Of course, the full extent of that statement is “Be aware of your Target, and what lies beyond and in between”. This applies to all shooting activities, from tactical shooting, to plinking, and in this case to hunting. In a recent NBC report, a stray round entered a couples house in Washington State, and blasted all the way through it, ending up in the coffee maker on the other side of the house. The report says it was a hunters round, but honestly it could have been a person plinking in the woods, or perhaps someone drunk and acting irresponsible with a firearm. But in any case, this serves as a sober example of why we have to always know what lies beyond our targets, in any scenario, in addition to ensuring we have a sufficient backstop when target shooting. Luckily in this case no one was wounded or killed from that stray round.
Another practical lesson from this news story is how the bullet literally made it through the entire house, going through walls, coffee makers, clothing before finally stopping on the other side of the house. Take that for what it is worth, but it just goes to show that ballistics can literally go in all sorts of directions. The round eventually hit their oven and then ricocheted into the kitchen where it stopped.