Forest management worker shot dead by hunter in Hokkaido

So, he claims he thought the guy was a deer, but didn't check at all -- just heard a noise, whipped around, and fired. Thank god the lunatic wasn't hunting with his kids or something.

This is why there should be no unsupervised hunting in Japan -- not just any idiot who things he or she can and gets some license they basically just pay for. All these amateur hunters shoot other people. Happens every year. Negligence is not enough. Should be manslaughter.

Should never have taken that shot. This kind of carelessness will make things harder for everyone.

130 metres that's a long way in a forested area? Getting a licence involves money, tests, background, house plans, a literal folder of paperwork renewed every 3 years. Not an easy thing. But rule 1 identify your target, what's behind your target. Nobody wants to kill someone by accident, only stupidity.

This is why there should be no unsupervised hunting in Japan

Pray tell, what exactly is supervised hunting?

The man told police that he heard something moving around and fired his rifle, thinking he was shooting at an animal

I guess “pick your target” is not part of the Japanese shooter’s licensing procedure.

For all the difficulty in getting and keeping a gun in Japan, it's surprising that there are any of these completely avoidable deaths. Shooting at a sound in the bushes at something one can't see should be charged as manslaughter.

Can these idiots first look at what they're about to shoot before actually shooting? This is like reversing your car at full speed, and then looking in the mirror afterwards.

130 meters seems an awfully long distance for a shotgun. He must have been one of those rare rifle owners here in Japan. Even at this distance with a rifle, I am thinking he must have been aiming very slowly and carefully to be able to hit something. Go to good maps and mark out 130 meters along the street in front of you home. Pretty far, huh. Should have been more patient. Deer will often give you a good long look before bounding off. No reason to not wait to see what you are shooting at. SMH.

It would have to be a high caliber rifle. You don’t hunt deer with shotguns. Shotguns are for fowl.

This was a really stupid accident. It’s unforgivable. Fortunately, with strict gun regulation accidents like this are rare in Japan. RIP Kentaro Sugata.

Kabukilover: " Fortunately, with strict gun regulation accidents like this are rare in Japan."

Less rare than you think. I Believe this is the second, at least, this year. And there was the old guy a couple years back who was shooting wildly at crows, IN THE CITY, and shot into a house when the bird flew off, hitting a 19 year old woman who was in her kitchen.

How many people are actually involved in hunting in Japan? I'm seeing about 110,000 registered. I can't find exact figures. In NZ it's close to 200,000 and in the last 10 years there have been at least 20 firearm related hunting deaths.

The numbers have dropped radically Nemui, with the aging population plus the super strict rules and regulations. In the meantime farmers and ordinary gardeners are struggling with the variety and volume of wildlife coming down out of the mountains to root out their plants and crops, especially boar, deer, tanuki raccoon dogs, monkeys and bears too. You see fencing everywhere up in the hills, and attempts at trapping, to compensate for the lack of hunters. It's a perplexing problem for those who dream of an idyllic country life without harming nature.

It would have to be a high caliber rifle. You don’t hunt deer with shotguns. Shotguns are for fowl.

Yes, ordinarily this is the case, but rifles are hard to come by in Japan. I was mountain biking in Yamanashi and we came across a couple park rangers hiking along the trail with shotguns open and draped over on their arms. We asked what they were hunting and they said they were culling deer because the area had too many deer. It is a watershed area and the deer were damaging the trees. Anyway, they were using shotguns not rifles. I have seen tons of deer in this area and quite close up, so I suppose the shotgun would do its job sufficiently.

KabukiloverToday  07:51 pm JST

It would have to be a high caliber rifle. You don’t hunt deer with shotguns. Shotguns are for fowl.

That's incorrect. In the US and elsewhere, deer are hunted with shotguns in dense population areas where the long reach of a rifle round would pose a danger. Shotguns are loaded with slugs, either solid or sabots. Or in some states buckshot is permitted. 130m is very far for a shotgun with a slug, although I have done well out to 100m with a sabot round and rifled barrel shotgun. At 130m I wouldn't even try with a shotgun.

From my experience I find it very hard to imagine being able to take a 130m shot with anything in a forested area. In the open like a field, yes. But then the target would be very visible and 100% identifiable.

It would have to be a high caliber rifle. You don’t hunt deer with shotguns. Shotguns are for fowl.

This isn't the case in Japan. Gun permits normally only allow for a shotgun, whether one is hunting boar, deer, or whatever else. The shell fires a single slug, which makes the range considerably shorter than that of a rifle. The shotgun is often a poor tool for hunting big game, but high-powered rifles are much more heavily restricted. You can get one, but you have to possess a shotgun for at least ten years without incident first. The article says "rifle" in the last paragraph, so maybe the hunter had a rifle, not a shotgun, but this wouldn't be the first time a news article confused the type of weapon involved in a shooting.

Hitting a target at 130 meters is actually a pretty impressive shot, on the strong likelihood that this was a shotgun. Even if it was a more accurate rifle with longer range, it's still impressive to turn, fire at a sound, which he could amazingly hear in the forest at 130 meters, without ever seeing the target, and hit anything.

These details make me want to call B.S. on the hunter's story. Forests are typically noisy. Deer don't make that much noise. It would be hard to hear something 130 meters away. It would be even harder to hit something 130 meters away, barring extreme luck, without taking careful aim, which would require seeing the target for at least several seconds. Maybe he saw movement and misidentified the man as a deer, but the hunter had to have seen something, or else that shot would have been highly improbable. Not impossible, but improbable enough that I don't buy the hunter's explanation.

In an ironic twist, the U.S. almost certainly would pursue an involuntary manslaughter charge against a criminally negligent hunter such as this one. Looser gun laws, but stiffer penalties for accidents.

130 meters in a woody area? FFS. Normally that kind of shot would require a scope. How did this guy get a license to begin with?

You should never pull the trigger until you can clear identify your target/quarry.

This is an example of how gun laws don’t necssarily protect people. He met certain criteria , but wasn’t taught how to use a gun safely. The NRA would have forced him to take a safety class before he could obtain the license to hunt.

Land gun users aren’t declining in Japan. A recent JapanToday article informed readers that some prefectures want to encourage hunting and we were treated to a photograph of a man instructing a class on how to cook different types of “game”

It is a shame that posters can’t remember articles from a month or two ago !

Insane Wayne, quote: "Land gun users aren’t declining in Japan."

Just because you would like something to be true does not make it into a fact. Look at the graph in the article below about the serious drop in numbers. 510,000 hunters in Japan in 1973 dropped to 190,000 in 2010. Naturally a few organizations have been trying to somehow encourage young people to boost the numbers.

(Get someone to give you the gist if you do not feel confident reading Japanese.)

http://www.nhk.or.jp/gendai/articles/3310/1.html

Thank you for the info nandakandamanda.

Insane WayneNov. 22  05:33 am JST The NRA would have forced him to take a safety class before he could obtain the license to hunt.

Where do you get such information? Except in some states for a concealed carry handgun permit, there are no regulations of any kind for gun ownership other than being legally permitted to own one. That's one of the main reasons gun ownership in the U.S. is so incomprehensibly stupid - you are not required to take any kind of training to own a firearm. It's more difficult to get a driver's license than to buy a gun. Furthermore, the NRA, in spite of owning much of the GOP, has no authority to require anyone to take firearm training. The last thing the NRA (and the arms industry) wants is regulation that might stand in the way of more people buying guns.

Land gun users aren’t declining in Japan.

What, pray tell, is a "land gun"?