How Did Dick Cheney Break the No.1 Rule of Hunting?

Time Magazine ^ | 02/13/2006 | Timothy Burger

[Cobra64]

If Mr. Cheney turned and focused on a bird, objects behind the bird would tend to disappear, because the eye is focused on the bird.

Bingo! When pheasant hunting with a friend, the dog flushed the bird, I focussed and sighted the bird, it flew over my friend, and I swung my gun high and did not fire. I talked to Ron later about this, and he said that this is not an uncommon situation. He's been shot twice in SD. He's an AVID bird hunter.

[Always Right]

If Cheney had learned anything from Teddy, he would show up to the press conference with a phoney neck brace.

[azhenfud]

The left would add:

#4. Don't shoot.

[CyberAnt]

Cheney didn't - the guy who got hit is the one who broke the rule!

[ssaftler]

Of course you realize, it's STILL safer to go hunting with Dick Cheney than it is to go driving with Ted Kennedy!

(Thanks to Howie Carr for that one)

[lepton]

Yes,
The one of him in Nam, looking down the barrel

Well, at least he had the select-fire lever on semi-auto. :)

[Uri’el-2012]

He has never been bird hunting.

It requires prior agreed-upon modified rules

[azhenfud]

Welcome abroad!

[HawaiianGecko]

 

In the case of the type of hunt I'm describing, strictly following those rules will prevent anyone from being shot.

I'm telling you and any other engineer or engineering professor will also tell you that there is a MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure) in any system.  I'd love to say that this is my opinion and is a debatable point, but it simply isn't.  It's just one of those facts of nature that simply cannot be argued with. Like 1+1=2 ... well I guess you can argue against it, though one doesn't know why.

Now, your system may have a failure rate of 1:1000 years, but all that means is that one accident will happen some time in the next 1000 years.  Maybe not until 3006, but maybe 2006 and not again until 3007.

I'm not complaining about your rules for minimizing risks. I'm simply saying your rules minimize the risks, they will never eliminate them.

 

[teddyballgame]

Of course you realize, it's STILL safer to go hunting with Dick Cheney than it is to go driving with Ted Kennedy!

(Thanks to Howie Carr for that one)

AND: More people have been killed by Ted Kennedy's Oldsmobile than Dick Cheney's shotgun.

[Jimmy Valentine's brother]

I believe that when you hunt with a group you are assigned areas where you to be. If you stray out of your assigned area you're bound to get dinged.

What I want to know is what was the SS doing. Where they taking a smoke break instead of keeping a close eye on who was where with a weapon?

[O Neill]

Isn't the No. 1 Rule Of Hunting: Never go crawling around in the tall grass looking for quail corpses without telling other party members?

At least a 'Tally Ho!' would seem appropriate...

[Cobra64]

I think the fact that the VP shot someone is less of a story than the fact that his office put out a statement saying he didn't do anything wrong. If you pull the trigger when your gun is pointed at someone you don't intend to shoot, you have done something wrong. Period.

This is not a rifle range situation with a rangmaster. Ever been in the field? Ever heard of troops being hit by friendlies? Why do people get in traffic accidents? Some people are too pompous beyond belief.

[G.Mason]

"My Daddy once told me "common sense" is not uniformly distributed!"

Your Daddy was correct!

Took me a few bear paw smacks upside of my head and a few more ... "you're a mutton head!" ... before mine started to develop.

God, I love and miss that man!

[MeanWestTexan]

"From below me, to my left, some guy with dog poop for brains actually let go with a full auto M16."

What an arse. I don't deer hunt for that reason, and actually wear my Army-liberated flak jacket when on my own property some times during deer season. (Poachers, in addition to being theives, are idiots.)

Although I admit shooting feral pigs from my pickup with an AR-15 and a cruddy Romanian AK-47 (semi-auto) clone --- huge problem animal for ranchers. I've probably taken 10 shoots when shooting w/out glasses.

[Issaquahking]

Wow! That is some conclusion! Best comments on this thread, with maybe a couple of exceptions, have been from mineralman, and dirtboy. Three out of the four pinged here I'd hunt with, Zenia, I have some serious reservations about you.

It's the first post from the person and you have him pegged for a troll? Proof? As a viking kitty associate, I detected nothing wrong with the post.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

Accidents do happen, of course, but Cheney's got to take the heat on this for being such a dumb-ass. If you don't know what's behind your target, don't pull the trigger. Moreover, when you're hunting birds, you're especially cognizant of the height at which you're aiming your gun lest you chance to hit a dog on point or a friend going in to flush out the birds.

There's no excuse for this at all.

[lugsoul]

"Ever been in the field? Ever heard of troops being hit by friendlies?"

This was a canned hunt, not combat.

Most of the time, people get in traffic accidents because they do something wrong. The accident where both parties are paying attention and following the rules of the road is the exception.

If someone shoots another person with #8 birdshot in a field, the shooter did something wrong. Period. For you to contend otherwise is to send a dangerous message to young outdoor sportsmen.