Surrounded by Secret Service agents, Dick Cheney mistook his hunting compatriot for a bird and shot him over the weekend. Apparently, both the vice president and the agents rushed to help the poor guy immediately after it happened.
I don't know if Cheney is a member of the National Rifle Association - I'm guessing he is - but the one completely valid cause the NRA has committed itself to, is gun safety. It seems to me that if you take all the necessary precautions, these accidents shouldn't happen.
The problem apparently was that Harry Whittington caught up with the hunting party "unannounced" after he had lagged behind to pick up a quail he had shot. Cheney was "ready to fire" and put 28-gauge pellets in Whittington's head and chest.
s preSo the scenario is easy to imagine - a bunch of guys of a certain age walking through the woods with loaded guns, listening very carefully for quails bolting out of their cover. To bag one takes good reflexes and a good aim. Cheney apparently had the reflexes but didn't particularly look at what he was shooting.
Which, if you believe the sheriff and ranch owner, isn't that uncommon. Sheriff Salinas said that such accidents happen "not frequently, but often" (and I always thought those words were synonyms); and Katharine Armstrong of the Armstrong ranch commented that: "I would shoot with Dick Cheney everywhere, anywhere, and not think twice about it ... The nature of quail shooting ensures that this will happen. It goes with the turf."
So let's look at this from the Secret Service's point of view. These presumed experts in quail hunting or telling us that getting shot by accident while hunting quail is "ensured" and happens "often" - it's a matter of probability. If Cheney is a conscentious hunter, which Armstrong assured us he is, then there's a pretty good chance he might have been shot as well.
Now, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Service begs to differ. The point out that most accidents happen when hunters aim outside the designated safe zone of fire, and also say that in 2004 (the most recent year for which statistics are available) there were 20 injuries and 4 fatalities in Texas related to hunting accidents. To me that is not "often" and certainly not "ensured."
Which is to say, that when you go hunting, you can only shoot at birds that are ahead of you - any of them that flies up behind you is safe. So unless Whittington appeared within the safe zone of fire, Cheney was just a little to eager.
Of course, in live fire exercises in the military, anyone who does something like that is likely to get into serious trouble, and troops are indeed trained on how to deploy operationally if they are ambushed.
(yawn) Why do you even care, Leif?
Posted by: Bertil Knudsen | February 20, 2006 at 02:44 AM