Huckabee fires shotgun blasts over reporters

[tngunner]

» straight from the drudge report

Huckabee's muzzle control problem
by Jim Tankersley

Republican Mike Huckabee took his presidential campaign for a quick pheasant-hunting expedition in Iowa on Wednesday, and at one point, a reporter asked why he hadn’t invited sporting enthusiast Dick Cheney along. "Because I want to survive all the way through this," Huckabee replied, in a chuckling dig at the vice president’s accidental shooting of a quail-hunting partner last year.

Any good sportsman, though, couldn’t miss a distinctly Cheneyesque moment in the press accounts of the former Arkansas governor’s morning hunt: At one point, Huckabee’s party turned toward a cluster of reporters and cameramen and, when they kicked up a pheasant, fired shotgun blasts over the group’s heads.

This, friends, is dangerously bad hunting form.

Your Swamp correspondent, the son of a longtime hunter education instructor, grew up plying the corn rows and stream banks of rural Oregon with a Labrador retriever and a Mossberg 20-gauge pump shotgun. On our hunts for pheasant, grouse and quail, merely swinging a gun barrel in the general direction of another person was grounds for day-long banishment to the truck (which smelled like wet dog).

Suffice to say, if any of our hunting mates had pulled a stunt like Huckabee’s yesterday, we never would have invited them back. It’s the sort of behavior that drives safety-conscious hunters up the wall, because it reinforces a reckless, gun-totin’ stereotype.


My colleague James Oliphant reports that Huckabee’s party was about 75 yards away from the press corps Wednesday when a pheasant jumped up and flew toward the reporters, drawing several shots. “That was too close,” he reports a cameraman saying.

Perhaps Huckabee missed hunter’s safety classes – Arkansas only requires them for hunters born after 1968 – but the etiquette on this point is clear.

“Never point a firearm at yourself or others,” the International Hunter Education Association declares in its Basic Safety Rules. Later, it adds, “Never point your firearm at something you do not intend to shoot. Make sure you positively identify what you are shooting at and know what lies in front of and beyond it.”

Huckabee emerged happily from his hunt, three dead pheasants in tow, Oliphant reports. Asked for a metaphor to describe the hunt, he replied, "



>>>>>>> comments?

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[phaed]

i fire shots over my dog's head all the time. i have much more respect for my dog than i do the press.

[MitchellCT]

If he missed the Quail, he would have hit the reporters.

What's the down side?

[goldshellback]

I'm looking for a negitive here...............

[HotGuns]

Huckabees party fired shots? Or Huckabee fired shots ?

Huckabee emerged happily from his hunt, three dead pheasants in tow, Oliphant reports. Asked for a metaphor to describe the hunt, he replied, "

He replied what ?

Nowhere does it say that Huckabee fired shots...it just implys that his party fired shots. I guess he is to blame now because he is the"big dog"on the block.


note:
all of a sudden the Dems are scared to death of Huckabee. Every single thing he says or does is scrutinized and reported. He is the target of their "affections" and the focal point of some rather ridiculous slander. Since he is their new "high priority target",watch for more less than flattering reports.

[SIXTO]

???? I bet the reporters were making a pest out of themselves like always. Sure, they probably should not have shot over their heads, but part of being out in the bean field is knowing where to be and where not to be. I bet the reporters have never been hunting before in their lives. Stupid is as stupid does.

[HotGuns]

but part of being out in the bean field is knowing where to be and where not to be

Perhaps a little "salting" of #6's or #4's would have educated them somewhat.

[SIXTO]

I'll also bet that the reporters where not in any danger at all, they just thought so because they are moronic cry babies.

[HotGuns]

I'll also bet that the reporters where not in any danger at all, they just thought so because they are moronic cry babies

.

They thought they were in danger because they could actually see a gun. Thats how reporters operate.

[purple88yj]

Perhaps this should be a lesson to the media....don't get in front of a person with a gun, or you are liable to get shot

[Chooie]

Do a Google news search for Huckabee. Of the 140+ entries, this blog entry from BALTIMORE is the only thing that even mentions muzzle control. Every other news story, including the AP, New York Post, etc. simply talk about Huckabee taking one bird himself, and how Romney lied about his hunting, etc.

Both sides are capable of sensationalizing - one reporter's blog out of hundreds of legitimate stories does not a crisis make.

[ibez]

No reporter was shot ?


darn it :(

[Kerbouchard]

No reporter was shot ?


darn it :(

I was thinking the same thing, but I figured I would let somebody else break that ice...

Huckabee still gets my vote, but next time he'll have to aim a little lower.

[tngunner]

after reading some of the post it got me to thinking. I already seen the humor in the original post. (thats why I posted it) and if we could only put a bounty on news reporters that reported false, misleading or inacuate news maybe, just maybe we could get some quality media coverage.

[Supertac45]

I don't believe most reporters.