Posted by deirdrehbrt on February 14, 2006, at 13:39:36
Harry Whittington was reported to have suffered a heart attack. It seems that among the injuries sustained from being shot by Mr. Cheney include some of the pellets being lodged in his heart.
Well, no matter how you put it. "it was only bird shot", "He didn't announce himself", "It wasn't a rifle", Dick Cheney did shoot a man, and as he has already suffered a heart attack (classified as minor), this man is not out of the woods.
Personally, I don't think the shooting was inteneional, but it was certainly negligent. The lessons I learned in the military, and in a hunters safety course were always to properly identify your target, and to know what's behind your target. (I personally don't hunt, but the family I married into did, so I got a hunting license for one year. Had this beautiful doe come up to me while hunting, and my father-in-law was upset b/c I didn't shoot it. Oh well.. :-) Besiedes, it looked better in the woods than in his freezer.)
Point is, I'm willing to say that an accident's an accident. However, the minimizing of it keeps getting more and more ridiculous as more and more facts come out. In the end, it's not the victim's responsibility to not get shot, it's the shooter's responsibility to not shoot a person, or a dog, or a cow, or a horse, or anything other than the intended target.
Realizing how serious the injuries are, this doesn't seem anymore like the "little mistake" sort of accident that I was reading about yesterday.
Oh well.
--Dee
poster:deirdrehbrt
thread:609444
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20060204/msgs/609444.html