The blaze orange and hunter education requirements that have gradually become an accepted part of the landscape for deer hunters in Mississippi were inspired by scores of tragic accidental shootings over the years. As new generations of hunters enter the field, generations removed from first-hand memory of safety’s bad old days, stressing the reasons for orange and education becomes more important.
Eighty people shot and 34 killed sounds like a report from a war zone, but those figures come from one Mississippi deer season. Just one. According to the state, those were the totals from the 1972-1973 season. At that time, the state’s deer populations had begun to expand rapidly and hunter participation had quickly followed suit.
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