, a letter appeared from John Wolf, Kevin Kadamus' father in law:

The law, or no one or nothing else, can punish Kevin more than he is being punished now. However the law can punish my daughter and grandchildren. But to what avail? My daughter is being punished daily herself and for something she did not do. What is to be gained by punishing her more? My granddaughter is a 12-year old girl who adores her father. She would be devastated if he were taken away from her. The financial hardships on both my daughter and granddaughter would be devastating. Why punish them just to try to punish Kevin more, which is impossible to do.

It is very hard, in some cases impossible, to discount many of the assertions made by Mr. Wolf in this excerpt from his letter, not the least of which is that the law can certainly mete out no greater punishment to Kevin Kadamus than the guilt and grief he will carry for the rest of his life.

Mr. Wolf goes on to ask and opine:

Is there any room in the law for mercy and justice? If not, there should be.

I would agree with this.

But at the same time, I would assert that the place for mercy is in the penalty phase of this or any other criminal trial.

And make no mistake: this is a criminal matter.

Intent of the accused or his standing in the community notwithstanding, this is a case of felony involuntary manslaughter.

Considerations such as these, in this particular matter, (in that at its heart, this is a question of negligence) have no bearing on the guilt or innocence of the defendant.

In reviewing my response to the letter that I posted to the Times-Argus website, (which I mistakenly posted as "None None", thinking that it would attach my user ID to the post) I felt uncomfortable with the way I expressed part of it.

Please know that despite my verbiage, I have not forgotten that Kevin Kadamus enjoys a presumption of innocence until and unless found guilty by a jury of his peers.

That said, here is my response:

There is no escaping one simple fact:
Kevin Kadamus discharged a lethal weapon at a target he was not 100% certain of.
Regardless of grief, tragedy, or intention, this CANNOT be dismissed.
Leniency and compassion can be shown at sentencing, but the rule of law and the concept of responsibility and firearms safety - i.e., the greater good of society - MUST take precedence.
It is imperative.
Whether or not the law is capable of punishing Kevin Kadamus more than he is punishing himself is not relevant.
What is relevant is that the rule of law and accountability must prevail. The facts of the case are not in question. There is no basis for a dismissal or an acquittal.
I do not intend to sound callous, I only intend to assert that the rule of law must prevail over sentiment, even and ESPECIALLY in this case.
I am a resident of St. Johnsbury.

In light of the fact that his supporters, understandably, are doing their best to acquit Kevin Kadamus in the court of public opinion, I guess I caught myself trying to convict him.....although if there is any question as to what the facts of the case are, I'm not aware of it.

My point is this: John Boppel and Kevin Kadamus did exactly the same thing: they shot without being a hundred percent sure what they were shooting at.

This cannot be condoned in either case - or in any case.

Responsibilities without rights are enslavements.

Conversely, rights without responsibilities basically amount to anarchy.

As a supporter of the right to keep and bear arms - whether for sport and hunting as in the two cases discussed in this posting, or whether as the final line of defense I maintain for my family and myself, as I exercise it (I am not a hunter) I am acutely aware of the essential link between the two.

Absent adherence to that concept, the next step in the minds of many would be to restrict access to the firearms themselves.

Just as I will not have my rights abridged by the psychopathic and evil actions of a Patrick Purdy or a Seung Hui-Cho, I will not consent to them being viewed through the lens of the irresponsible and negligent actions of a John Boppel - or a Kevin Kadamus.

Just as I insist on your rights, and mine, being unfettered by the actions of others, I insist just as uncompromisingly upon others being held responsible for the way they exercise those rights.

The difference is, obviously, that some cases are emotionally more difficult to speak to in that respect than others.

I take no pleasure in this, but as a freeman, a good man and true, I must insist that my peer be held accountable for his actions in a court of law, and tried by a jury of his peers.

Once that matter stands settled - the matter of his innocence or guilt with respect to the charges brought by the state - we can go from there.

And I do feel profound sadness for all whose lives have been upended by this.

But I cannot condone the irresponsibility and negligence that deprived a human being of his life.

My thoughts and deepest sympathies are with the family and friends of Kevin Kadamus, and even and especially with Kevin Kadamus himself.

But we are a nation of laws and not men. The issue is not so much to punish Kevin Kadamus, or to avenge or seek justice for the life of his son - but to assert the rule of law.

It can't be any other way.

It sucks....the whole thing sucks.

But it can't be any other way; I am sorry.

On so many levels.

I got my first gun, a Remington .410 shotgun, for my 10th birthday, my first rifle 2 years later. My grandfather taught me gun safety early...I’m 53 now and I have never had any problems. Start ‘em young.

I am sorry.

On so many levels.

I stopped going into the woods during deer season because of all of the kids carrying high-powered rifles.

An accident waiting to happen...