In the past few days, much attention has be paid to a short video compiled by a man by the name of Alex Jones who claims to have proven that Vice President Dick Cheney shot a fellow hunter, Harry Whittington, at a much closer distance than the 30 yards that has been accepted and uncontested by federal (Secret Service), state (Texas Parks and Wildlife), and local (Kenedy County) law enforcement.

Dan Riehl gutted the Jones video Saturday with precision, and even this liberal bird hunter concurs, but the logic of their statements haven't sunken in yet, and so I thought I would give it a try myself, even though no amount of logic can overcome a closed mind.

The Shotguns: Buicks and Maybachs
The firearm used by Alex Jones in his video is an unidentified side-by-side shotgun of undetermined origin, manufacture, and condition, presumably a general mass-produced shotgun like the vast majority of firearms in the world today. Vince President Cheney's Perazzi is a custom-fitted, hand-made over-under competition-grade shotgun.

Incredibly, Alex Jones tries to pass off shotguns of different basic design, layout, and manufacture as being identical (or at least being close enough). The closest he comes to validating the shotgun he uses is when Jones states that the shotgun is "the same length" as that used by the Vice President. That said, he doesn't explain that unlike rifles, shotgun barrel length does not have a significant impact on accuracy or velocity. All that Jones does substantiate is that both his firearm and Cheney's are both 28-gauge shotguns.

The Ammunition
In addition to passing off very dissimilar shotguns as being the same, he attempts to pass of the same broad generalization as being specific enough with his mention of shotgun ammunition. In short, how does Jones know he is using the "exact same shot?"

Who made the ammunition he used in his test, and was it a harder-hitting game load, or a lighter target load using both less powder and shot? Three major ammunition manufacturers make loadings for the 28-gauge shotgun that uses size #7 ½ shot. A virtually limitless number of smaller, custom ammunition manufacturers also have this same capability.

Winchester makes two loadings, a lighter shooting AA target loading that fires ¾ oz of shot at 1300 fps (feet per second), and a harder hitting “Super X” game loading that fires 33% more shot, or 1 full ounce of # 7 1/2 shot, with a maximum powder loading, at 1205 fps.

Federal Cartridge manufactures a Premium Wing-Shok Hi-Brass loading for the 28-gauge that fires at 1295 fps, 3/4 ounce of #7 1/2 shot that, interesting enough, happens to be copper plated. Copper-plating makes shot less prone to deformation, and typically contributes to a tighter shot pattern that lead shot.

Remington makes their Express Extra Long Range 28-gauge using #7 1/2 shot to perform at 1285 fps with a ¾ oz shot loading.

Every single manufacturer uses slightly different primers, powder, wads and shot.

Every single one of these shells patterns differently, even from the same firearm.

It is very important to note that nothing Alex Jones says about the ability of Dick Cheney's shotgun to pattern is valid. Froma forensic perspective, the firearm and ammunition combination Jones used for "testing" are little more than theatrical props.

The Chokes
Another point of interest is that Jones either knows next to nothing about shotgun chokes, or he simply cannot talk about them articulately. A choke is nothing more than the tapered constriction of the muzzle end of a shotgun used to focus the concentration of shot to varying degrees.

He speaks of firing a shot through the "larger barrel," which is false statement, as the barrel of even a wide-open, un-choked cylinder bore is not larger, but is the same diameter of the rest of the barrel. Somehow, we are supposed to trust the “expertise” of a man who does not know his own weapon.

He fires a shot through this "larger barrel," and while we are not able to see the pattern of the shot, by his description is that with the ammunition he uses, it patterns poorly at 30 yards.

He then speaks of shooting "through the choked barrel." He later states this barrel uses a modified choke, but that it patterns poorly as well. I felt from the beginning that Jones was comparing his Pontiac of a shotgun to Cheney's Maybach, and this would seem to support that supposition.

Jones says his choke is modified, but is unable to tell us what the chokes on the Vice President's shotgun may be. There are no less than nine chokes for shotguns, ranging from the un-constricted cylinder bore through skeet 1, the common improved cylinder, sheet 2, modified (the claimed choke of the second barrel of Jones' shotgun), improved modified, full, extra full, and turkey chokes.

In review, Jones uses a different basic shotgun design and unknown ammunition, from chokes that may not be similar, and attempts to fool a largely gun-ignorant audience into believing that he is creating a valid test situation. He is not.

What About Bob?
In addition to creating an invalid test situation by comparing dissimilar shotguns and unknown ammunition (with only the shotgun gauge remaining similar between the two firearms), Jones selects the oddest of targets for comparison, including my old friend, BOB. I worked at a sporting good store some years ago, and I watched as BOB took punches ever hour, twelve hours a day, every day of the week. Bob is a lot tougher than Harry Whittington.

BOB, or the Body Opponent Bag, is a martial arts striking mannequin, with "skin" composed of a thick, very resilient, dense and yet flexible rubber compound made to takes thousands of punches and strikes from some martial arts weapons. When compared to human flesh, BOB's rubber skin is far thicker, more dense and far more resilent.

The degree of Jones' deception is compounded by the physiology of the skin in the elderly:

By the time we reach old age our mature skin may well have experienced decades of sun exposure, even if only at very low levels. This is associated with the effects of intrinsic aging. The result as we see it is almost always a balance of the two.

Elderly skin can be very dry and almost paper-thin, with the structures in the dermis clearly visible. The TEWL is increased, and the skin becomes more fragile and prone to injuries: with the lack of protection from the dermis, the small blood vessels become vulnerable to breakage and bursting ('broken veins').

BOB's strike-proof rubber hide is a far cry from the skin of the average person, and even further away from the paper-thin skin of a 78-year old like Harry Whittington. Alex Jones could not be further from the truth when he states that Bob's thick rubber hide is "soft rubber, very similar to human skin." That is simply an untrue statement. I suspect it is far closer to being a purposeful lie.

The Shooting
Jones then make claims about the birdshot that hit Harry Whittington that he cannot factually support.

He claims that some of the shotgun pellets from Cheney's shotgun penetrated three layers of clothing that Harry Whittington was wearing, passed through his ribs and his pericardium, and into his heart. The first doctor's to treat Whittington, including a surgeon, never claimed pellets penetrated Whittington's rib cage. The shot migrated to Whittington's heart, it did not penetrate there.

The vast majority of shot to hit Harry Whittington hit exposed flesh on the right side of his face, neck, and shoulder (upper right chest), more than likely through the open neck of the button-down shirt typically worn while quail hunting, as shown below.

Counting Pellets
In addition, while Jones and others have claimed Whittington was hit by 200 pellets, they misstate what the doctor actually said. What the doctors once stated is that up to 200 pellets may have hit Whittington, but they never claimed that 200 pellets necessarily did hit Whittington. 200 pellets could have hit him, but only about half that (and here) actually did according to the most recent reports.

The False Charge
Alex Jones directly charges that Vice President Dick Cheney shot Harry Whittington from 15-18 feet away.

That is the width of average American living room. At that distance, a mass of shot weighing 3/4 of an ounce would have spread (as a liberal bird-hunting blogger concurs) only about 4-5 inches, and would have hit with enough velocity that it would have penetrated deeply into the body, shredding internal organs and obliterating bone, regardless of how much clothing was worn, as one of my commentors to this post can personally attest. Chances of anyone surviving this kind of hit to the upper torso are slight.

So does anyone—any rational person—actually think that a 78 year-old man, when shot in the chest, face and neck with a shotgun from a distance only as wide as a living room, would walk out of a hospital under his own power and be able to give a press statement less than a week later? It is, quite literally almost impossible. And yet...

...here he is, even wearing a coat and tie.

The Conspiracy Unravels
Jones further claims that the police were kept in the dark to allow time for nefarious forces to somehow orchestrate a cover-up. He purposefully ignores the fact that federal law enforcement officers (the Secret Service) were with the Vice President's party the entire time, and that the Secret Service called local authorities shortly after the shooting. It was the local sherriff's decision not to interview Cheney until Sunday. This bears repeating: the proper authorites were immediately notified, and they conducted their investigation without interference.

Of course, Alex Jones is attempting to justify a conspiracy theory to persecute a political figure he personally demonizes, and inconvenient facts such as these merely get in the way.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:36 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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As I thought might happen, some gun-ignorant liberals are concocting stories about Dick Cheney's accidental shooting of Harry Whittington one week ago today.

Their basic argument is that Cheney must have been a lot closer than 30 yards when he shot Whittington becuase of the way the shot patterned.

Dan Riehl deconstructs and debunks their argument rather well.

The only slight discrepancy in Riehl's post is that jumps out at me is that steel shot is only made for waterfowling loads, not birdshot sizes. Steel has too little mass to be effective in such small sizes.

And so Dan got me thinking... WWCS? (What would Cheney shoot?)

To get such a dense pattern, you need shot that hold their spherical shape very well when exiting the barrel. Shot (pellets) that deform are aerodynamically unstable, will wobble, and will cause pattern spread. Extremely hard shot keeps its shape and enables the shot string to pattern better.

I present to you, Federal Cartridge company's 28-gauge # 7 1/2 Premium Wing Shok Hi-Brass copper-plated lead birdshot. The copper-plating makes the pellets harder, enabling them to hold tighter patterns at longer ranges.

Of course, if Taylor-Marsh wants to be thoroughly humiliated, I can deconstruct her articles one-by-one, but I think liberals are against torture.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:18 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I just read the transcript of Dick Cheney's interview with Brit Hume on Fox News, and it is obvious that the Vice President is extremely remorseful, haunted by the fact he shot a friend. The image of Cheney firing at the bird, only to see Whittington drop, obviously plays over and over again in his mind.

My heart goes out to Mr. Whittington and his family, and also to the Vice President and his family. This is traumatic for all concerned, and I wish for all of them to recover as fully as God and time allows.

That said, some of the details of this late Saturday afternoon hunt are still unclear.

Obviously, I'm still very interested in discovering if the shotgun pellet in Harry Whittington's heart is really "roughly 5 mm" as Dr. David Blanchard claimed. Odds are that the good doctor was mistaken, and I hope that this is indeed the case. Ammunition using pellets of that size, which are more suitable for goose hunting than quail hunting, are not made for the Vice President's 28-gauge shotgun. I have two emails in to media contacts at the hospital where Mr. Whittington is being treated, and hopefully they will indeed confirm this is a simple mistake in judging the size of the shot.

Another thing that perplexes me is the relative positions of the three hunters in this incident. According to the Vice President in Hume's interview:

HUME: Tell me what happened.

CHENEY: Well, basically, we were hunting quail, late in the day.

HUME: Let's recall the setting.

CHENEY: It's in South Texas, wide open spaces, a lot of brush cover, but fairly shallow, but it's wild quail. It's some of the best quail hunting any place in the country. I've gone there to the Armstrong ranch for years. The Armstrongs have been friends for over 30 years. And a group of us had hunted all day on Saturday.

HUME: How many?

CHENEY: Probably 10 people. We weren't all together, but about 10 guests at the ranch. There were two of us who had gotten out of the vehicle and walked up on a covey of quail that had been pointed by the dogs. The covey was flushed, we shot, and each of us got a bird. Harry couldn't find his. It had gone down in some deep cover, so he went off to look for it. The other hunter and I then turned and walked about 100 yards in the other direction.

HUME: Away from him?

CHENEY: Away from him, where another covey had been spotted by an outrider. I was on the far right ...

HUME: There was just two of you then?

CHENEY: Just two of us at that point, a guide and an outrider between us. And, of course, there was the entourage behind us, all the cars and so forth that follow me around when I'm out there. But the bird flushed and went to my right off to the west. I turned and shot at the bird, and at that second, saw Harry standing there. I didn't know he was there.

Here is where I start to get confused.

The three hunters - Dick Cheney, Harry Whittington, and a third hunter Cheney does not name, but self identifies herself in this CTV article as Pamela Willeford, the U.S. ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein, were walking in a line when they flushed a covey of quail and all three fired and brought down birds. Cheney and Willeford were able to find their birds, but the quail Whittington shot went down in heavy cover. As Whittington sought his bird, Cheney and Willeford went off "in the other direction."

We aren't told exactly what the course change was, but most people, I think, would assume a reversal of course of 180 degrees. At this point, the explanation becomes unclear to me.

Cheney and Willeford have apparently left Whittingon somewhere behind them as they sought a second covey of quail, with Cheney explicitly stating he was on the far right. A quail flushed, as Vince President Cheney recounts:

...and went to my right off to the west. I turned and shot at the bird, and at that second, saw Harry standing there. I didn't know he was there.

Let me see if I get this.

The two hunters had separated from Whittington and had gone off in "the other direction," meaning a returning Whittington came up from either the dead rear, left rear, or right rear of the party. Let's look at how this plays out.

Whittington advances from the center rear
First off, a center rear (straight behind) situation doesn't make much sense. A hunter would have had to pivot and bend to an excessive degree to have hit Whittington, who would have been on their inside. None of these AARP-aged folks would appear to be capable of that sort of Cirque de Soleil contortion. Let's rule that out as a strong improbabability, (but not an impossibility).

That leave us with the more logical situations of Whittington angling in from either the right or left rear.

Whittington advances from the right rear

In the crude image above, the green circle represents Willeford, the blue circle represents Cheney, the red circle coming up from the right rear is Whittington, and the the black circle is the quail, with the curved, dotted line representing the bird's flight path, and the short dotted line between the blue circle (Cheney) and the red circle (Whittington) representing the path of the birdshot from Cheney's shotgun.

Assuming all three hunters were moving in roughly the same direction (towards the top of the page), what do you notice? A hunter on the right, swinging right, would have most likely shot a forward-facing Whittington on the left side. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department incident reports states that Whittington was shot on the right side of his body.

Whittington advances from the left rear
Now, I suppose it is possible for the shooter on the right to swing to the right and hit a person on their right side, but only if the victim turned aggressively inward, and it seems questionable that a 78 year-old man would have the reflexes to make that turn quickly.

It would, however, seem to make sense that a shooter on the left, swinging left, would almost certainly hit the victim on the right side as Whittington was struck.

If the hospital is correct in estimating the size of the pellet in Mr. Whittingon's heart (and that is indeed the major point of contention), then Vice President Cheney could not have fired the shot, because ammunition is not made for his shotgun using pellets of anything approaching that size.

In addition, it seems quite puzzling how a hunter on the right, swing right, could have hit Harry Whittington on the right side of his body.

I'm very glad that it appears Mr. Whittington will survive this horrible accident, and I'm glad that the Vice President has now given his side of the story.

I just wish what I've heard reported made more apparent sense.

Also:
The Quail on the Grassy Knoll

The Quail on the Grassy Knoll, Part 3

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:02 AM | Comments (49) | Add Comment
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Austin lawyer Harry Whittington was shot during a hunting trip with Vice President Dick Cheney on Saturday. This afternoon, he suffered a slight setback as a birdshot pellet in his bloodstream became trapped in his heart... and what an interesting pellet it was.

Via CNN (my bold):

Dr. David Blanchard, the hospital's emergency room chief, said Whittington suffered an "asymptomatic heart attack," meaning Whittington did not display symptoms such as chest pains or breathing difficulty. He said a roughly 5 mm piece of shot became lodged in or alongside Whittington's heart muscle, causing the organ's upper two chambers to beat irregularly.

The physician quoted is Dr. David Blanchard, director of emergency services at the hospital. Only “T” and “BBB” shot - at 5.08mm and 4.83 respectively - are close to that size range.

According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department incident report, Vice President Cheney was hunting with a Perazzi Brescia 28-gauge shotgun using factory-loaded #7 1/2 shot.

#7 1/2 shotgun pellets have a diameter of 2.41 mm, half the size of the pellet found in Harry Whittington's heart.

According to 28-gauge aficionados, the size shot found in Whittington's chest is not made for the caliber of shotgun Cheney was shooting.

The most logical explanation is that the hospital equipment is merely inaccurate in measuring the size of the pellet, in which case they should recalibrate their machines.

If the hospital equipment is accurate, however, then someone using a shotgun other than a Perazzi Brescia 28-gauge fired the shot that wounded Harry Whittington.

Also:
The Quail on the Grassy Knoll, Part 2

The Quail on the Grassy Knoll, Part 3

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:34 PM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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This will be liberal blog fodder until 2009. Via the Associated Press.

Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and wounded a companion during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, spraying the fellow hunter in the face and chest with shotgun pellets.

Harry Whittington, a millionaire attorney from Austin, was "alert and doing fine" in a Corpus Christi hospital Sunday after he was shot by Cheney on a ranch in south Texas, said Katharine Armstrong, the property's owner.

[snip]

Armstrong said she was watching from a car while Cheney, Whittington and another hunter got out of the vehicle to shoot at a covey of quail.

Whittington shot a bird and went to look for it in the tall grass, while Cheney and the third hunter walked to another spot and discovered a second covey.

Whittington "came up from behind the vice president and the other hunter and didn't signal them or indicate to them or announce himself," Armstrong said.

"The vice president didn't see him," she continued. "The covey flushed and the vice president picked out a bird and was following it and shot. And by god, Harry was in the line of fire and got peppered pretty good."

Luckily, Mr. Whittington's wounds, while painful, are not life-threatening, and the presiding officer of the Texas Funeral Service Commission will not yet become a client.

Some will enjoy blaming the Vice President for this one, but Harry Whittington bears a large degree of the blame for his shooting. You simply do not come up behind a hunter unannounced, especially while bird hunting when a passing shot is a distinct possibility.

I'd guess (this is hypothetical) that Whittington, having been shot in his right side, came up from the left rear quadrant of the Vice President. If the Vice President is a right-handed shooter as the majority of people are, Whittington would have been in Cheney's blind spot as he swung on a bird passing right-to-left. There is very little the Vice President could have done, except, perhaps, having gone hunting with someone a little more intelligent.

Regardless, I hope Whittington has learned something from this very painful experience.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:54 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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