"Law and Order" followup

I just got done watching that "Law and Order" episode featuring an incident based on last November's hunting massacre in Sawyer County near my home town. While the situation in the episode was eerily similar to the Sawyer County killings, the episode focused more on the actions of another hunter who pursued the killer. There was no attempt to explain the motives for the killings in the episode, except for the suggestion that it might be a disagreement over a tree stand. Nor was there any racial aspect to the incident as depicted.

I guess I'm glad that "Law and Order" used the incident only as a backdrop to a different sort of story, but I can imagine that family members of those killed in Sawyer County would have found the depiction of the scene of the crime quie unsettling. I hope they didn't watch.

Though the episode set the murders in upstate New York, Door County, Wisconsin, was mentioned by one of the characters as a place where he used to go hunting.

I leave it to the gun experts to comment on the rifle shown in the episode -- which was called both an "automatic" and a "semi-automatic."

By the way, this is the first episode of "Law and Order" I've ever seen. Didn't care much for it. Is Sam Waterson's character always that annoying?