Strange why do they write rifle at a pidgeon shoot? Many Italians have accidents while hunting some Swedish guides takes a deposit fee wich can be kept if a dog is shot or if the guide himself are hit by some pellets.

Would the reporter know the difference.

UK journalists don't know the difference between a shotgun or a rifle or indeed a handgun.

I don't know the details - these will come out in the coroners court, which will take place as it was an accidental death.

Pigeon shooting would have been from a hide over a spread of decoys. Sharing a hide you have to be very careful with gun safety - you need to remain seated until the birds are in close before standing to shoot. I would suspect a moment of excitement and inattention caused the tragic accident - and feel for all those concerned.

This isn't question of reporter integrity but a tragic loss.

Pigeon shooting is one of the most dangerous places to be in a restricted hide even if you are alone. This is especially the case with excited guns that don't get the opportunity to shoot as regularly as some of us. Twigs in the hide can catch a trigger easily enough and gun handling must be 100% by the book. Theonly person i will share a hide with is Dig and even then we have one gun loaded at a time. If I'm coaching then I want to make sure I have the space to move in the hide even if it is a little bigger than I'd like.

A very sad story indeed for a bunch of mates that went out shooting together, and whilst I don't know the details I'd bet this could have been easily avoided.

K

I agree wholeheartedly that this is a tragedy; but if you think that the Mail Online didn’t strategically place the line “shot with a hunting rifle” in bold and speech marks so that it would surface easily in every google search by an anti-gun campaigner, I’d say that is a bit naive. In that sense it’s fair to question journalistic integrity.