Any weapon can be dangerous, of course. I had a shotgun explode in my face due to a defective shell. I've heard of ML's blowing up being double loaded. Guy putting arrow through hands (wasn't that a Scheel's photo from their test booth? I may be wrong?).
I was concerned with crossbow I bought for my nephew where I had to go over and over and over it with him cause I was freaked out he'd forget something and take his fingers off, I think it was mainly thumbs. Pre-loaded, I bet that's how many folks will go in the field and compared to an "unloaded bow", that obviously would make them more dangerous and thankfully I don't need to worry about taking off my thumbs with my bow. In any case, I'm more worried about falling out the tree but I do have a tether rope that I clamp onto now when I climb up.
Yes, I'll be honest, I think the sentiment against crossbows by me may be biased as I know we have a huge force of $ by the manufacturers & politicians coming to Iowa for greed and they could care less about our delicate resource. We could easily end this discussion now though.... Crossbows for the disabled, elderly, late ML season - DONE DEAL. The crossbow lobby & politicians will do anything they can to wedge this further in with more money to be made the further they wedge it in. We need to fight back the wedge to defend our resource & delicate system - it's hard because our desire is not fueled by $.
At a minimum, I'm not a fan of trial lawyers BUT at least trial lawyers can give crossbow companie's and their lobbyists a taste of their own medicine - going after the almighty dollar. And heck, if folks are being hurt in large #'s due to a dangerous design, I especially don't feel so bad for those crossbow pushing & pimping companies & lobbyists.