No charges had been filed and reports on the incident were still pending Monday, said Sandra Guzman, secretary for Kenedy County Sheriff Ramon Salinas III.
The local prosecutor's office had not been contacted, said Carlos Valdez, district attorney for a three-county district that includes Nueces, Kleberg and Kenedy counties. He said his office would become involved only if an investigative agency found a hint of criminal wrongdoing or a dispute about the facts.
The accident was not reported publicly by the vice president's office for nearly 24 hours, and then only after the Corpus Christi Caller-Times reported it Sunday. Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said the vice president's office did not tell reporters about the accident Saturday because they were deferring to the ranch owner to announce what happened on her property.
Hunting parties are not required to report accidents, said state Parks and Wildlife spokesman Tom Harvey. The state penal code requires people to report fatalities, which would be investigated by law enforcement.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ 20060...HNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
*************************************************************************
Firedoglake blog post "Gun Safety Lessons for Deadeye Dick" :
...snip...
This explanation from reader Jeff is a very clear one:
First of all, I hate canned hunts. They are a big deal here in Texas, but where I come from (South Carolina) we would not consider it "hunting" to go assassinate a bunch of pen-raised birds and game. It is playtime for the rich and wannabe rich, period.
Second, I nearly choked when I read the account of Armstrong: "he came up behind them"....cause, what you normally do is approach shooters in their line of fire, right? And he "didn't make any noise or alert them to his presence"... well, you use dogs to scare up the birds, not a whooping and hollering hunter, and anyone coming up behind a shooter and yelling really loud is quickly going to earn an uninvite to the next hunting or shooting party. "He got peppered....I've been peppered before myself...." Well, yeah, when you are bird hunting it is not unheard of to have shot fall on you at times, but getting an ICU-worthy blast to the head and neck is not "getting peppered," it's getting "shot." And from even Armstrong's friendly description, what happened appears to be that Cheney tracked a bird with his gun at roughly shoulder height, roughly 180 degrees, and then fired. YOU NEVER DO THIS, especially when you have other people in your party that you have not accounted for-- because someone might be coming up behind you, ya know?
I think this is dangerous territory for Cheney et al. There is no good explanation for this, other than being drunk or stupid. Anti-gun people are going to hate the whole thing. Gun people like me are going to hate that he was such a complete idiot.
I think, as other have pointed out, that this is a microcosm of the whole administration:
1. Try to play tough, with a gun, or an army.
2. Fail to follow well-established rules, guidelines, and past experience (either out of ignorance or willful disregard, or both).
3. Get someone hurt or killed.
4. Try to keep the story under wraps for as long as possible.
5. When the story does come out, spin it so that there was no possible way the administration did anything wrong.
6. Blame someone else, where possible, blame the victim.
7. Make anyone who has a problem with it look like an un-American pussy.
Well, that pretty much sums the whole Administration up in one fell swoop, doesn't it?
There there is this from Karl:
When quail hunting, the birds tend to flush within 5-10 yards of the hunters. They fly very low, up to eight feet off the ground depending on vegetation, and swerve around brush and trees.
Shotgunning is also very different from rifle shooting. The shooter looks only at the bird (or skeet) and relies on practice to fire the gun far enough ahead of the bird so the shot column intercepts it. Instead of looking down the barrel before shooting (a good way to miss every time), a shotgunning party relies on setting clear fire zones and knowing where the other members of the party are before shooting. It is common in both quail and dove hunting to shoot the foliage of a tree or bush (not Bush) when the bird flies behind or around it.
From the reporting so far, it looks like two errors were made. The birds flushed and flew behind the hunting line, so Cheney followed them into what is usually a no-fire zone since he thought it was clear. In addition, the victim seperated from the group and was not exercising due diligence when rejoining. Primary fault to Cheney, secondary to the victim.
And finally, this from reader Uranius Pelican, which is dead on (no pun intended).
At 30 yards, an open choke pattern would spread to have enough distance between pellets (at least 10 inches or a foot with a 28 guage) that it could not do the kind of damage that this guy apparently suffered.
Also 7 or 8 shot is tiny and therefore has less mass and carries less energy at the same veleocity. That means it won't penetrate very far especially at 30 yards after it has been slowed greatly by the air resistance.
Most importantly, bird hunting accidents are almost always caused by one thing. People walking around with their gun off safety - ready to shoot in case a bird flushes. Shotguns are designed so that the safety is accessible to your thumb while your trigger finger is poised on the trigger.
Before I ever enter a field with someone I've never hunted with I stop and say OK, here's the deal, "I will not hunt with anyone here who does not agree to keep their gun on safe at all times until the moment just before they pull the trigger. If you don't want to do that tell me now and I'll go hunt somewhere else."
The story they are telling doesn't make sense to me. My guess is that Cheney's open choke 28 guage gun was being carried off safety and that he dropped it or stumbled and it went off accidentally hitting his partner at about 15 yards range or less. Of course, the story that the victim approached from behind unnannounced and therefore was at fault sounds good to someone who has never hunted quail - but it's a crock.
And finally, only a drunk, an asshole or a drunk asshole would ever shoot their partner or their dog.
And then there is this bit from one of the medical folks in the audience, reader LittleBit:
Speaking as a 20-year veteran of The-Big-ICU-In-Knife-And-Gun-Club-Territory, there is no way in hell that the victim is relatively uninjured.
Shotgun injuries are some of the worst cases I have taken care of, due to the spread-shot nature of the wounds. If the victim got "peppered" in the neck, there are waaaayyyy too many important structures in that small space (oh, like maybe one of the internal or external carotid arteries) for this to be a "no big deal" situation. If any of the pellets nicks a blood vessel, it may travel as far as it can go--I took care of a kid shot in the chest and some pellets eneded up in his ankle, blocking the bloodflow, leading to an amputation. In this situation, add to that the victim's age and potential underlying medical problems--this is huge.
These days, God Almighty doesn't get to stay in the ICU unless it is absolutely imperative that He do so.
This stinks worse than a gangrenous leg....
Don't know about you guys, but that's an awful lot of questions that need to be asked by the press corps, isn't it? More to come.
UPDATE: You know, the more I think about it, the more I see this as a great teaching opportunity on gun safety for the NRA. Wonder if they will take it? I mean, gun safety is their top mission and all...I'm just saying.
posted by ReddHedd @ 8:36 AM
Comments (173) | Trackback (0)
http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2006_02_12_firedoglake_archive.html#113984118736473358
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
