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.
"As long as folks hold the person who pulled the trigger blameless,"
Which, as I recall, is the tactic of the "Ban All Handguns" liberal left - to blame the weapon, not the person holding it.
I guess for some, this tactic also applies when the person holding it is a member of the Bush Admin?
There are more than a few of us that understand this.
The fact is, there are also many who haven't a clue of what they are talking about.
Par for the course. ;)
123 posted on 02/13/2006 12:58:38 PM MST by G.Mason I train NRA Certified Shotgun Instructors. It is difficult to train people who are rifle or pistol shooters Duck blinds are safer. Prior agreed-upon protocol is the next layer of safety.
as they do not understand that everything
is downrange when you are Upland bird hunting.
There is some cross-shooting when hunting with vehicles, as it appears was being done here (old WWII-style jeeps usually).
The key is to aim in flight, so your shots go above the opposite side.
If one chooses to so hunt, peppering is somewhat inevitable, and protective clothing is required.
I've done this; it's not my favorite, but it is common.
Mr. Whittington, the victim, is 78. Thank God, he's okay.
True, but on a scale between the two..., probably closer to the dog?
Hhmmm, maybe we need gun & owner licensing...you know, like with cars.
Hhmmm, then we would no longer have accidents/injuries....you know, like with cars.
amen. There's nothing else to add.
As a hunter, I would never walk up on a group of other hunters unanounced.
Stop it now your making me hungry.;)
But not in equal measure. The primary responsibility to be aware of what's going on lies with the guy who is pulling the trigger.
Politically, this is devastating to Cheney. Two important questions remain unanswered: 1. Why would Dick Cheney shoot an unarmed elderly man?, and 2. Why after shooting him he didn't immediatly call David Gregory?
Scratch my last reply, I just read more details of the accident.
(And no, I was not endorsing cross-shooting at distance; merely observing that it is common.)
 I cannot imagine a circumstance where I could have "accidentally" shot another member of our party. No way.I can imagine how someone can be shot in your party. You are obviously certain that your rules for hunting work 100% of the time. That is EXACTLY how accidents happen. You rely on your rules and that's a good thing. The problem arises when people think they have a solution that works 100% of the time. As an engineer I know that is impossible in any system. No bridge is built that cannot fail, but the risks can be minimized to the point that your will build it and use it. One cannot be 100% sure when changing lanes that in that moment between checking your blind spot and maneuvering, a motorcycle hasn't suddenly occupied that spot. Rules and systems are developed to minimize risk and costs. Hunting is no different. The only way to ensure you won't be shot when hunting is to not go hunting. |
"There is some cross-shooting when hunting with vehicles, as it appears was being done here (old WWII-style jeeps usually).
"
Having never done any upland hunting in Texas, I'm not familiar with the practices there. My info only applies to chaparral-style California upland hunting.
I do not like cross-shooting, however. I don't think I'd participate in a hunt where it was allowed. I trust myself to control my firing cone, but I don't trust anyone else.
Neither Cheney nor Whittington wer to fault.
It was the gunmaker and the ammo salesman.
"I can imagine how someone can be shot in your party. You are obviously certain that your rules for hunting work 100% of the time. That is EXACTLY how accidents happen. You rely on your rules and that's a good thing. "
In the case of the type of hunt I'm describing, strictly following those rules will prevent anyone from being shot. Other types of hunt require other rules.
Would it be wrong of me to assume that the author is a metrosexual who's never handled a firearm; let alone actually hunted with one?
Prior agreed-upon protocol bump!
I gave up hunting with a guy who shot at a bird that was between he and I, and this was after I hollered at him for loading his shotgun while it was pointed at me. He didn't hit me when he shot the bird, because I was on a slight rise above the bird.
I also had someone tell me, someone I'd never hunt with, that he didn't see the problem with using the scope on his rifle to find out if the person 200 yards away was someone he knew.
Long story as to why the subject came up.
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