A man in r/Hunting told a story that did not need much dressing up. He said his sister’s husband co-owned a 160-plus-acre farm where he had been deer hunting for five years with the same group. In his telling, it was a solid camp setup: good land, ethical hunters, a few guys who drank socially, a few who did not drink at all, and even a younger kid in camp. Then his father-in-law came out for a hunt, stayed up late drinking, and got fall-down drunk the night before. The next morning, according to the post, he made poor decisions while shooting at deer and nearly hit one of the other hunters.
The way the man wrote it, the big question was not whether what happened was serious. He already knew it was. What he was wrestling with was whether he was wrong for deciding the guy does not get a second chance. He said the drinking problem was habitual, and he made it clear that safe, ethical hunting mattered a lot to him. So the thread was not really about one rough morning after too many drinks. It was about whether a man who brings that kind of risk into deer camp should ever get invited back at all.
The replies were not exactly split. Most people told him he was right to draw the line. One of the top responses basically said he had them at “almost shot one of the other hunters.” Another guy said he had heard of people getting kicked off land for far weaker reasons, and pointed out that once safety and ethics get compromised, the problem is already big enough. That was the tone of the thread all the way through. Nobody seemed interested in making excuses for a man who mixed heavy drinking with loaded rifles and bad judgment.
What gives the story some weight is that the poster did not sound dramatic. He sounded like somebody who liked the camp, respected the people there, and did not want one reckless person turning the whole thing into a tragedy. In that setting, “not giving him another chance” did not come off cold. It came off like the only decision a serious hunter could live with after a morning like that.
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