• Fondots@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    When I took my state’s required hunter safety course, one of the instructors was an older dude with grey hair and a ponytail who wouldn’t look out of place at a Dead & Company concert.

    To point out the importance of wearing an orange hat during small game seasons, and also to “be sure of your target and what lies beyond it” he pointed out how much that grey hair and ponytail would look a lot like a squirrel if you only caught a glimpse of it through some brush.

    Not saying that’s exactly what happened here, the kid doesn’t look like he was the grey ponytail type, but the article shook loose that memory in my head.

    EDIT: not that I’m ungrateful, but somehow this is now my highest rated comment on Lemmy, and I’m just curious why this one in particular resonated to well.

    • SethranKada@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      Fair, I hadn’t thought of that but it makes sense. My first thought was that it was a very blatant murder cover up. But ive apparently fallen too deep into fiction if that’s what cane to mind first.

      • SanctimoniousApe@lemmings.world
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        1 month ago

        You hang around conspiracy theorists much? Maybe too many crime shows on TV? I mean I thought I was cynical, but to have that be the first thing that occurs to you (and it sounds like you were pretty damned sure of it, too) blows me away.

        • SethranKada@lemmy.ca
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          1 month ago

          Eh, I just read a lot of grimdark and grimderp stories. The kind where nothing good ever happens and the bad guys always get away with everything just because it would make the main character’s life worse. I’m a cashier, not law enforcement, so doesn’t matter if my first instinct is skewed if I have other people to make decisions for me.

        • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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          1 month ago

          It’s not an uncommon thing both historically and in modernity, it’s got a built in cover of shit sometimes happens. Hell one of my ancestors got away with it 5 times before the Mormons figured out he was just murdering them and pawning their shit 2 towns over.

          • djsp@feddit.org
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            1 month ago

            Hell one of my ancestors got away with it 5 times before the Mormons figured out he was just murdering them and pawning their shit 2 towns over.

            I’d like to read that story if you’re willing to share it.

            • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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              1 month ago

              Not much to say about it in a particularly verbose way. Back when the Mormons were in Missouri he took a couple bounties that some nearby towns put out on the Mormon men in general, so he befriended some of the Mormons pretending to be a hunter from Arkansas and then led them to the woods and slit their throats one by one. He basically did this because he was bored and there was a lull in work for his lumber and crops, the pawning off their shit was just a bit of extra money.

              Don’t know if anything was ever written about it, pretty sure this happened before Missouri declared open season the the Mormons and I think the bounties were technically illegal. Who knows maybe the Mormons wrote about it but it’s nothing fancy.

              Edit: he didn’t actually slit their throats, I’ve been playing a high casualty MGS2 run because reasons and the imagery is stuck in my head. He shot them in the back.

    • Zak@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Aside from emphasizing the hat, that also seems like an opportunity to emphasize the importance of positively identifying one’s target and backstop. It’s reckless to shoot at something that might be a valid target.

    • calliope@retrolemmy.com
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      1 month ago

      I saw the poor kid’s hair in the thumbnail and was like “oh no.”

      There are a LOT of brown squirrels in the Midwest.

      I’d make sure to cut my hair AND wear a hat if I was going squirrel hunting and had hair like that.

    • 0x0@lemmy.zip
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      1 month ago

      this one in particular resonated to well.

      Common sense is hard to come by.