Plead the First

You know, I really didn’t think much of it when I heard about Vice President Cheney’s hunting accident. Accidents happen, and it sounded obvious that that’s all this was. It seemed likely that members of the hunting party weren’t being as careful as they should have been, but that was for them to deal with and learn from. However, what does get my goat is the way some folks have gone out of their way to insist that Cheney couldn’t possibly be at fault here, implying that this is a perfectly routine occurrence, and if you go out quail hunting you should almost expect to come back with some bird shot embedded in your face no matter how safety conscious you are.

Marcus Kindley, Chairman of the Guilford County Republican Party, seems especially eager to absolve Cheney of any possible lapses in hunting safety. His recent blog post on the subject started out bizarrely, yet mostly innocuous, simply contrasting Cheney’s accident with Ted Kennedy’s 1969 Chappaquiddick car accident. I poked some fun at the comparison, making no specific mention of hunting, yet Kindley replied by saying:

just how many Quail Hunting Trips have you been on? Dove Hunts? Just wndering if you have any idea what you are talking about? Just wondering….

Since I don’t have any hunting experience, and Kindley seemed interested in talking about the details of the accident, I provided a link to an article writen by someone who does have hunting experience – Paul Begala:

It is not best practice – in fact it’s unsafe – to send 3 guns into the field and to chase 2 coveys at once. I would never – ever – go chasing a second covey while someone else was occupied with a first covey. My experience is that safe quail hunters generally hunt no more than 2 guns in the field at a time, and chase one covey at a time. To do otherwise is reckless

Ms. Armstrong says Whittington should have announced himself upon approaching Cheney. That is right. At the same time, Cheney, as a shooter, has an obligation to be aware at all times of the whereabouts of the dogs (who don’t announce themselves) his fellow hunters, the guides, dog handlers, etc. I’ve been on hunting parties of ten men, and it’s the obligation of the shooters to know where each of them is, and to be sure they are safe. Cheney knew Whittington was chasing a bird. If he could not see Whittington, if he was not 100 percent sure of his whereabouts, he should not have taken a shot. No bird is worth it.

Begala seems to think some things could have been done on Cheney’s part to avoid the accident. But Kindley wasn’t having any of it. However, rather than argue against the actual points that Begala – an experienced hunter – made, Kindley continued to try to bring the discussion back to my lack of experience with hunting:

Have you ever shot a shotgun? You shoot someone in the face as you say it and they’ll have no face. Cheney’s hunting partner was sprayed by a few pellets. Any bird hunter has been sprayed while hunting at one time or another.
I can tell by your comments you do not know what you are talking about, especically when it comes to Hunting and/or fire arms. Although I know several places I can refer you to get the proper training if you want to become educated.

The ranch owner must not know what she’s talking about either. When she described the accident on CNN she repeatedly used the word “shot” saying things such as, “We were shooting a covey of quail,” and that the Vice President, “Took aim at the bird and shot.” He’s quibbling over words to try to minimize the accident, but even in quibbling he seems to be at odds with common sense, the ranch owner, and the English language. And for the record, I have shot several kinds of firearms in the past, including a shotgun. But whether or not I have doesn’t change the fact that when you pull the trigger on a gun, you’re shooting it. It’s a firearm, not a garden hose.

However, I could tell Kindley wouldn’t take my word for anything, so I found another article by a more local hunter – Scott Denham writing for the Charlotte Observer:

Cheney’s hunting party broke several basic rules: too many in the hunt party; no dog, or at least not having the dog retrieve a downed bird; hunting from a vehicle. And Cheney broke some of the most basic rules: shooting at a low bird and not being aware of the placement of his hunting party members.

One report I read stated that Cheney shot Whittington at 5:15 p.m. on Saturday — way too late to be hunting quail. Good hunters hunt early in the day, when the light is good, the birds are active, and the dogs are fresh. One should generally not be out for quail this late in the day.

Not to be deterred by the analysis of experienced hunters, Kindley replied:

when you go hunting and have some experence I’ll explain it to you. PS Texas ain’t North Carolina. A bird isn’t low that’s flying up a hill. Think about it.

I thought about it, and decided that it makes no sense. I may not know much about hunting, but I’ve seen birds, and I’m familiar with hills, and if a bird has to fly up a hill, then it is indeed flying low. Of course, that may be beside the point, since when you look at the accident report, on page two it describes the topography as “Flat,” so I’m not sure which hill Kindley is referring to.

Still, perhaps the Chairman knows something I don’t. After all, he’s right – Texas ain’t North Carolina. Maybe they have some strange version of hunting safety that the authors I quoted were unaware of. So I went to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Hunter Safety page. They have a helpful online course there so I could “become educated” as Kindley suggested. One page lists four rules of gun safety. Rule number one states “Most important of all safety rules: Keep The Gun Pointed in a safe direction” and offers this helpful safety detail:

Look around and see who or what might be in the line of fire

Furthermore, rule four says:

Be Sure of Your Target and what lies beyond it!

It seems obvious to me that Cheney did not do either of those things. Finally, the site has a page entitled Zones of Fire. It has some helpful images, so go take a quick look at it. This page shows where a hunter’s safe zone of fire is. Simply put, it’s roughly a 45 degree cone directly in front of you. That’s the area where it’s safe for you to shoot.

Another hunting site, The International Hunter Education Association, is even more explicit. After describing the same 45 degree zone, they say (emphasis added):

Hunters are in a straight line in sight of one another. No one runs ahead or lags behind the line. The area behind the hunters is off limits–no one turns to shoot behind.

As the ranch owner, Ms. Armstrong reported, Whittington “came up from behind the other two hunters” when he was shot by Cheney, so it sounds like the Vice President violated this safety rule, swinging around to track the bird and ending up with Whittington in his line of fire as a result.

As I said, in the grand scheme of things, I agree – the accident itself isn’t a huge deal. According to an article in the L.A. Times, in 2002 there were 850 hunting injuries reported in the U.S., and 12.9 percent of them were due to the hunter “swinging on game”. So I’m not really surprised about the accident. And I could understand Kindley going to the mat for an ideological point. What is surprising is that someone like Marcus, who obviously has done some hunting and should know what he’s talking about, is willing to put his credibility on the line to try to absolve Cheney of any responsibility for a simple hunting accident.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 15th, 2006 at 1:09 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.