XU Hongman, 39, is paraplegic and confined to a wheelchair because of a former public official who accidentally shot him while hunting wild boar five years ago.

Xu’s tragedy is not unique: There are other people in rural areas victimized by hunters, usually government officials, who are members of amateur hunting clubs of dubious legality.

Since that fateful day in 2009, Xu has been unable to walk and feel cold or warm temperatures. The bullets lodged in the man’s spine and shattered his right shoulder. Four of his ribs were broken, parts of his lungs had to be cut out, and his legs were paralyzed. The memory of bullets slamming into his body still haunts him.

“I am no longer who I was,” he says, sitting in a dimly lit room as the sound of gunshots echoes again like a string of firecrackers on the same mountain where Xu was shot.

“If I could stand up, I would butcher them (the amateur hunters), I swear,” he says, the rage apparent.

The hunter who destroyed the life of an ordinary peasant is a retired public official of Hunan Province and a member of the local hunting association.

In a similar case on November 9, Luo Yunying, a villager in Hengdong County of Hunan Province, was killed from a shotgun as she was picking tea seeds on a mountain.

Just two weeks later, another villager, Li Qichang, was killed in Fujian Province while picking mushrooms on a mountain. He was shot in the left leg and would likely have survived, but it was three days before police found his body on the mountain, said his son-in-law surnamed Wang.

Not coincidently, the perpetrators in both recent incidents also were public servants. Last month, the Xinhua news agency questioned how these officials had access to an arsenal of rifles. China strictly bans the private possession of any form of firearm.

No response from official authorities has come. The hunting associations form the string that pulls these dreadful cases together.

According to Shanghai’s Oriental Morning Post, the hunting associations exist in numerous regions across China, including Hunan and Fujian. Initially, these organizations were formed by farmers who wanted to fight off predators. But with the development of the economy, these early associations gradually became hunting clubs for officials and the rich.

Xiao Weidong, the main suspect in the slaying of the tea-picking Luo, was among the first batch of members of Hengyang Hunting Association, the third city-level club for hunting established in Hunan Province last year.

There are many regulations and stipulations by which the association must comply, including protecting wild animals and forests. All members must undergo training before and after joining, and they must possess a hunting license and an arms license that has to be renewed every year.

The laws are supposed to be enforced by the local police, forest administration and civil administration.

“To be a member of a hunting association, it means you are qualified to hold guns and go hunting legally,” a member of the Hengyang Hunting Association, who insisted on anonymity, told the Oriental Morning Post. “You will also have the chance to attend all kinds of shooting competitions nationwide, enjoying the fun of shooting.”

In the early 1990s, many hunting organizations started to sprout around Hunan Province, managed by local police, says John Li, a veteran hunter.

“The main purpose was to protect the agriculture from being damaged by the wild boars. Just in the area of Changsha, there were over 3,000 participants,” he says.

The membership requirements were quite simple: at least 18 years of age, no criminal record and local household permission, or hukou. To gain a place in the club, one also had to get relevant training and pay a 300-yuan (US$50) to 500-yuan admission fee.

Li was among the earliest members. “Back then all the hunters were farmers,” he recalls. “We bought the guns from police authorities legally, while some farmers had rusted guns in their homes.”

By 1996, what Li and his peer hunters like to call “the golden age of hunting” was over. China issued laws regulating possession of guns and gun licenses, while all the old hunters were disarmed and their licenses abolished.

It took only three years before the hunting associations were revived, as damage to crops from wild boars continued to expand. Police departments became the only place to legally purchase a gun, and this was when the clubs became the domain of the rich and powerful.

“With limited membership, only people with lots of power and money could get to be a member,” a retired head of the justice system in Hunan Province who refused to reveal his name told the Oriental Morning Post.

A list of the members of one city-level hunting association in Hunan shows that public servants are the biggest component. These members work for the police and agriculture department, city and town government, and environmental protection bureau, while some are executives of state-owned enterprises including water and oil companies.

“Some associations require an admission fee of 300,000 yuan, and it is just for five years. After that, you will need another 300,000 yuan to renew your membership,” Li says.

“Another reason to recruit public servants and big bosses is that it is easy to manage,” he adds. “If something happens, they are able to pull strings.”

When Xu Hongman suffered his severe injuries five years ago, almost no one knew about it. Xu Nanqiu, the man who shot him, was former head of the Security Department of the Culture Relics Management Office in Xinkai Town, Yueyang City. He was among a group of 10 hunters looking for wild boars, and he mistook the man chopping wood for an animal.

In a decision from the court in Yueyang, Xu Hongman was given compensation of 430,000 yuan (US$69,230). He had two very young children at the time and the money turned out to be nowhere near enough.

“I spent all the compensation to treat my illness in less than five years, plus getting into quite a bit of debt,” he says.

This year in August, after taking care of him for many years, his wife left. He had to farm out his children to his brother, and he is now looked after by his 65-year-old invalid mother.

“I thought about killing myself so many times. If not considering the damage for my children, I would’ve died years ago,” he says.

As for the official who shot him, there is no known record of punishment beyond the 430,000-yuan payment.

Xu Hongman has asked the local police many times for the names and identities of other team members with Xu Nanqiu, but has repeatedly been turned down.

“Today, we still see civil servants hunting on the mountain during weekends but no villagers have the courage to stop them,” says Xu Xiaohong, from Gaolong Village, Hunan Province.

“Hunting is a quite usual phenomenon in the villages of Yueyang City,” Zhang Zhi, a volunteer protector of birds, told Oriental Morning Post. “The hunters are not professional, and they shoot everywhere on the mountains. It is a matter of time before something happens.”