Braxton Taylor
Deer hunting seasons are set to begin in states across the country, and a new study argues that whitetail aren’t the only critters who should be watching their six. The study, published last week in the peer-reviewed medical journal JAMA Network Open, claims to have found a link between deer hunting and “gun violence.”
The authors examined 854 rural U.S. counties in 44 states and compared the prevalence of shootings–including homicides, suicides, and accidental shootings in the home–to the weeks surrounding each state’s deer opener. (The authors don’t say whether they’re looking at the gun or archery opener, but we assume it’s the former.)
This analysis revealed what looks like a shocking, never-before-observed crime spike in the weeks after the orange army descends on the deer woods.
In the week following the opening of deer season, firearm shootings jumped by an average of 49%. That rate was still 41% higher during the second week, but the increase fell “close to zero” by the third week of deer hunting season. This, the authors say, indicates a strong connection between hunters going out to harvest deer and gun-related injuries and deaths.
That might come as a surprise to deer hunters who, unlike the authors of this study, have actually been in the woods during these two weeks. Nonetheless, the report was convincing enough to merit coverage in Forbes, Phys.org, U.S. News and World Report, and various local media outlets.
What could be so convincing about a hypothesis that seems contrary to the lived experience of deer hunters? Not a whole lot, it turns out. Even putting aside the obvious anti-gun bias of the study’s lead author, the paper itself is riddled with more holes than a buck killed with three-inch 00.
First, it’s worth noting that, according to the paper itself, the average number of annual shootings in these 854 rural counties is 5.4 per 100,000 people–that’s total shootings, including suicides and accidental home shootings, not just homicides.
For comparison, there were 6.3 gun-related homicides per 100,000 people across the entire United States in 2022. In Chicago of that year, the number was 26.6. Since not all shootings are homicides, we can assume that the total shooting rates in these jurisdictions is much, much higher.
Point is, these rural counties have lower rates of gun violence than the country as a whole and far lower rates than metropolitan areas. If these Ivy League researchers are hoping to use their time and considerable brain power to combat gun-related violence, it’s unclear why they’re investigating some of the safest areas in the country.
You might assume that firearm-related hunting accidents are to blame for deer season’s higher rates of gun violence. To their credit, the researchers considered this. But they say these types of accidents are too rare to account for the spike in shootings.
Instead, they theorize that the shootings are caused by deer hunters pulling their firearms out of their safes and bringing them into their communities.
“This evidence leads us to conclude that the most plausible explanation for the increase in shootings the week after the start of deer hunting season is the heightened presence of firearms in public and private spaces,” they write.
Of course, if the study’s authors had ever spoken to an actual deer hunter, they would expect the rising rates of gun violence to be tied to long guns. Instead, they found the opposite to be true.
“We found that the increase in shootings after the start of deer hunting season was more pronounced for shootings with a handgun rather than a long gun,” they admit.
To clarify: handguns drive this supposed spike in shootings, and even though the vast majority of deer hunters don’t use handguns, they’re still to blame. Got it? Good.
This explanation rings so hollow in part because the data appears to be so shoddy. Remember those 854 counties they examined as having increased rates of gun violence? Turns out, over half of those counties didn’t see a single shooting in the weeks around deer season.
Buried in the “Results” section is this line: “Of the 854 counties in the sample, 305 had at least 1 shooting during the study period.” It’s unclear, based on the study’s total lack of published data, how many of those 305 counties had more than a single shooting, but based on that total lack of published data, we can assume it wasn’t very many.
Why would three academics from Princeton, U.C. Irvine, and Rutgers waste their time blaming deer hunters for this increase in gun violence? The “Conclusion” offers a clue.
“States with more firearm regulations, especially policies such as waiting periods and background checks, have lower overall firearm death rates, including both homicide and suicide,” they write. “Enhanced firearm regulations that govern firearm storage, carrying, and purchasing, particularly in states where deer hunting is popular, may serve to reduce the number of shootings that occur at the onset of the hunting season.”
Firearms are dangerous. Hunters should practice safe gun handling and keep their firearms secure. But they shouldn’t do it because they worry that opening their safe for deer season will transform their relatively crime-free rural community into a reenactment of The Purge.
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