|
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.
|
lol
This from a magazine that requires a magnifying glass to see the subject of a story in a picture?
#1 Rule of not Real News Magazines: Shut The F*CK UP!
Cross-shooting?
Some fellas I work with have a habit of letting pheasants loose from a fire tower while "hunters", ganged around in a circle, paired up in ten positions along the circle will shoot at the released bird.
Last year, they released mallards and were using steel shot. Quite a few got "dinged" and their pickups had nicks in the paint and windshields.
We kidded them that next year, they need include a windshield repair kit in the hunting gift box they give out.
Just common sense.
I would agree that this "hunt" was rife with logistic problems. From the Secret Service to the drive and shoot.
"Scratch my last reply, I just read more details of the accident.
"
No problem, although I did answer. Different hunts require different field rules, certainly. Most of my deer hunting was in the Sierra Nevada mountains, where long ranges and shooting across valleys was the general practice. Also, there were always a lot of other hunters in the area. After a couple of close calls from other hunters, I stopped deer hunting there, and started going to Wyoming.
In California, there are just too darned many people up on the mountain you don't want anywhere within 1000 yards of you. On my last hunt there, up near Lone Pine, I was scanning an area across a valley with my binoculars, just after dawn. I spotted a nice buck picking his way down from a ridgeline, and was just about to scope it.
From below me, to my left, some guy with dog poop for brains actually let go with a full auto M16. He fired about 10 rounds. Never hit the buck, but I just packed up my stuff and climbed out. I never went back there. There are crazy people hunting in California.
I agree. Lugsoul probably hasn't a clue.
Perhaps you can point out the error in what he said.
Sounds like a freakin' circular firing squad. No thanks. I think I'll pass on that place.
Those are the only 3 rules I know.
You clearly can't exercise the common courtesy that is basic to this forum. And if you are among those trying to explain away the VP's culpability in the shooting, you are sending the worst possible gun safety message.
Hey, I'd hunt with either of you two guys. You get it.
Welcome to FR...
As with any MSM news story - even when its detrimental to Democrats, it starts with the template, how can we make this as negative about the President and his administration, as possible.
Even an accidental shooting becomes a scandal. Its an ACCIDENT!!!!
Personally, I am not taking advice from anybody that writes, much less reads Time magazine.
And your reason for that statement is?
ph>"As a hunter, I would never walk up on a group of other hunters unanounced."
Just common sense.
I would agree that this "hunt" was rife with logistic problems. From the Secret Service to the drive and shoot.
166 posted on 02/13/2006 1:34:39 PM MST by G.Mason
My Daddy once told me "common sense" is not uniformly distributed!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.