For the co-founders of the collective “One day a hunter”, “There is no other choice but to legislate” the practice of hunting. Mila and her friend Beatrice are calling for days without hunting and for stricter rules on safety, in particular on alcohol, shooting near homes and gun control. For those who created the collective after the death in December 2020 in a village in the Lot, of Morgan Keane, 25, killed by a hunter, “the safety of rural people is at stake.”
The collective is behind a petition on the Senate website which has collected more than 122,000 signatures. In the process, the Senate created at the end of November a commission “securing hunting” which will hear Mila on Tuesday.
“Sunday and Wednesday without hunting”
“The hunting safety rules are ineffective, we ask that several points be urgently changed to avoid new tragedies,” she explains. These are “Sunday and Wednesday without hunting” or even hunting safety rules with in particular “protective distances around residential areas which are equal to the maximum range of weapons”, a maximum rate for the blood alcohol level for hunters – there is currently no limit – or an increase in the age for having a hunting license, currently set at 16 years.
The collective also demands “the control of weapons and the monitoring of risky behavior: many hunting rifles are found in homicides, weapons can be inherited upon the death of a hunter without the heirs having the license to hunt” , says Mila. While the number of hunters has fallen sharply since 1975, “the government is unable to say where the weapons are”, worries the young woman.