Cheney Shoots a Man
Posted February 14th, 2006 @ 03:10pm by Erik J. Barzeski
I'm not gonna link to it because it's old news, but how frickin' dumb do you have to be to shoot a man? I was explaining to someone that you can't shoot anyone quail hunting unless one (or both) of two things happen:
- You don't walk in a straight line.
- You shoot outside of your safety angle.
In other words, when you're hunting like this, you typically walk in a straight line: _ _ _ _ _ (where each "_" is one person, and they're walking straight up in this case). If you limit yourself to shooting 30° on each side of "straight ahead," there's no way you can shoot anyone. You should also only shoot a certain height and higher, too, if you're hunting with dogs. You don't want to kill your best pointer or flusher (or retriever), after all.
So, one or both of those things had to go wrong. And that's part of the point: guns don't kill people, stupid people (or violent people) kill people. Thankfully, Cheney didn't actually kill the guy, but someone had to have been pretty darn stupid.
14 Responses to "Cheney Shoots a Man"
Posted 14 Feb 2006 at 3:33pm #
He's not dead yet.
Posted 14 Feb 2006 at 3:48pm #
I never said the guy Cheney shot was dead.
Posted 14 Feb 2006 at 4:33pm #
Apparently the guy was out of line and didn't shout out to the rest. Cheney shot him from a pretty far distance so that's part of why he's not so critical of a condition right now. So in a way, guns don't kill people, but people who don't follow rules can get shot.
This is also a very rare accident. In Wisconsin it's like 0.0035% chance that you will be in a hunting accident.
Posted 14 Feb 2006 at 5:03pm #
Is that percentage with or without Dick Cheney behind the trigger?
Posted 14 Feb 2006 at 7:04pm #
I want to know why the press wasn't informed ahead of time so that they could be there to take video of the event actually happening. Informing them of this after this point must mean that there is something to hide.
Posted 14 Feb 2006 at 10:08pm #
The Plaid Cow is right.
Let's impeach Cheney for this.
Bush too, for good measure.
Let's have recall elections.
Posted 15 Feb 2006 at 4:03am #
Just heard on the TV that the victim Cheney shot just had a just had a heart attack and the heart attack was caused by one of the pellets. What if he should die of the heart attack? Now wouldn't it be just a kick in the pants IF Cheney were brought up, tried and convicted of involuntary manslaughter. Lessor known people have spent up to twenty years in the slammer. Bet the worst that would happen to Cheney should it ever go so far as a conviction would be probation.
Posted 15 Feb 2006 at 8:02am #
Cheney was cleared of wrongdoing by the police already.
Posted 15 Feb 2006 at 6:48pm #
Of course he was.
Posted 15 Feb 2006 at 8:24pm #
It was an accident...yeah it was a stupid one...but still an accident. No one said that our elected officials needed to be perfect. If you don't like Cheney for political reasons - fine. But no matter how much you hate Cheney, no matter how you try to spin it, it was an accident.
Posted 16 Feb 2006 at 2:05pm #
The Secret Service limited access to Cheney by investigators, and a possible reason for this is so that it would be difficult to determine his sobriety close to the time of the shooting. To make matters worse, the owner of the ranch initially lied about the consumption of alcohol by the group, and later had to retract this when Cheney admitted to having "a couple" of beers. Last time I was questioned on how many beers I had, I said "a couple" too, but we all know it was probably more than two. Note also that Cheney has TWO drunk driving-related marks on his record, which indicate that he has a history of not being in control when he drinks. FWIW, I'm not attacking his politics (although for the record I don't believe people who directly profit from war should be in a position to influence American policy on war), I'm putting forth some ideas and facts related to the event in question.
Posted 16 Feb 2006 at 2:56pm #
Erik, you kindly left out the fact that the guy who was shot left the formation and went ahead, then failed to notify people when he was coming back to the group.
Posted 17 Feb 2006 at 12:05pm #
It was an accident and so somebody must be made to pay. I would lay my blame on the hunting pants and call for an immediate investigation into the manufacturers practices. After they send me a large check, of course.
And it doesn't matter if he was cleared by the police. What matters is if he can get cleared by the media.
Posted 17 Feb 2006 at 4:36pm #
The largely left media? Yeah, that'll happen!