ROANOKE, Va. – As Virginia’s general firearms deer season opens Saturday, experts are emphasizing safety measures and thorough preparation for the estimated 250,000 acres of public hunting land available.
“Whether you’re out hunting this season, getting ready to go hunt, practicing, training, or you’re starting to shoot for sport, there’s some basic firearm safety rules that really should be followed all the time,” says Mitchell Tyler, co-owner of Safeside in Roanoke.
Tyler emphasizes the four fundamental rules of firearm safety established by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF). The first rule: Always treat every firearm as if it’s loaded. “The level of respect increases, so even though you’re sure that it’s unloaded, we want to treat it as if it’s loaded because all the other things are going to help protect from an accident,” Tyler explains.
Rule two of the NSSF guidelines focuses on trigger discipline. “We train people about proper indexing, which is instead of having your finger around the trigger, to have your finger extended along the side of the gun before you move it onto the trigger,” says Tyler.
The third NSSF rule requires never pointing a gun at anything you don’t intend to destroy. The fourth rule emphasizes knowing your target and what’s beyond it. “We need to make sure that what’s behind our target or behind the animal is also going to be safe and so we’re making sure that we don’t see anything that could be hurt,” Tyler says.
The Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) stresses the importance of preseason preparation, including inspecting all gear, tree stands, and safety harnesses. Hunters must communicate their plans with others, indicating hunting location and expected return time.
With muzzleloader season underway, hunters face additional challenges. Unlike factory-made ammunition, muzzleloaders introduce more variables. “With factory-loaded ammunition, you’re going to have consistent rounds from shot to shot usually,” Tyler explains. “With muzzle loaders, there’s a couple factors... rifle ammunition is made in a factory in great conditions. Muzzle loading, you’re reloading in the field.”
Visibility remains crucial for hunter safety. “We want to be able to make sure that other hunters can identify us so when they hear movement in the woods or they see movement, that they have a really top-of-mind, presence of mind that this is another hunter or someone out there,” Tyler emphasizes. The DWR requires hunters to wear blaze orange for safety.
Hunters in Patrick, Roanoke, Shenandoah, Smyth, Tazewell and Wythe counties must have deer harvested on Nov. 15 tested for chronic wasting disease (CWD). Staffed check stations will operate from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., with refrigerated drop-off locations available.
For those hunting with hounds, additional preparations are necessary. Dogs must wear substantial collars with owner contact information, and hunters should plan to keep dogs on property where they have permission to hunt.
The DWR encourages hunters who fill their freezers to consider donating additional deer to Hunters for the Hungry through participating processors. In areas with high deer populations, doe harvest helps maintain herd health and reduce property damage.
Safeside offers firearm safety classes throughout the month. Tyler encourages hunters to have their firearms professionally inspected before the season begins, noting that many accidents happen before or after actual hunting activity.
“A lot of accidents happen with someone not out necessarily hunting actively, but the bookends of that, the before and after, where they had a firearm that was loaded,” Tyler warns. “If your firearm is unloaded, it will not go off.”