Jamie and Rosemarie Billquist (courtesy buffalonews.com)
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Such a tragic loss at the hands of a man breaking hunting laws, he deserves life in prison . . . Husband of hunting accident victim: ‘Her life was cut way too short’

Jamie Billquist was watching TV at his home on Armenian Road in Sherman Wednesday night when  he heard his dogs barking.

His wife, Rosemary, had just taken their Labs, Sugar and Stella, out for a walk in the field behind their house after getting home from work.

He went outside to see why the dogs were barking and saw an ambulance pull into his driveway.

“Jamie, we’ve got a gunshot wound,” an EMT who happened to be a friend of Billquist’s said to him as he rushed into the field.

The victim was Rosemary. He rode with her in the ambulance to UPMC Hamot in Erie, Pa., where she was pronounced dead.

A neighbor, Thomas B. Jadlowski, 34, of Cornish Street, thought he saw a deer in the field and fired his pistol, according to the Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Office.  Then he heard a scream, sheriff’s officials said.

Jadlowski told investigators he found Rosemary Billquist about 200 yards away. He called 911 and applied pressure to her wound.

Jamie Billquist said his 43-year-old wife had been shot in the hip roughly 100 yards from their house.

“They tried saving her,” her husband said Friday morning. “It was just too bad. … It’s horrific. It will be with me the rest of my life.”

Sheriff’s officials said Jadlowski has been cooperating with investigators but so far no charges have been filed. The investigation showed that Jadlowski reported the shooting at 5:24 p.m., which was 40 minutes after sunset. It is a violation of state hunting laws to hunt deer after sunset, sheriff’s officials said.

BTW this is the same county as the story above. I don’t know if I’m more worried about the poor eye sight in Chautauqua County or the idiots that live there that are breaking hunting laws. OMG how dumb AF do you have to be to mistake a truck for a deer? . . . Hunter charged with shooting truck he mistook for deer

A hunter in western New York shot a pick-up truck when he mistook it for a buck — just days after a man in the same region killed a woman he mistook for a deer, authorities said.

Marvin C. Miller, 26, was hunting deer on state land late Friday when he fired his 7mm high-powered scoped rifle at a brown pick-up truck, according to the Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Office.

The bullet hit the truck’s front fender and shot through its engine compartment.

The truck was disabled — but neither its driver, Robert Merritt, nor the other passenger was harmed.

Miller, who is from Middlefield, Ohio, was charged with discharging a firearm across a public roadway and reckless endangerment in the second degree.

He was arraigned in Sherman Town Court and released after posting bail. Additional charges may be filed, the sheriff’s office said.

The incident happened just miles from where a hunter allegedly shot and killed Rosemary Billquist, 43, who was out walking her dogs Wednesday, after also mistaking her for the woodland creature.

No charges were filed against the hunter, Thomas Jadlowski, but the Chautauqua County DA is investigating.

New laws in Wisconsin allows children of any age to participate in hunting. I like it. As long as the government is forcing kindergartners to learn gender neutrality by way of a “gender unicorn” they should also learn to hunt, skin and eat their food . . . Kindergartener bags buck under Wisconsin’s new hunting rules

Wisconsin kindergartener is among the first youngsters to bag a buck under a new law that eliminates the state’s minimum hunting age.

Lexie Harris, 6, is no stranger to the woods. Her dad, Tyler Harris, has taken her along on his hunts since she was 3. But, it wasn’t until Gov. Scott Walker signed the new law on Nov. 12 that Lexie could legally shoot a deer.

Until then, a state resident had to be 12 years old to purchase a hunting license or hunt with a gun. Children as young as 10 could participate in the mentored hunt program. The new law lets anyone of any age participate in a mentored hunt and the mentor and student are each allowed carry their own weapon.

Harris bought his daughter a youth rifle, which is easier for her to handle and less powerful and has taken her to the shooting range to practice. He also attached a smartphone to the gun scope to make it easier to train the firearm on her target.

Personally, I would love to hunt a grizzly as I hear they make a fine meal. It’s also a known fact that grizzlies believe human flesh to be a delicacy and prefer to eat it raw whenever possible . . . NRA, Hunting Group Say Grizzly Bear Hunts Needed for Safety

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The National Rifle Association and a sport hunting group want to ensure their members can hunt grizzly bears in the three-state region around Yellowstone National Park after the animals lost U.S. protections.

Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are considering limited trophy hunts for grizzlies outside the park in future years after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service revoked the species’ threatened status in July.

Conservation groups have sued to restore protections, and now the NRA and Safari Club International have asked U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen to let them intervene in the case.

Several of the groups’ members said in affidavits submitted by their attorneys that hunting would help the region’s economy, allow states to better manage the animals and improve public safety.

“Having the ability to hunt grizzlies would be great for business. I would also personally hunt a grizzly if given an opportunity to do so,” said Edwin Johnson, a 70-year-old hunting outfitter who lives in Gardiner, Montana. “They need to be hunted so that they fear the scent of humans, rather than following it as they do now.”

An estimated 700 bears live in and around Yellowstone National Park. Attacks on humans have increased since the animals rebounded from widespread extermination in the last century.

At least six lawsuits to restore protections for grizzlies are pending in Montana and Illinois, although most are expected to be consolidated into a single case in coming months.

An attorney for environmentalists in one of the Montana cases said no decision has been made on whether to fight the attempt by the NRA and Safari Club to intervene.

Speaking of raw meat, do you even grind? This year, I’m gonna stop paying my taxidermist to make my sausage. For the same price, I can do it myself. This is a cyber Monday deal on Cabelas FYI . . . Cabela’s Pro Series DC Grinder

Process your favorite meats with reliable power and ease using our die-cast-aluminum Pro Series DC Grinder. Quiet yet powerful 0.5hp DC motor combined with a #12 head yields over 7 lbs. of meat per minute, delivering professional-grade performance straight to your kitchen. Four-position control switch features full-power grinding mode, reduced-speed grinding mode, sausage-stuffing mode and reverse. Cam-action, grinder-head release locks in place for solid, rattle-free durability. One-way-fit stainless steel cutting blade. Stable, sure-grip rubber feet. Includes large and small sausage attachments, two sizes of stainless steel cutting plates (4.5 and 7mm) and heavy-duty storage cover.

Here is an story submission by a reader. Apparently the deer in Central Ohio are suicidal . . . Family records close encounter with deer during hunting trip

COLUMBUS (WCMH) – A Central Ohio family had an up-close encounter during their first hunting trip out in the woods in Franklin County.

Gary Simons says he was squirrel hunting with his two boys in the Little Pennsylvania Cemetery last week when a curious young buck meandered by.

Video recorded by Simons shows the deer licking the boys’ guns, Simons’ pants, and even the phone before wandering back into the woods.

Simons said “words can’t explain” how excited his boys were after the close encounter with the deer.

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53 COMMENTS

    • Threw a ball for my dog in near a herd of urban deer. One of the does ran after the ball.

      Guess someone’s been feeding the deer apples. Ya think!

  1. I’m not a parent and have had nothing to do with raising any kids. I am pro gun, pro hunting.

    I think it is irresponsible to put a high power rifle in the hands of a 6 year old even with close adult supervision.

    No, I don’t think the government should be involved making a regulation of the proper age. I think you as a parent should be making the decision. And if you are putting a .243 or higher powered rifle in the hands of a 6 year old, I respectfully don’t agree with your decision to do so.

    I went hunting with my dad when I was about that age, but I did not carry the firearm.

    • Duly noted.
      At least one dad out there would strongly disagree with you and has photographic proof that his six year old is up to the task.
      Everyone else’s mileage will vary, of course.

      • Up to the task of harvesting a deer.

        Is she continuously up to the task of handling the rifle? More so than two adult hunters in Ohio I guess.

        I just don’t see any problem with the age limit other. I’m I’m sure some children can handle it younger, but I don’t see any conflict of the second amendment making appropriate age restrictions to minors to insure their safety and mine . I know I would not personally give permission to any minors under the age of 12 permission to hunt on my property.

        I know most of you on this forum will disagree with me and I’m ok with that.

        • I think it could be argued that the younger (more obedient) the better. It’s a lot harder to teach an almost teen-ager / teen-ager / young adult anything.

          Teaching young children gives you more time to instill the 4 rules and any other safety advice with repetition and AS ETIQUETTE. If the ‘kid’ can carry the gun, let them carry it for as long as they can. Teach them to clean the darn thing.

          Especially for hunting, IT’S A TOOL. Unwad Your Panties.

        • “I think it could be argued that the younger (more obedient) the better. It’s a lot harder to teach an almost teen-ager / teen-ager / young adult anything.

          Teaching young children gives you more time to instill the 4 rules and any other safety advice with repetition and AS ETIQUETTE.”

          I agree. Playing devils advocate, you could just as easily and more safely train them with a red rider B.B. Gun and allowing them to master before allowing them something more dangerous.

          I watched my neighbors adopted 7 year old put a toy gun to the back of guests heads execution style and pull the trigger this summer. This child has been taught firearm safety. It’s only a toy, but I wonder how much he differentiates.

          I’m sure everyone that takes offense to my opinion on this matter has children who are anomalies of maturity and adult reasoning. Then again, as parents you might be a little bit biased…

          I let everyone know I don’t have my own kids
          but it’s not like I’ve never seen kids before. I have neighbors, friends, and family with all ages of children. And I have yet to see the 6 year old that I felt like it’s a good idea for them to go deer hunting (even with close supervision.) There is plenty of time to take them hunting and impart your traditions, they don’t have to start with a deer rifle at 6 years old in kindergarten.

          Now, convince me I’m wrong. Then realize it’s not really me you have to convince because I won’t do anything to stop you from taking a 2 year old hunting if you want. It’s 1000s of kindergarten classrooms worth of soccer moms that will call and demand legislation from your elected officials if there is ever the smallest youth hunting accident and they vastly outnumber all of us.

      • I would not trust a 6 year old with a firearm. Their motor skills just aren’t developed enough to reliably handle them safely. There is one exception: I would trust a kid with a single shot rifle. That’s about as safe as you can get.

    • You don’t have kids and you’re not a parent but you want to preach about parenting. Ugh
      So you hunted at 6 but didn’t carry a rifle. I hunted at 5 with a 20 gauge and my 6 year old just took a doe with a 300 blackout. What does any of that have to do with the price of tea in China?

      • I want to discuss this issue and hear opposing opinions because it’s probably the one thing you and I would disagree about regarding firearms.

        Analogy: when I was young, i used to put the tractor in drive, jump off, throw hay on the wagon, then jump on to steer. Just because I was agile and never got hurt doesn’t mean it was a good idea.

        • Well that makes two of us, Cooper E Lee. Lol we had an old Case, it was my hot rod, I painted lighting bolts and flames on it. It mite have topped out around12 mph lol. Dad had the spark plug wires all wrong, all twisted not straight. I fixed it for him, boy was he mad. I didn’t know about firing order back then, I just wanted the plug wires straight and purdy. Damn good times.

        • There are adults I wouldn’t trust with a firearm, and kids I would, I think every individual is different, and I don’t see a problem with a six-year-old hunting as long as they have the proper mindset, and are supervised by a competent adult. I was allowed out hunting with rifles, and shotguns at the age of 11 by myself.
          That’s my two cents.

    • Good thing you’re not a parent and have nothing to do with raising any kids…in WI, hunting and living from the land is a way of life, has been since before WI became a state, ALL these youth hunts are mentored by a licensed adult hunter, and if you can’t hang with that, GTFO of the woods…

      “I went hunting with my dad when I was about that age, but I did not carry the firearm.”

      You weren’t “hunting”, you were a tag along…

      • No need to get upset over my difference of opinion.

        There are many irresponsible adult hunters.
        What is the criteria for determining when a minor should operate a rifle?
        How do we balance the parents rights to share their heritage with the safety of other hunters and the public at large?

        • “There are many irresponsible adult hunters.” ? ? ?

          For the amount of hunting that goes on (just in my state of OK alone) NO THERE ARE NOT.

          There might be many irresponsible adults out there. They vote evil POS (D), and they want the government there to hold it for them while they pee. Because communism.

          “Cooter” sounds pretty irresponsible to me. Who’d you vote for last election?

    • I was hunting squirrels at 6 with a single shot shotgun.

      I carried the gun and when moving the action was open.

      When a new site was picked, the action was closed.

      I had gone through the BB gun training starting at 5.

      Had to clean my own squirrels too……with a knife.

    • Hi.
      I don’t own a car. Never driven one. Never even been a passenger in one. But I’m here to tell you all you crazies need to SLOW DOWN!

  2. “OMG how dumb AF do you have to be to mistake a truck for a deer?”

    Well, let’s see what we gots here, now –

    Someone’s wife *and* an innocent truck got shot.

    Since most males focus so strongly on those two, all we need now is a story about someone mistaking a case of beer balanced on someone’s shoulder for a case of beer in New York State, and we have an offical hunting ‘hat trick’…

    Next we have…

    “New laws in Wisconsin allows children of any age to participate in hunting. I like it. As long as the government is forcing kindergartners to learn gender neutrality by way of a “gender unicorn” they should also learn to hunt, skin and eat their food .”

    Preach it, sister Liberte!

    The Leftists can’t seem to be capable of understanding that as offended as they get of us hunting game animals, we are equally or *more* incensed at *their* audacity of their concept of *cough*,’teaching’, *cough*, sexuality subjects to small children…

    *mutter*

    • EDIT – Duh, me. Again. Still.

      Make that, “…about someone mistaking a case of beer balanced on someone’s shoulder for a deer in New York State and shooting it,…”

      *Double – mutter*

      • “in New York State” . . . ‘if it’s brown, it’s down’. Farmers tag their livestock with orange paint “cow”, “pony”, etc.

        The real sad part is the 1 tag per season per hunter, but you can kill yourself on the Northway or Thru way hitting more than you can tolerate, with your car.

        People in N. NY use hunting, like out here, to put groceries on the table, fill the freezer. the hunting rules out there have always been crap. “Conservation” to them means protect them until they eat out of your hand [Heckscher Park] and they get so inbred they are truly scary creatures.

  3. A friend of mine — who is an avid hunter — has a second home in the Berkshires and a “pet” doe who visits him there. He doesn’t feed her but she comes around anyway and enjoys a good scratch behind the ears.

    There’s just no accounting for what animals might do.

    • Clearly she has taught that particular giant monkey how to scratch that oh-so-hard-to-reach spot for her. Now if she could only figure out how to get him to go into that noisy cave-place in town for her and bring her some apples… 🤠

    • The humane thing to do would be for him to drive his vehicle up to the fawn and lay on the horn, scaring the crap out of it.

      Some free fawn fertilizer from the fawn, and maybe save the front end of someone’s vehicle and the fawn’s life in one go, when it learns to fear vehicles…

  4. 200yds with a pistol, 40min after sunset…this guys story is full of holes, I’m bettin’ it was intentional, stemming from some sort of neighbor dispute…

  5. I worked at a dealership as a service advisor several years ago. One fall a 2 year old Silverado was towed in because the owner said he went to start it, but the strong smell of gas stopped him, and he decided to have it towed in and checked out to be safe. The tech noticed a large hole in the passenger fender, right at the edge the wheel opening. Long story short, a slug had hit the fender and tore through everything between it and the engine, and smashed through the passenger side of the fuel rail (it’s only plastic) before entering the intake manifold (again, it’s only plastic), where it broke into pieces that scattered everywhere inside the intake. That was not a cheap repair, since the tech ended up having to remove the heads to get all the chunks of lead, as well as replace all of the parts that were destroyed or damaged. I don’t know if the owner ever found out who did it. No, the truck wasn’t brown, and yes, this was also Ohio. There are lots of idiot hunters in Ohio, apparently.

    Which reminds me of something else. I had a boss back when I was a teenager who got a deer in his backyard at 5:30 in the morning. He said got up one morning, walked into the kitchen to make coffee and saw a “huge buck” in his backyard, so he grabbed his rifle from his bedroom and snuck over to the sliding glass door in the kitchen. He slid the door open just enough to poke the barrel out, took aim, and dropped the buck. He said he went out to look at it, still barefoot and in his PJs, glanced back at the house, and saw his seriously pissed off wife standing at the door holding two crying kids. He said he slept on the couch for a week and his neighbors stopped talking to him for a couple months, but he got himself a “bigass deer”.

  6. I’m not sure about humans being on a grizzly bears list of favorite things to eat. Every individual is different, I was informed that the only two animals in the lower forty eight that will kill and eat humans is Black Bear and swine. I was told a Grizz will kill but seldom devour a human. It’s what I was told….*”.Shhhhhh look over there, about 1000 yards out, it’s either a really big buck or a Buick, go ahead and take the shot”.

  7. Not to blame the dog walker, but it might have helped if she wore safety orange in the fall? Even that lime green jacket would been nice.

  8. I have to wonder how much alcohol was involved with those “accidents”.

    Not to mention at least 2 breaches of the 4 rules.

  9. *yawns*

    There’ll be a lot of people who drilled bear with 12G slugs when they were 5 in this thread.

    On the other note, some idiots, especially those who can’t count to Rule 4, are better without guns.

  10. Her dad, Tyler Harris, has taken her along on his hunts since she was 3.

    So tell me more about where I can find one of these sound-proof ground blinds.

  11. No,idea what the heck Joe R is talking about , having hunted here over 40 years , and wife’s family farming 3,000 acres , my father raised on a farm as well .

    Cows painted orange ? , maybe one guy somewhere , sometime . one tag ? I get 7 or 8 a year and I could get more by having others sign theirs over , plus the dmaps the farm gets , I guess I could kill around 12 per year .

    Brown it’s down has mostly gone away, QDM is largely practiced around me .

    Oh and the truck shooter is from Ohio .

    The guy who,killed the woman used a Remington XP , a rifle caliber, action and long barrel .

    • It’s been a few years, but (as far as I can tell) it’s still one tag per person per season [http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/8305.html]. That there’s a bag limit at all on Long Island is insane.

      Go QDM Heckscher State Park. you could do it with a bag of apples and a hunting knife.

      Not animals painted entirely any color, just what type of animal it is painted on the side. Farmers even stopped circling it.

  12. One of the people I lived next to in college adopted a baby deer whose mother was killed by a car in front of our houses. The deer would act basically like a dog, it followed you around, wanted to play, would try to jump in your car with you or come into your house. It was maybe a year old when it was pretending to be a dog. Very funny, probably waltz right up to someone to be shot.

  13. wisco, (just beyond the cheddar curtain), is on a roll with gun liberties, a fact i love bringing up at the holidays just to watch my bil squirm. he dragged my sister and their kids up nart to get away from all the craziness down here. i got the ball rolling thursday with the hunting age law and all eyes went to him, let it go or engage?
    fun stuff. after a police shooting of a homeless man in a city park he once said, “they should take all the full auto pistols away from the cops.” m’waukee issues glox.

  14. As a 40-year hunter, I’ve never understood the ‘mistaking person/object for a deer’ thing. I not only i.d. that it’s a deer, for example, but what SIZE a deer, whether doe or buck, the size of the rack in the case of the latter, and a broad age determination. If you can’t make out those sorts of things, then DON’T SHOOT. What, do you just fire away and HOPE it’s a good deer? Did the lady have horns on her head? Do you have truck-sized deer in your hunting area? Jesus, I just don’t get it. I try, more than ever, not to judge, but these people are too stupid to have firearms.

  15. I’ve hunted for years, and used to be a state certified Hunter Safety Instructor many years ago. I remember discussing this kind of stupid “accident” in classes way back then. The discussion usually devolved into, “So, when he shot that (cow, person, truck, etc.), do you think he was making a head shot, heart/lung shot, or what?” Also frequently asked was, “I wonder if he sized it and determined it was a legal (cow, person, truck, etc.), before “taking” it?”
    I agree with another poster above who thinks the whole story of the neighbor who shot someone’s wife with a pistol after dark because he thought it was a deer, sounds very fishy. I’m betting some kind of charges will eventually be filed against him. Sounds to me, like he didn’t want folks walking around n the woods near his house and thought he was “scaring them off,” when he accidentally shot her with a randomly aimed bullet. I’ve hunted deer with a handgun, and, particularly with a pistol, you need to be close enough to see the animal very clearly (typically around 25 yards, maybe 50-60 yards at the most, and this is in daylight, during legal hunting hours) before you can hope to hit it properly. Consequently, the distances involved in handgun hunting tend to be similar to those involved in bow hunting, which makes this all the more suspicious to me.

    • My question was “whose field was it?”
      Was it her field, his field, or somebody else’s field that neither one of them had permission to use?

      He got her in the hip, not the heart/lungs.
      Was he trying for a dog, and did he think it was a dog or a deer?

  16. It’s a questionable excuse at best , the whole question of whether firing that shot after sunset violated PA hunting laws is beside the point, firearms season for deer didn’t even open until this morning. If it had been an honest mistake, the SOB was still poaching. I’d look deeper into the relationship between these neighbors.

  17. Anyone who shoots another person, or truck under the above circumstances should have their Second Amendment rights abolished, they have already proven themselves to be ignoramuses that should not be allowed to possess them.
    The man responsible for the womans death should also receive a fairly lengthy jail term, and the other dumb ass a shorter jail term.

    • Kind of like my view of ‘car rights’.
      If you use your car to kill somebody else, and it’s totally your fault, then you should lose your driving privileges for life.

      I’ve mentioned my idea to friends who think that it would be cruel and inhumane punishment to take away their right to drive forever just for taking away somebody else’s right to drive (and breathe) forever.

  18. The neighbor who shot the woman is constantly referred to as “the hunter”.
    This sounds more like a case of some asshole taking a pot shot at anything moving in a field behind his house. Yeah, he wished it was a deer and had no expectation of actually hitting the target. Pure negligence and he should face the appropriate homicide charges.

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