Cheney accidentally shoots man on hunting trip
So is Cheney the first sitting vice-president to shoot someone since Aaron Burr?
The vice-presidents had gone nearly 202 years without shooting someone.
Well, George HW Bush killed a guy in the 80’s, then paid this one dude to keep it quiet…
And to think, it could have been Justice Scalia with him.
The only VP who seems likely a candidate to do something like this would have been Richard Johnson, Van Buren’s VP.
Ass-Covering of dubious logic.
Who would a’ knowed what neo-con VP’s are capable of?
Maybe he was a bit drunk.
[Moderator hat ON]
If you have information to add to answer the OP, which I took to be a serious question, then add it.
If you have frivolous comments which do nothing to answer the OP, there are multiple threads open in other fora about this incident.
Thanks.
samclem
[Moderator hat OFF]
If that mod comment was for me-----I am terribly terribly sorry.
I think he was probably drunk.
Sorry, I didn’t realize which forum this was posted in. My apologies.
That still has not a thing to do with the OP.
As for the OP, I was curious enough about this that I did some searching, and I’ve not stumbled upon any incidents thus far of VPs shooting someone.
Obviously several VPs since Burr have shot people prior to being VPs (military careers and such) but none as sitting VP.
That’s what I had thought. I guess Burr sort of made dueling unacceptable behavior for vice-presidents.
The related question would be: How often do hunting accidents like this ever result in criminal charges? It’s hard to tell obviously because we don’t know exact facts about the incident, but I would assume that a prosecutor would have to find a mountain of evidence that Cheney was criminally negligent.
Maybe not, the simple fact that Cheney is under constant medical supervision may lend to his impaired state.
Hannibal Hamlin did enlist as a private in the Maine Coast Guard during the Civil War, and was briefly called to active service and promoted to corporal during the summer of 1864. It’s unlikely that he fired any shots, though, since there weren’t too many Confederates raiding off the coast of Kittery, Maine at that particular time.
Interesting question. Anecdotal evidence suggests you are correct.
In this case, one hunter shot another when a group of six went hunting using 6 vehicles and six radios. No, they weren’t shooting out of their car, but they were irresponsible insofar as they didn’t have a clear idea of each other’s whereabouts. A full confession was allegedly made. No prison sentence was imposed.
Here we learn that there is no presumption of negligence when one hunter shoots another, absent an admission by the hunter (Lee v. Hartwig). But that’s not the case in all jurisdictions (eg Green v. Hagele).
How often do people in the US die from this?
In 1997 at least, a conservative estimate suggests that 8 died in hunting accidents. PDF. It is a conservative estimate since it captures only deaths categorized as “unintentional homicides” while many may end up being characterized as an “accident”.
Yeah- although I’d guess that duelling was on the wane at that point. I think Hamilton and Burr duelled in New Jersey because it was illegal in New York, actually.
Well, they’re going to have to reset the “73,629 Days since the Office-Holder Shot Someone” sign in the VP’s office on Monday. Oh well. Pretty good run though.
Are we counting Gerald Ford and his golf shots?
Was he veep or Pres when he struck?
It was illegal in New Jersey as well. Burr was charged with murder in both states (I presume it is illegal to leave the state for the purposes of a duel in New York – it is according to the CA duelling statue I once read).
I don’t know why they held it in New Jersey; possibly it was simply more out of the way than in New York.
For Hamilton it may have been for the most personal of reasons. His oldest son, Phillip Schuyler Hamilton, had been killed in a duel on the exact same field in Weehawken three years earlier defending his father’s honor from a man who had called him a damned rascal. At the time of his death Hamilton’s youngest child was a baby boy named Phillip Schuyler Hamilton II after his dead firstborn. (Many necropsychoanalysts have postulated that Hamilton wanted to die that day- he was still extremely depressed over the death of his son, politically dead in the water, suffering from health problems and almost bankrupt.)
I can’t find any verification of other VPs who shot anybody while in office though I’m not sure about other negligent acts. I know of at least one sitting president, Franklin Pierce, who ran over a woman with his buggy while driving drunk.
An oft repeated rumor that was included but not originated in Kitty Kelly’s Nancy Reagan bio is that Bush Sr. was arrested for and caused an accident while DWI as VP (March 18 1981) but it is not to my knowledge confirmed. (An addendum to the rumor is that his mistress was in the car with him and that he had Haig pull strings to keep the whole mess out of the papers.) Since Kitty Kelly is the Michael Moore/Ann Coulter of biographies, the truth is up for serious debate.