When Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot Harry Whittington, it gave late-night television hosts fodder for dozens of jokes. It also provided the cable TV talking heads a lead story that ran for hours, then stretched into days. The countless news reports in newspapers, practically all of them written by reporters who don’t know a 12-gauge from a hockey puck, joined the others in overlooking the most important aspect of that shooting.
Cheney violated the most basic rule in hunting. He mixed guns and alcohol.
Cheney admitted he had a beer with lunch, and it was mentioned in some reports, though usually relegated to the 17th paragraph.
“Oh, a beer at lunch won’t hurt anything,” some might say.
Explain that to Harry Whittington.
This isn’t about politics. It’s not about the lefties calling for the Vice President’s scalp, any more than about the righties claiming it’s been blown out of proportion.
It’s about hunting safety.
I’ve never been shot but it can’t be pleasant. Those who have experienced it can tell you more about it than I can.
Greg Petrich of Juneau, Alaska, tells about going plinking in a local dump with some teenage pals when he was hit with a single No. 6 pellet that ricocheted off a hubcap, and then off his skull.
“It hurts,” he said. “It hurts more than you think hurt can hurt, and based on my experience, Harry Whittington was one hurt old dog.”
Lyle, a high school friend, took a 7½ pellet through his lower lip. It lodged in his lower gum, though it popped out minutes later. That pellet had already passed through a thick buffalo berry thicket before hitting him.
“It felt like someone hit me in the mouth with a baseball bat,” he later told me.
In Whittington’s case, it dropped him. Reports indicate it took some time before he could even respond to simple questions. A small lead pellet traveling at somewhere around 1,200 feet per second must hit with amazing force. One made it into his chest cavity, lodging in a heart muscle, apparently triggering a minor heart attack. It could have been worse.
Maybe the beer had nothing to do with it. But I don’t know any experienced hunters who drink a beer at lunch and go hunting that afternoon. At best, it’s terrible judgment.
Cheney is my age and says he’s hunted for a dozen years. By that time, any hunter knows that once you pull the trigger, you can’t call a shot back. To say there’s nothing wrong with drinking a beer before loading a shotgun and hunting is indefensible.
Would you board an airplane if you saw the pilot having a beer with his lunch before reporting to duty?
The spin that emanated from a Texas ranch was shameless, such as the suggestion that it was Whittington’s fault because he failed to announce his presence. When you click the safety off on your gun, your responsibility is to make sure the shot you are taking is a safe one. If it isn’t, you don’t pull the trigger. To his credit, Cheney accepted full responsibility.
The spin introduced a term I don’t like, one that isn’t doing the cause of gun rights or hunting any good:
Whittington got “peppered.” He didn’t get “peppered.” He got shot.
Mr. Cheney admitted washing his lunch down with a beer, and then loading his shotgun for a hunt, and that’s what we should remember, because the vice president’s poor judgment put all hunters on trial. And you’d better believe that Harry Whittington was one real hurt old dog.
