Letters to the Editor

• Funny article, weird letter

  [Read the article: When vice presidents shoot people]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  The article is better that Tennis's usual SYA column. I believe in the Second Amendment. I also believe the old joke "Guns don't shoot people, idiots with guns shoot people". Cheney's idiocity is being rightfully lampooned. I'm glad the comedians are blaming Cheney and not the guns. How a VP shooting someone because of his own stupidity (yes stupidity. Real hunters are SCREAMING because of this) is not national news escapes me. The satire is really good. It also avoided the really easy jokes out there "friends don't let friends hunt with Cheney", for instance. Tennis forgot to make the eyesight/elderly jokes. He did manage to avoid the easy Aerosmith joke, for which I am grateful. He did screw up the birdshot thing, but I can overlook that. I only need the SNL crew to get their hands on this one.

  This not about conservative or liberal. My conservative neighbors are all going "take Cheney's gun, please". Nor does it "happen all the time" to experienced hunters. Accidental shootings have been going down, thanks to gun safety courses. Teens are usually the ones who make these kinds of mistakes.

  I target shoot, and I have many friends who hunt. I grew up with hunting, and remember the NRA's Eddie Eagle gun safety courses. The worst sin a shooter/hunter can do is "not watch the target and beyond". The line of sight must be clear. The second worst sin is to shoot while turning (which is EXACTLY what Chaney did). The man is supposed to have hunted for 40 years, and makes a mistake like this? He also missed a 6' man in blaze orange beneath his flushed quail, in his line of sight (because when he was turning, he did not make sure the line of sight was clear). Then he BLAMES THE VICTIM.

  I am enjoying the jokes because they are focusing on Cheney and not the gun. I don't like the "Gucci" hunters who have expensive equipment, heads up their butts, who endanger other people in the woods with their bad habits. Hunting from a car? Shooting at farm raised birds? Secret Service watching for gators and cottonmouths? The very wussiness of Chaney's kind of hunting makes it an easy target. My friends BOW HUNT as well as gun hunt. They watch for badgers and rattlesnakes, and hang out in trees. They run or hide for hours in the snow to get deer (so the deer won't get my car). They manage to bag dove and duck WITHOUT HITTING EACH OTHER. Wisconsin and Minnesota managed to have over 1 million people in the woods in a one week period in November, with 2 accidental shootings.

  If Cheney had been smarter, he would have reported this faster and voluntarily took a breathalyzer. That would have shortcircuited the whole thing.

  Permalink Tuesday, February 14, 2006 09:28 AM