|
Grex > Agora56 > #96: Cheney shoots fellow hunter in South Texas. | |
|
| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 218 responses total. |
naftee
|
|
response 27 of 218:
| 
Feb 13 23:01 UTC 2006 |
i don't get any of those american jokes :(
|
tod
|
|
response 28 of 218:
|
Feb 14 00:01 UTC 2006 |
re #25
Bright orange jackets and grass no taller than maybe your torso...I think its
clear that Dick was drunk at the time. There is no other explanation for the
delay in municipal services being contacted 24 hours later. Secret Service
should have had an ambulance on the spot along with local law enforcement.
The only other time I've heard of such gross covert abuse aimed at local law
enforcement was the JFK assassination.
|
nharmon
|
|
response 29 of 218:
|
Feb 14 00:48 UTC 2006 |
Aruba hit it square on the head. This is not an "accident". When it
comes to firearms handling, there are no accidents. There is safe
handling, and then there is negligence. This is clearly negligence.
The lady who owns the land can talk all she wants about feeling safe
hunting with Dick, but we all know she is full of shit. This is not an
"accepted risk". You simply do not shoot until you are convinced you are
doing so safely.
Let me just put it this way: when I hunted pheasant we used dogs to lure
the birds into the air. If you were not sure of the position of each
dog, you simply DID NOT SHOOT. And these are dogs we're talking about,
let alone people.
I think another problem with this is the idea that hunting is some sort
of social-business activity like golfing or attending a football game.
It isn't. It is serious business, and you have to pay attention to how
you are handling your firearm as well as your impact on the environment.
|
johnnie
|
|
response 30 of 218:
|
Feb 14 01:40 UTC 2006 |
Turns out, too, that Cheney was hunting with an invalid license--didn't
have his bird stamp (didn't have his lawyer stamp, either).
|
naftee
|
|
response 31 of 218:
|
Feb 14 01:49 UTC 2006 |
No wonder he brought his lawyer to the hospital !
It'd suck to be in ICU and in the middle of a legal battle, though
|
mcnally
|
|
response 32 of 218:
|
Feb 14 01:52 UTC 2006 |
I don't know about Texas but in Alaska an out-of-state hunter caught
without the proper license would be in a lot of trouble..
|
johnnie
|
|
response 33 of 218:
|
Feb 14 01:56 UTC 2006 |
Reportedly, he'll get a "warning" this time.
This, too, is relevent: http://tinyurl.com/apmdh
|
other
|
|
response 34 of 218:
|
Feb 14 02:58 UTC 2006 |
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/02/13/visual_aid_for_vicep.html
|
jep
|
|
response 35 of 218:
|
Feb 14 13:30 UTC 2006 |
In Michigan, if you were caught hunting without the appropriate
license, you'd most likely get a warning and be expected to pay the
conservation officer on the spot, or else you'd get a fine. I wouldn't
expect it would be treated as a criminal matter.
I find the vice president's accident to be no more (or less)
reprehensible than a car accident. He made a mistake. Fortunately the
person who was hurt is going to be just fine.
Cars are *much* more dangerous than bird hunting guns. I'll bet the
fatality rate for car accidents (as a percentage; deaths per accident)
is a lot higher than the fatality rate for gun accidents.
This is a time for some perspective. The vice president made a mistake
and someone got hurt. That's that. If it had happened in 2009, and
Cheney was no longer the VP, this would be no big deal to anyone. Why
is it a big deal now? Only the politics makes it interesting, and
there's just nothing political to be gotten from this unfortunate
occurrance. You're just not going to get the Congress to impeach the
vice president because he did something stupid with a shotgun.
|
nharmon
|
|
response 36 of 218:
|
Feb 14 14:00 UTC 2006 |
I'm sorry, but that is not good enough John. Dick has been shooting for
a long time... Probably longer than I've been alive. His carelessness
almost costed someone their life. There just aren't any parallels
between car accidents and negligent firearm discharges. Safe gun
handling requires constant attention, such that anything less than
paranoia is unacceptable.
1. You treat every gun as if it were loaded.
2. You do not point a gun at anything you aren't willing to have hit by
a bullet. It doesn't matter if the gun isn't loaded, see #1.
3. You do not put your finger on the trigger until you are ready to shoot.
4. You are not ready to shoot until you have confirmed your target is
what you intended to shoot and have verified there isn't anything behind
your target you don't want to shoot.
These are just reiterations of the NRA's basic gun safety rules. Dick
knows better than that.
|
johnnie
|
|
response 37 of 218:
|
Feb 14 14:09 UTC 2006 |
The furor seems to be less about the shooting itself, and more about the
White House's seeming lack of forthrightness about it. The television
news people in particular are awfully worked up about it, far more than
over other alleged coverups of alleged wrongdoing by the Bush folk
(torture, Gitmo, Katrina, WMD, and so forth).
This, too: Some here have said that the VP and his crew waited 24 hours
before calling police. That seems not to be true. AP sez that they
waited an hour, and made arrangements for the cops to come interview
Cheney the next morning. When a deputy showed up at the ranch that
evening (just a few hours after the shooting), the Secret Service gave
him the boot. Gotta give the Veep time to sober up, I guess.
|
jadecat
|
|
response 38 of 218:
|
Feb 14 14:30 UTC 2006 |
The big shot lawyer (had to repeat it, couldn't resist) may end up
recovering- but he will, apparently, have some of the pellets in him for
the rest of his life.
|
janc
|
|
response 39 of 218:
|
Feb 14 15:31 UTC 2006 |
What I take away from all this is that:
(1) Cheney is a man eager to take up arms and start shooting,
(2) He tends to handle arms somewhat carelessly, without a lot
of thought toward safety precautions,
(3) He's likely to end up damaging people other than the
theoretical target, and
(4) The white house will go into denial mode when it happens.
But, hey, we already learned all that about him in Iraq, didn't we?
|
jep
|
|
response 40 of 218:
|
Feb 14 15:55 UTC 2006 |
re resp:36: Cars should be treated just as carefully. We wink off car
accidents, but they are usually caused by carelessness.
I am not making excuses for the vice president. He made a stupid
mistake, in my opinion according to what I have seen about the
incident. It does not make him an evil person or entitle anyone to
single him out for exceptionally harsh treatment. It does not speak
particularly well of him. It could have cost someone their life and
that itself makes it a pretty serious matter (equal in that way to any
car accident). He certainly should have known better.
re resp:37: I saw speculation here -- but nowhere else, not even
speculation -- that Cheney might have been drinking and that could have
contributed to the accident. It was completely invented here. It sure
would be damning if it were true, but there is no reason at all to
beleive that it is.
|
tod
|
|
response 41 of 218:
|
Feb 14 17:06 UTC 2006 |
I applaud the VP's attempts and only wish he'd invited more friends on the
hunt.
|
marcvh
|
|
response 42 of 218:
|
Feb 14 17:11 UTC 2006 |
Maybe Cheney was telling the joke about "you shoot the lawyer twice"
and he got carried away with his visual aid.
|
tod
|
|
response 43 of 218:
|
Feb 14 17:13 UTC 2006 |
<out the side of his mouth> "Stick a Q'ran in his pocket for me.."
|
rcurl
|
|
response 44 of 218:
|
Feb 14 17:56 UTC 2006 |
"I thought this was pretty typical of Cheney - starting shooting before
thinking or looking."
|
johnnie
|
|
response 45 of 218:
|
Feb 14 19:14 UTC 2006 |
Now this:
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (CNN) -- The fellow hunter who was shot and
wounded by Vice President Dick Cheney has suffered a "minor heart
attack" after a piece of birdshot migrated to his heart, a hospital
spokesman said Tuesday.
Harry Whittington, 78, is in stable condition in intensive care and will
remain hospitalized for up to seven days, hospital officials said.
"Some of the bird shot appears to have moved and lodged into part of his
heart ... in what we would say is a minor heart attack," said Peter
Banko, administrator at Christus Spohn Hospital Corpus Christi-Memorial.
---------
Sounds like the shooting was more serious than the White House has been
letting on.
|
happyboy
|
|
response 46 of 218:
|
Feb 14 19:17 UTC 2006 |
he musta looked alot like a bird thru cheney's scotch-goggles.
|
tod
|
|
response 47 of 218:
|
Feb 14 19:25 UTC 2006 |
Harry got peppered perdy good!
|
happyboy
|
|
response 48 of 218:
|
Feb 14 19:37 UTC 2006 |
like a denny's tuna sammich!
|
gull
|
|
response 49 of 218:
|
Feb 14 23:25 UTC 2006 |
Re resp:45: I never expected an incident involving Dick Cheney to
result in someone *else* having a heart attack.
Re resp:40: I guess my question is, if this had been a traffic
accident, would Cheney have been charged with involuntary manslaughter?
If so, how is it different just because he used a gun instead of a car?
|
bru
|
|
response 50 of 218:
|
Feb 15 01:09 UTC 2006 |
no one has died, no manslaughter.
|
other
|
|
response 51 of 218:
|
Feb 15 03:57 UTC 2006 |
Yet.
|