From an anecdotal survey of my part of the North Country, most guys see the Cheney business as an excuse to tell their own hunting stories, mostly of the been-there-done-(or-nearly-done)-that variety. I'm not saying I'm entirely on board with the line that real men shoot each other all the time without whining like a bunch of ninnies about what's no more than a healthy American male bonding experience. But on balance this is one of those no-scandal scandals where Democrat/media hysteria only underlines their estrangement from the average red-state male.
I have spent most of my life in East Tennessee. I have been in the Marine Corps. I have spent time in gun stores and gun shows. I have never heard of this kind of incident, though I am sure it happens sometimes. It gives me an idea of how the opposition could make political hay out of the shooting. If I were Howard Dean, or somesuch, I would suggest, ever so subtly, that Cheney is a pansy who can't be trusted with a weapon, or the country's national security. I would remind people that even Bill Clinton and the French looking John Kerry went hunting and didn't shoot their friends.
I remember something that A.J. Foyt said many years ago about a wreck that occurred before the first lap of the Indianapolis 500 (this is a paraphrase) -- One wouldn't want to follow [the young driver responsible for the crash] into a men's roon -- one could get wet.
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I've heard of shooting mishaps in the woods, but know of only one incident up close. My father taught gun safety classes, was a registered gun safety teacher. His last class included my sister and I . . . and our neighbor friend. A few years later our friend shot his father. While hunting. The chest wound was fatal.
It was a horrible event. The explanation given showed eagerness combined with lack of sense. Our friend shot at a movement in the bushes. (Is it needless to say that the gun safety course EXPLICITLY told hunters NOT to do this?)
Most hunting deaths seem caused by excitement combined with lack of self-restraint, enthusiasm trumping long-standing rules of the game.
Cheney, in his attitude to warfare, strikes me as just that: an enthusiast so eager to engage that he throws caution and well-established rules (such as the Geneva Conventions) out.
It's a pity, however, that he shot his companion. He should have shot himself.
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