Originally posted by wolfsoul
When my aunt was young, the person who was driving her hit a deer. The poor thing was lying there dieing and they called the authorities but it was illegal to shoot it. He had a rifle in the back, but he wasn't allowed to shoot it! So they had to watch the poor thing die -- how sad!
I agree. I have a bad childhood memory dealing with a deer getting hit by a car. To make a long story short: I was looking the rear-view mirror, and noticed a deer try to JUMP over the car. The deer hit its back legs on the car. The car kept on going. I told my dad, we turned around. The deer dragged itself using only its front legs about 250 yards into the woods. The person who hit it didn't realize what happened at first, that's why they kept on driving. They eventually came back, and we called the cops. We had to watch this deer slowly stinking in a marsh waiting for the police officer to come and kill it. When the cop got there, he didn't want to kill the deer, because he would get his shoes dirty!! That is what he said, not kidding. So my dad walked into the swamp and put the deer out of its misery. Poor deer. I felt horrible!

However, I do think it is kind of a good idea that peoples other than the authorities cannot kill deer. In a situation like that, your adrenaline is on full speed, and you can do some pretty stupid stuff, because you really aren't looking at the full picture and can't think clearly. That is a mad mix: high adrenaline and a gun. Cops are trained to use guns in high adrenaline situations and have better control of guns and better judgment than the average person. So, in away it is a good law, because it prevents other accidents from happening. That is unless you get a moron cop like the one who came to our scene.