Know Your Target -- And Beyond

I can totally understand the big ruckus being made over the Dick Cheney shooting incident. He's a public figure, number one, so that goes completely with the territory. You screw up, you get headlines...no problem with that. And I'm not even gonna defend, at least vociferously, the scenario/circumstances surrounding the event. The title of this post is the FIRST RULE of hunter's safety, and it was burned into Otto's brain at an early age...thanks to Dad and a mandatory course I took in the great state of Montana circa 1970. I am 47 as I type so you can do the math...and figure out that I had a shotgun in my hands at a very early age. It's still that way in ol' MT. Which would probably shock and infuriate the anti-gun Left, all by its lonesome. A gun in the hands of a 12 year old?! Yeah bitch. But anyways...

Let us just make sure that we, all of us, understand a little about hunting birds...

Pheasants were my preferred target growing up, because they were the biggest and flew the slowest. (My first question to all of the Libs at work making fun of Doofus Dick the last two days has been: Have you ever shot a game bird? Guess how many have answered Yes? Correctomundo...ZILCH.) Even there, I almost shot my brother once on a hunt, when he had wandered up a hill the other side of a little gulch when Max, our completely retarded English Springer Spaniel, scared up a pheasant while I was walking point. The bird flew at about a perfect 90 degrees to where I was standing -- the classic line and the easiest shot -- and I swung the muzzle of the 20 gauge up and to the right perfectly and had a perfect lock when I saw Charlie standing right behind my shooting line. Still not sure how I managed to refrain from pulling the trigger because we'd walked like forever and not seen a bird that day, and you get really antsy for some action after 2-3 hours...but I did, and held the line on the bird some more, another second a half or so, until Charlie was out of the way, and then let 'er rip. And the bird went down. It may have been the best shot I've ever taken, and that's why it's still so clear in memory.

But here's the crucial part, the understanding part...what transpired that day happened in about three to four seconds max. And that is an ETERNITY compared to the way a quail comes out of the brush. I mean those critters just explode out, and are immediately up to about 35 mph cruising speed. You've got maybe a second, or two at the most, to get a shot off when you're hunting quail. Compared to pheasants, quail look like hummingbirds. And there is a lot of information you gotta process in that second or two. Heck, the average reaction time is about .3 seconds, right? Yeah...check it out yourself.

Again, no excuses on behalf of the Veep. ANY time somebody gets hurt in a hunting accident, it is the shooter's fault -- period. But aren't we forever hearing from the lib cogs some variation on the theme of "Don't criticize until you've actually walked in their shoes"? Maybe that admonition applies only to others, and not themselves...hmmm?