In November 2025, an amateur hunter in Reutlingen also shot his family.
Such cases do not appear in any official hunting accident statistics because they are recorded as criminal offenses, not hunting accidents. Neither hunting associations, nor authorities, nor the Federal Statistical Office maintain a complete overview of how many people are injured or killed by hunting weapons. This statistical blind spot is itself a political problem: where data is lacking, so is the pressure for action.
Age as an underestimated security risk
The largest age group among recreational hunters in Germany today is over 50. In this group, age-related limitations such as declining eyesight, slower reaction times, difficulty concentrating, and cognitive deficits increase significantly, statistically speaking. According to the German Hunting Association, the average age of German recreational hunters was already 56 in 2022, while currently around 467,682 hunting license holders are registered in Germany. By comparison, soldiers and police officers have clear age limits for handling service weapons. This does not yet apply to recreational hunters.
Hunting accident records repeatedly document elderly perpetrators: In 2023, an 83-year-old hunter in Lippstadt seriously injured a fellow hunter in the head with a stray bullet; an 81-year-old died under unclear circumstances during a driven hunt in the Harz Mountains in 2017; and an 86-year-old shot his wife and himself in 2017. These reports are not isolated incidents. They follow a pattern.
The Dutch model as a benchmark
The Netherlands reacted decisively: The Ministry of Justice and Security introduced the so-called "E-Screener," a digital psychological test with 100 yes/no questions, which all hunting and firearms license holders must complete. Those over 60 and under 25 were given priority for testing. The result was clear: In the first month after its introduction, the police confiscated the hunting licenses and firearms of a "relatively high number" of recreational hunters. PETA documented that around 25 percent of the tested recreational hunters lost their hunting licenses. This shows that a significant proportion of active recreational hunters should never have been allowed to keep their firearms.
The IG Wild beim Wild (Interest Group for Wildlife) therefore demands annual medical-psychological fitness assessments based on this model, as well as a binding upper age limit for recreational hunters. Anyone handling deadly weapons in public spaces must continuously demonstrate their physical and mental capacity to do so. This is not discrimination. This is the minimum standard.
"Legal" is not a free pass
German firearms law stipulates reliability checks, but these checks are mostly one-off and do not reflect dynamic risk developments. What is formally considered "reliable" does not necessarily correspond to the actual mental or physical condition in everyday life. A firearms license does not guarantee permanent safety. It is a baseline assessment, not a permanent ruling.
Neither gradual cognitive changes, nor escalating relationship conflict, nor incipient suicidality are detected by a single screening. As long as the system remains this way, it will remain blind to the next tragedy.
What is different in the brains of violent offenders
Neuropsychologists confirm: The amygdala, also known as the almond-shaped nucleus, is the brain region that evaluates emotions, recognizes danger, and provides an assessment within milliseconds as to whether a situation requires compassion, withdrawal, or alarm. In people with a tendency toward proactive violence—that is, planned, non-impulsive violence—the amygdala often reacts below average. These individuals tend to be unmoved by the suffering of others. A reduced capacity for emotional engagement with the suffering of others is considered one of the main characteristics of psychopathic personalities.
Neuroimaging studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) consistently show reduced amygdala volume and abnormal activation patterns in psychopathic individuals. These abnormalities lead to impaired emotional responsiveness, reduced empathy, and a diminished capacity to experience fear or guilt. When the amygdala is functionally impaired or atrophied, basic inhibitions are also lost, including feelings of disgust in the face of injury and death.
Those who kill regularly and frame it as a leisure activity are cultivating precisely the kind of indifference that neuroscience describes as a risk signal. The question society must ask itself is not: "How evil must someone be to become a danger?", but rather: "What practices normalize violence to such an extent that neurobiological inhibitions are systematically lowered?"
Speciesism as the foundation of recreational hunting
Behind every hunting license lies a fundamental ethical decision: that the lives of non-human animals are of less value. The IG Wild beim Wild (Interest Group for Wildlife) calls this what it is: recreational hunting is based on speciesism, on the systematic devaluation of non-human animals solely on the basis of their species. Speciesism is structurally comparable to racism or sexism and cannot be justified in the long term, either culturally or ethically. Tradition is no substitute for moral scrutiny.
Precisely because recreational hunting is a field riddled with euphemistic narratives, half-truths, and deliberate disinformation, transparency, verifiable facts, and an open public debate are essential. Where violence is normalized, narratives serve as justification. The regular reports of hunting accidents, fatal errors, and the misuse of hunting weapons make it clear: A practice based on voluntary killing, which simultaneously creates significant risks for both humans and animals, is losing its social legitimacy.
