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.
No! #1 rule: know what you are shooting.
Also, for any contention that the 'shootee' did something wrong, can you point me to your source for the factual basis? My grandfather taught my father and my two brothers the rules of line hunting. As far as I'm concerned, that instruction is gospel.
Finally, for any contention that the 'shootee' did something wrong, please advise whether any such wrongdoing caused the VP to pull the trigger with a man in front of his shotgun. If you are following the flight of a bird, you are focused on the bird not the background. The background is moving at a relatively fast pace. You must lead the bird and shoot out in front of it. The point at which you pull the trigger is reflex.
Get a single shot 12 gage with bird shot and go hunting then we'll talk more. I'll even get Grandpa to give you lessons.
You are correct. In all instances. And I wish the VP, as a visible hunter, would drive that point home and accept responsibility.
No flames from me. I happen to agree!
The shooter is ALWAYS RESPONSIBLE for the safety of his range; this includes ALL area within the range of the projectile(s). PERIOD!
At least that's what I was taught in my NRA Hunter Safety Traiing Course. (Required for Hunting Licensure in NJ)
R3
Looks to me like folks are just trying to trash the VP without knowing for sure what happened.
I live with avid hunters. Neither of them have been shot nor have they accidently shot anyone. That said, the guy who got shot has a responsibility for his own safety and VP Cheney has a responsibility to know where his hunting companions are. So it was an stupid accident and accidents do happen. If I was on a jury, from what I've heard so far I'd have to assign them both 50% of the fault.
Hahahahahaha, thanks for the belly laugh.
All the more reason to believe, until proven different, that this thing was an accident. Cheney is an accomplished hunter whose never been involved in a mishap before in all his years of hunting. This tells me that he knows the safety rules very well and abides by them, and this is probably one of those times when the accident wasn't the due to any negligence. We definately live in a "blame somebody" mentality today.
This would not be much of a story but for the folks who want to score points against the Bush Administration.
I have two basic thoughts on this. 1) Has it been confirmed without a doubt that Whittington was wearing safety orange gear? If he wasn’t, is Chaney still at fault? 2) This article is so full of speculation, I doubt we should be debating its specific contents.
Notice no clip in the rifle. Which is a good thing because that pose is a good way to lose your head.
50 posted on 02/13/2006 11:59:41 AM MST by LOC1
Notice no clip magazine, in the rifle.
But there could be one in the chamber!
Who cares?! The only reason this is a "story" is that the MSM has its collective panties in a wad. That and a couple of urban conservatives (JPOD, NRO) who are equally clueless. It's a freaking accident, for gosh sakes. No effing story!
Except when you're a cop pumping 42 holes into a man whose trying to hand you his wallet for ID.
The fact that he hunts pen-raised birds is the worse thing to come out about Cheney.
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