Cheney shoots hunting buddy (multiple threads merged)

[Cosmoline]

Were you ever trained to whip around in a 180 swing and fire at noises BEHIND you? I don't think so.

Team effort is fine, but the bottom line is each of us is responsible for the rounds we send down range. Unless the man was hidden behind a bush making "cooing" noises or dressed like some giant bird, I don't really see much room for excuses here.

The question I want answered is--was the man BEHIND or IN FRONT OF the line? The press seems too ignorant to press this question home. They're more concerned about getting scooped by a small local paper. Armstrong seemed to say he came up BEHIND Cheney, whereapon Cheney wheeled and shot him. If this is true, then Cheney should be facing charges right now. It's completely and totally unacceptable to swing around and fire off the line like that. It endangers anyone to your right or left, not to mention anyone behind you. If the birds flush behind you, you let them go. You don't cap off shots at anything that moves in a 360 circle in those circumstances.

 

[PlayboyPenguin]

Were you ever trained to whip around in a 180 swing and fire at noises BEHIND you? I don't think so.

Team effort is fine, but the bottom line is each of us is responsible for the rounds we send down range. Unless the man was hidden behind a bush making "cooing" noises or dressed like some giant bird, I don't really see much room for excuses here.

The question I want answered is--was the man BEHIND or IN FRONT OF the line? The press seems too ignorant to press this question home. They're more concerned about getting scooped by a small local paper. Armstrong seemed to say he came up BEHIND Cheney, whereapon Cheney wheeled and shot him. If this is true, then Cheney should be facing charges right now. It's completely and totally unacceptable to swing around and fire off the line like that. It endangers anyone to your right or left, not to mention anyone behind you. If the birds flush behind you, you let them go. You don't cap off shots at anything that moves in a 360 circle in those circumstances.

The closet thing I have seen to an answer to that was the explanation given by the property owner that the man had left the party to retrieve two birds he had shot. He then rejoined the party without letting the vice president know he had returned. Makes it sound like he was with the party and not beyond the line.

 

[MachIVshooter]

Guys, some of us are missing something...

Let's be careful out there... These guys have hunted all their lives. You walk in someone's blind spot, you're not where you're supposed to be, and it could be you.

How many of you have stories about being at a range, and out of the corner of your eye seeing Bubba or Son of Bubba scurrying out while the range is hot so he can adjust his target?

My thoughts exactly. I have relatively limited expeience hunting upland bird (I am first and foremost a big game hunter), and my experience has been almost exclusively pheasant. Now, pheasants fly slower and higher than quail do, and I still recall being covered by other hunters muzzles more than once when they were following a bird. Fortunately, no one fired. But we were always in a line and always wearing orange, and hunting in very open fields where anything taller than alfalfa is clearly visible. I can only imagine how much more frequently muzzles cross when hunting smaller, faster, lower flying birds in an area with much taller and denser cover, especially if the hunters are not wearing blaze.

I am not excusing the VP, nor am I absolving the victim. Most likely it was multiple errors and poor judgement on both ends that resulted in this accident. Fortunately, the victim will recover from his relatively minor injuries.

We must remember that this incident involves the culmination of a sport with inherent dangers, senior citizens that do not see, hear or react as well as they used to and complacency that developed from years and years of accident-free outings. While carelessness of one or both involved parties is certainly the cause, it is easy to see how it happened.

 

[asknight]

Why was it widely reported that he was "peppered?" The guy has now had a heartattack due to pellets moving to his heart region.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060215/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cheney_whittington

I don't think what has happened qualifies as merely "peppering."

That same article reports that between six and two hundred pellets remain in his body. Now I don't believe this was a glancing blow, not at 30 yards from a 28ga. with birdshot. For that many pellets to have hit the guy, it had to have been a direct hit.

 

[JohnKSa]

The third stamp was only recently imposed. IIRC other stories say TX game people were waving penalties for failure to have the third stamp during program startup.

Ahhh...

Wondered why I couldn't find P&W 43.652 online. The online version must not be updated yet.

 

[bowfin]

between 6 and 200 pellets? That is quite a spread, pardon the pun.

If Cheney was getting 200 pellets into a man sized target at 30 yards with a 28 gauge, I am going out tomorrow and buying one myself for turkey hunting, plus a case of those shells!

 

[Greybeard]

Well, I'll try to share below part of what I gleaned from today's edition of Dallas Morning News.

Quotes from Mrs. Pamela Willeford, the third person in the hunting party.

"We really thought he was way back behind us."

"The three of us were out of the vehicle hitting a covey. Harry Whittington dropped back to pick up a bird he'd shot. The vice president and I moved on to shoot another covey, and unbeknownst to us, Harry had picked up a bird and caught up with us. He had walked up, and we didn't realize that he had caught up with us."

"He was back behind us, and we turned off to the left to shoot another covey ... The bird came up and was going back down, and you know how you swing on it, with your gun, following a bird."

In a separate article, Outdoor writer Ray Sasser was rather objective, with headlines of "As hunting accidents go, Cheney's is not unusual" and "Vice President, victim share blame in incident, Texas experts say"

It included a quote from Steve Hall, TP&W's hunter education honcho: "In hunter education, we refer to that phenomenon as 'target fixation'. Every year, it's the primary cause of Texas bird-hunting accidents."

Dr. Dale Rollins, an A&M Extension Biologist explained that "having one member of a hunting party stray from the main group is always risky" and that "The protocol in quail hunting is to walk in a straight line to the pointing dogs and remain aware of the location of hunting partners."
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Yep, or as I stress in hunter ed. classes, "Plan your hunt, then hunt your plan." Sounds like they deviated. And unfortunately, are paying a steep price.

 

[Tag]

Errant birdshot

doup, sorry.

-So, what do you guys think, if Mr. Whittington does not make it will Cheney be looking at Manslaughter charges?

 

[Kodiaz]

I doubt it it was a hunting accident. If the guy is the one in a million that dies by some stroke of very bad luck it should be viewed as such. Let me also say that in my opinion this is one of the worst administrations we've had. That being said this is a hunting accident and I don't think they should file charges.

 

[beerslurpy]

When I read your title, I thought of a similar sounding NYC phenomenon- errant bird****.

 

[Kim]

NO. Hunting accidents should not be viewd as manslaughter. Do you really want that????????? Would we charge a NASCAR racer with manslaughter if he wrecked and caused the wreck and death of another driver. How about a football player who tackled someone and broke their neck. How about a basketball player who fouled accidently and caused someone to fall and die of a head injury. Really???????? Do you want to go down that path of criminal prosecution? Think about it. Do we charge all people involved in fatal car accidents with manslaughter? No. And I do not want to live in a society that does. If we do that then you can kiss hunting goobye.

 

[Tag]

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Kim, I do not want any such thing, only putting it out there for discussion.

If you are not paying attention to what you are doing, be it driving your car through a school zone or shooting a few birds, and you kill someone.... would you feel different had he shot him w/ a deer rifle and he had died on the spot?

 

[p35bhp09]

absolutely

As the person holding the firearm he is ultimately responsible when he pulls the trigger. If I'm driving my truck down the highway and I change lanes without looking and I cause an accident where someone dies then I WILL be charge with involuntary manslaughter. Will I do time? probably not. But should he be charged? Yes. Will he be charged? of course not.

 

[Tag]

He may be charged yet, ABC quoted the DA saying "Grand Jury" should Whittington die.

 

[Kim]

He did not break a law. Driving while drunk, speeding etc and killing someone is different. And no I would not feel different if he was shot with an AK-47 evil assault rifle or any rifle and died. For Pete's sake it was an accident. I had a friend shot and killed the same way and NO criminal charges were filed. There was no Civil Law Suit either. Not all accidents are criminal. If that was the case put Phsycians in jail instead of suing them for wrongful death etc.

 

[Tag]

Driving while drunk, speeding etc and killing someone is different.

Who said anything about being drunk or speeding? A simple laps of concentration is all it would take.

So if you plow over a child in the crosswalk, while neither drunk nor speeding, you should be able to just throw up your hand and say "sorry, it was an accident"?

Even if that is the case, it is up to the grand jury to decide if it truely was an accident, or if your lack of concentration caused it. In this case I would lean tword the latter.

 

[Kim]

Does this Mr. Whittington have any connection with the Whittington of the NRA Whittington Center in NM?

 

[mikey357]

...intersting conjecture, about the "Grand Jury" and the possibility of Cheney facing charges...not very likely, IF you ask me...on the other hand, mebbe the Veep ought to re-take the "Hunter's Safety Class"....mikey357

 

[LAK]

Well; seems that aside from some illegal if predictable actions by the Secret Service on private property in obstructing the local police agency with jurisdiction in investigating the incident; the official story is also perhaps predictably not representative of the truth ....

Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahren stated that about an hour after the shooting the local Secret Service office notified the Sheriffs' Department of the shooting and arrangements were made for an interview. Saturday night at least one deputy showed up at the ranch's front gate and asked to speak to Cheney but was turned away by the Secret Service, Zahren said. This sort of delaying tactic is indicative of drunk-driving hit and runs by rich kids allowing the necessary time to sober up, contact your attorney and get your story straight.

And, "the local Secret Service office"? They make it sound like there is one on the ranch itself. How many "local" Secret Service offices are there in Texas?

http://www.infowars.com/articles/us/cheney_shooting_coverup_in_progress_ballistics.htm

Perhaps the incident occurred not during the "hunt", but after the usual "wild game picnic" Katherine Armstrong has some interesting ties in addition to Comrades Bush and Cheney.

http://www.whitehouseforsale.org/ContributorsAndPaybacks/pioneer_profile.cfm?pioneer_ID=509

http://www.tpj.org/docs/pioneers/pioneers_view.jsp?id=621
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http://ussliberty.org
http://ssunitedstates.org

 

[Krenn]

Disclaimer: I am not (yet) a hunter!

to my mind, after reading the previous posts, I see six mistakes:

1. Cheney failed to assess the safety tendencies of his (new) hunting buddy.

2. Cheney violated protocol by going after a (second) group of quail before reforming the party.

3. Cheney ASSUMED that his (new) hunting buddy would follow the BACKUP protocol of staying well away from the hunting party until the (second) group of quail had been flushed, and that he would announce himself as he approached.

4. Cheney target fixated and fired when he shouldn't have.

5. The hunting buddy left the group under unsafe conditions,

6. the hunting buddy rejoined the group under unsafe conditions.


In summary, I blame lack of paranoia. Cheney and the campaign contributor were more interested in being friendly, trusting, and having a good time than in ruthlessly interrogating each other about safety rules. After all, someone might be (gasp) [offended. They really should have been much more mindfull of each other until they'd hunted together several times, and really did[/] know each other.

 

[Lobotomy Boy]

I'm having a hard time seeing how this is in any way the victim's fault. In addition to Cheney shooting behind the group when he clearly knew one of their members was behind them, Cheney and that Swiss ambassador made another terrible mistake--they went on ahead of Whittington and lost sight of him when he went to retrieve a bird. They should have waited for him. I think the results of their not doing so show why that would have been wise. They should have stood their ground until Whittington returned with the bird.

Of course Cheney also made a terrible strategic mistake by not reporting this to the press immediately, turning a disasterous personal situation into a disasterous political situation.

But Cheney and company have not proven very patient. To paraphrase that brilliant strategist Donald Rumsfeld, you shoot your buddy in the face with the gun you have, not the gun you wish you had.

 

[JohnBT]

Number of pellets in 28 ga., 3/4 ounce lead loads:

#7.5 = 262
#8 = 308
#9 = 363

I suppose he could have been shooting the less common 1-ounce #6 loads at quail, but I seriously doubt it.

John

 

[Sleeping Dog]

If Cheney was getting 200 pellets into a man sized target at 30 yards with a 28 gauge...

How many size 7 1/2 pellets are loaded into a 28 ga shell? 200 seems like a lot.

Regards.

 

[Greybeard]

Dallas Morning News article yesterday actually had a little inset describing a shotgun shell and it's components - that included the "to scale" size of #7.5 shot. And yep, around 260 pellets in 3/4 ounce load sounds about right. Methinks at 30 yards, likely about a 30" spread.

 

[JohnBT]

#7.5 shot is .094" (2.39mm) in diameter according the Winchester table I have.

I wonder what gun he was shooting and what choke he used.

John