Posted on 02/13/2006 10:38:19 AM PST by SirLinksalot
How Did Dick Cheney Break the No.1 Rule of Hunting?
For veteran sportsmen like the vice president, safety is a core value
By TIMOTHY J. BURGER/WASHINGTON
The cardinal rule of hunting could not be more simple: Don’t shoot the people (or the dogs). If there’s anyone in Washington who knows this, one would have thought it would be Vice President Dick Cheney, who accidentally shot his friend and fellow hunter Harry Whittington, 78, late Saturday afternoon. Whittington is expected to recover from his injuries, but the question will linger on: how does an accident like this happen among hunters with so much experience?
For years, Cheney's take-charge public image has been bolstered by photos of him fly fishing in Wyoming and stories about Cheney jetting into hunting hotspots for quail, pheasant and other game. While serving as a congressman from Wyoming — before President Bush’s father tapped him for secretary of defense in 1989 — Cheney was a solid ally of the National Rifle Association, the staunch defender of gun rights, which also preaches gun safety.
Cheney frequently hunts ducks in Arkansas, Texas and South Dakota. His hunting career had been relatively smooth until controversy arose after he was reported to have taken conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia hunting in Louisiana in 2004, just after the Court had agreed to hear a case involving the secrecy of documents related to the Vice President’s 2001 work heading an energy task force. (Cheney was in favor of keeping them secret.)
Cheney also drew attention for reportedly shooting ducks and some 70 pen-raised pheasants at the exclusive Rolling Rock Club in southwestern Pennsylvania in December 2003. Experts were quoted at the time as saying there’s nothing wrong, legally at least, with blasting away at stocked birds. But depending on how and when they are released, it should not be confused with actual hunting, since disoriented birds placed in the field or released in front of the shooters are often neither as wary or elusive as wild quarry.
An eyewitness account reported by the Associated Press suggests that Cheney may have, in the heat of the moment, violated the No. 1 rule of hunting by failing to keep track of his hunting buddies at all times. The AP quoted the ranch's owner saying that Cheney could easily have failed to see Whittington, as the latter walked up behind the Vice President from lower ground and in tall grass. To be sure, safety should be paramount for everyone in a hunting party and some responsibility would have fallen to Whittington to make sure his fellow hunters knew he might be just out of sight behind them. But for the shooter, hunting safety dictates that focusing on the target should never be more important than keeping in mind what's behind it.
Accidents can happen, of course, in a single careless moment. Quail, when you find them and they flush, don’t exactly follow gun-safety rules. They fly up suddenly and may go in any direction. And the first thing that happens to the hunter is the adrenaline rush. That’s why quail hunters wear orange, as Cheney's group reportedly were. And that’s why experts counsel the hunter not to sweep the shotgun around and fire if they don’t know what’s in the line of fire. Knowing what's behind the target is also a rule with which, one can bet, Cheney’s Secret Service detail would have wanted Whittington himself to be intimate.
What probably spared Whittington more critical injury was the tiny size of birdshot being used on the hunt; quail are typically hunted with No. 8 shot, which is even smaller than BBs. After the accident, Whittington's face "looks like chicken pox, kind of. He's so lucky, it's a miracle," Whittington's daughter Sally told the Dallas Morning News. Cheney visited Whittington in the hospital the next day. The vice president "feels so bad," said Sally Whittington. "He's a very accomplished hunter. He was obviously relieved to see how well my father was doing."
If Cheney now finds himself criticized or lampooned, he'll ironically be in the same position he himself put Senator John Kerry in during the final days of the 2004 Presidential campaign, though the circumstances then did not involve a potentially deadly accident. At the time, Cheney used his widely-known experience as a hunter to mock a duck-hunting foray in Ohio in which Senator John Kerry ended up shooting a goose. "The senator who gets a grade of 'F' from the National Rifle Association went hunting this morning," Cheney reportedly said, to hoots. "I understand he bought a new camouflage jacket for the occasion, which did make me wonder how regularly he does go goose hunting.” As the Texas incident shows, experience does not make hunters immune to accidents, which is why hunting advocacy groups put such a relentless focus on safety as the top priority.
"I'm sorry, but the vast majority of hunting accideents don't just happen. They are usually the fault of either poor firearms handling or poor field safety. From what I have read, it was a disorgainzed scramble into the field after two coveys. It was stupid to flush the second covey until everyone was back in position from the first covey."
I'd not thought of that. You're right, if you're hunting in a disorganized manner, you're asking for this type of thing to happen.
As you correctly point out, Mr. Cheney is an experienced hunter and should know better.
It's unclear to me, based on the following, whether there was an out of season taking:
{P.C. 370.00} The Hunting & Harvesting of Attorneys
{370.01} Any person with a valid in-state rodent, or snake, or varmint hunting license may also hunt and harvest attorneys for recreational and sport (non-commercial) purposes.
{370.02} Taking of attorneys with traps or deadfalls is permitted. The use of United States currency as bait, however, is prohibited.
{370.03} The willful killing of attorneys with a motor vehicle is prohibited, unless such vehicle is an ambulance being driven in reverse. If an attorney is accidentally struck by a motor vehicle, the dead attorney should be removed to the roadside, and the vehicle should proceed immediately to the nearest car wash.
{370.04} It is unlawful to chase, herd or harvest attorneys from a power boat, helicopter or aircraft.
{370.05} It is unlawful to shout, "WHIPLASH", "AMBULANCE", or "FREE SCOTCH" for the purposes of trapping attorneys.
{370.06} It is unlawful to hunt attorneys within 10 - 20 yards of BMW, Mercedes or Porsche dealerships, except on Wednesday afternoon.
{370.07} It is unlawful to hunt attorneys within 200 yards of courtrooms, law libraries, health clubs, country clubs, hospitals or brothels.
{370.08} If an attorney gains elective office, it is not necessary to have a license to hunt, trap or possess the same.
{370.09} It is unlawful for a hunter to wear a disguise as a reporter, accident victim, physician, chiropractor or tax accountant for the purpose of hunting attorneys.
{370.10} Bag and Possession Limits per day:
Yellow-bellied sidewinders, 2;
Two-faced tortfeasors, 1;
Back-stabbing divorce litigators, 3;
Horn-rimmed cut-throats, 2;
Minutiae-advocating dirtbags, 4.
Honest attorneys protected (Endangered Species Act).
{ARS 8007.21} It is illegal to take attorneys with a moving vehicle unless there are no measurable skid marks at the kill site.
Quail are the sneakiest birds on the planet; they'll crouch right still until you step directly among them and then explode in a fury of feathers and rushing wind and you either jump or stand there, stock still, while the warm urine trickles down your once, warm leg.
LMAO!!!
If Whitington was where he was supposed to be, Cheney would needed to have wheeled almost 180 degrees to have him in his line of fire.
Whittington left the "line" (announced) returned from the rear. (unannounced)
102 posted on 02/13/2006 12:40:27 PM MST by G.Mason Whittington failed to follow safe protocol in upland bird hunting.
But you gotta admit that Whittington getting up in the air with the quail was a good effort. He should have stayed on the ground then he would not have been shot.
It seems that it was the guy who was shot who was not obeying the rules ... he didn't let anyone know where he was in relation to others in the party ...
"Quail are the sneakiest birds on the planet; they'll crouch right still until you step directly among them and then explode in a fury of feathers and rushing wind and you either jump or stand there, stock still, while the warm urine trickles down your once, warm leg."
Well, they are sneaky, but I never peed myself when a covey flushed. They're also very tasty little critters, so I got over the surprise, eventually, and learned to be an excellent snap shot. In California, you got almost no time to take your bird before it dove into the next bush.
Great fun. You always came back smelling of sage and other fragrant stuff. Then, you'd dress the little birdies, so Mom could cook for that night's dinner. Yum! My record for eating quail is 8.
They can not get over the fact that they were not allowed to break the story. And, it was an accident. They happen!
I've been hit before...and it was my fault completely.
See Mineral Man's post #101. Sums it up well. It was a collective effort for the incident to happen.
Your naivety is showing.
Unless you are hunting a treeless prairie, it is impossible to see many ground objects when aiming at a flying object. Hills, gullys, trees all come into a general view.
Unrelated hunting parties may not be aware of other hunters presence, due to their location and terrain.
Whittington announced he was leaving the "line". Upon his return, from the rear, he made no such announcement.
No need to make this accident into a rifle & pistol range type incident.
But hey, don't let this stop you. Vent away.
I'm going to expose my total ignorance about hunting and ammo...
When a hunter shoots at a bird, why doesn't the birdshot all go towards the target? Is it supposed to "spray" out in all directions? Why?
Was the bird that Cheney was shooting at only 5-6 feet up in the air? How far out does the birdshot spray and is it smaller than a BB?
"If you pull the trigger when your gun is pointed at someone you don't intend to shoot, you have done something wrong. Period."
No arguement here.
My understanding from the slanted media was the shot went up towards the bird but somehow the guy got sprayed with part of the pattern only because he wasn't where he should have been plus not informing the others where he was ... but don't expect the media to pick up on that ....
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