The more I hear about this the more I get the feeling there is more to it than we're hearing. All the news stories portray it as a dispute between hunters that turned violent. I have a feeling that the guy who did all the shooting was in the woods specifically looking for PEOPLE to shoot, not there for deer hunting at all. Things just don't seem to add up right for this to be just as it appears on the surface.

I read three differnt stories.
In the different versions I've read there was some things that don't sound right.

" Suspect Cooperating With Investigators" ......this don't mean much

"The ploice say they doubt charges would be filed on Monday.." ....not much here either

"The suspect was walking away at the time. For some apparent reason he turned and opened fire on them," ............. something happened right about there

This is opening weekend and.......... " About 20 shots were fired, but it's unclear whether anyone returned fire. There was only one gun among the hunters' group, County Chief Deputy Tim Zeigle said."............ even when the late comers coming on the scene knew their friends were getting shot? ........... idunno

" the shooters name was Chai Vang ".....................

no matter how it turns out there was a major loss of lives that is sure to effect many people. It's a sad thing to have happened. It will be a black eye for hunters in general..

I guess it is not such a bad thing playing the "armchair computer geek big game hunter"...but now i'm a "armchair computer geek detective"? ~~~I need a life~~~

One other tidbit to come to light was that Vang had a Minnesota license, but not a Wisconsin one. Why would he attach a Minnesota license to his vest when hunting in Wisconsin? Lost my butt -- the Sawyer County line is at a minimum 35 miles from the Minnesota border. Exeland, where this occurred, is over 55 miles from the border as the crow flies and over 85 miles by highway from the border. The press makes it sound like he got lost and wandered across the state line...yeah, right.

I have to wonder -- he's out there by himself with an SKS. I'll admit, there's nothing wrong with hunting with an SKS. But the SKS comes standard with a 10-round mag,. He apparently retrofitted his rifle with a 20 rounder.

Even after he shot the initial group, he hung around until the rest arrived and shot at them, too. He apparently didn't leave until he was out of ammo. That doesn't sound like self-defense to me.

Unfortunately, I have to agree this will be a black eye on hunting. I suppose there will be calls for limits on magazine size and prohibitions on assault rifles because people will claim this wouldn't have happened if he had less capacity or a rifle with a "sporting purpose." It's a shame, though, that the public would take it that way. It's not the hunters; it's the poacher that went on a killing spree that's the monster. The sad thing is that the press seems to be completely unable to tell the difference.

Reading between the lines, I think the press has been dying to report that poor, lost, Vang, who didn't even know what type of rifle to use, got confused and wandered into a nest of rednecks with their tree stands, radios and ATVs. They, being rednecks, got angry and started shooting at him and he had to defend himself. I've already read one AP story that went for the race card and insinuated it's related to other incidents involving clashes between intolerant white hunters and Hmong "refugees" that "don't understand" property rights. They're glossing over the fact that Vang, 36, has been in the US since he was 11 and served in the Army. They're really struggling to find an angle to play to absolve Vang and make this the fault of the hunters and property owners, or even the hunting culture of the area, rather than a poacher with a history of domestic violence calls -- one involving threatening his wife with a gun.

Man, the whole incident is a travisty!
What is a guy doing in the woods with a gun like that anyways?
Hunting humans.

Suspect in hunter killings says he was shot at first

Well the reports on the case have changed a lot in the last 48 hours. Definitely doesn't sound like a case of fighting over a treestand.

I think Vang probably was lost and either sat in the treestand for hunting purposes or was waiting it out until some people happened along.

Given that he seems to be somewhat skilled, there is little doubt that he probably knew that people were approaching him long before the approachers knew he was in the stand. If he intend to kill people from the get go, that would have been the perfect opportunity.

All that being said, I don't buy the self defense arguement at all, by Vang's own admission he returned to the scene, asked a hunter that was still standing "You're not dead yet?" then shot at him. That's not self defense that's psycho. I might be able to understand self-defense in the inital group of three people, if that group started jeering him and made actions that implied they were going to shoot at him. However, since all reports say that there was only one gun at the scene other than vang's, that means the party that came up on the atvs was completely unarmed. There is no way anyone can reasonably say "self-defense" on the second group. Given that the second group was shot unarmed, its quite possible that the first group did not provoke him in the way he claims.

What upsets me about it is t he irresponsible reporting and liberal bias coming through. Specifically:

- The idea that someone "hurling racial epithets" at you is harmful enough to make it somehow understandable that someone would respond with deadly force. It used to be that words didn't justify violence, but some elements in society now seem to think they do.

- The eagerness to classify Vang as a lost innocent, when accounts claim that he was an experienced hunter. What experienced hunter climbs in somebody else's tree stand and claims he didn't know he was trespassing?

- Completely dropping the poaching issue after initially brushing it off by saying he had a hunting license but "just not for Wisconsin" -- like it was some technicality he forgot to get stamped on his tag. Reporting this info honestly would make it tougher to portray him as a lost innocent.

- Making the "lost" issue one of wandering off public into private land -- but not saying how far he was from public land, how far he was from his vehicle, or refusing to address the fact that he was over an hour's drive away from where he could hunt legally.

- Reluctance to point out major inconsistencies in Vang's story -- like him saying that he was shot at first, then saying he shot at two hunters on an ATV when he saw that one of them had a rifle. The 8 victims only had one rifle -- so how could he have been shot at first when the rifle didn't arrive until well after the shooting started?

Bottom line is that despite the horrific circumstances, the press really seems to be clinging to any thread they can in order to legitimize this mass murderer, jusify his actions, or push him into the mainstream.

Maybe I'm overly cynical, but IMO I think the long-term goal of the press in this case is to spin and slant this in attempt to build sportsman support for assault weapons bans. Sportsmen have always been a huge obstacle in the way of the gun regulators, and I wouldn't put it past people to try to exploit this to try convincing sportsmen that assault weapons bans and magazine limits are in their best interests, too. I think they're hoping they can somehow report this as an honest argument that got out of hand, and plant the seed that it wouldn't have happened if Vang hadn't had the firepower available. If information continues to come out that contradicts that premise, I'll wager the story will fall off the press. By the way things are looking, I wouldn't be surprised if that happens within the next day or two.

"...IMO I think the long-term goal of the press in this case is to spin and slant this in attempt to build sportsman support for assault weapons bans."

BINGO! I suspect we're going to continue to see this story change and evolve as more information comes out. For instance, one thing I read that seems to have had very little press so far is that Vang was an adamant opponent of the concept of "private land." This might lead to the conclusion that he was there specifically looking for a fight, intent on proving that he could use this "private land" even if the owners didn't want him to.

Well, I hate to say I told you so, but less than 24 hours after my last post, and the story is no longer on CNN, FOX, or MSNBC websites. ABC and CBS have it buried on the back page in the US News section, and you have to dig to find it.

One thing I did see on CNN's webpage today, was a last gasp at gun control. The story they were running said almost verbatim: "Vang was using an SKS semiautomatic rifle--a variant of the AK-47 assault rifle. That gun is commonly used by deer hunters." So not only did it incorrectly associate the SKS with the AK, it used a bit of grammatical slight of hand to lead some to read that AK-47s are commonly used by deer hunters.

But this story is dying as fast as the missing Iraqi explosive story. That's a pretty common pattern -- run the story but drop it quick if it turns out it's not following the political path you want it to.

It used to be the media's line was "If it bleeds, it leads." Now it's "No traction, no action."

I have a Hmong guy that works with me. He might even know that Vang guy they're from the same neighborhood

The whole thing is definitely a tragedy. It is even more frightening knowing the pyscho lived in the same city as me. I had 2 family members hunting less than 10 miles from the shooting as well.
The media coverage has been less than sparkling, especially the national news outlets. I don't know if it would qualify as "liberal bias" though. I wouldn't call the fact that the Hmong community is being blamed for the actions of one a "conservative bias." I simply believe that in an effort to try to "understand" , people in the news are making assumptions that fit their preconceived notions of how the work works instead of focusing on the facts. A guy slaughtered 6 people. Nothing can justify his actions whether it be racial slurs or whatever. I do think that an honest debate over the use of an assault weapon for deer hunting is fair game though.