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What a 28 Gauge Shotgun Blast Means

13 February 2006 - gk - reactions

More on Cheney's Shooting from a hunting prospective:

One of the first things my dad taught me was how to move around in the woods or in a field to maximize my safety. Aside from the blaze orange requirements today for visual safety, you stay behind the person with the gun, you keep your muzzle pointed away from people and dogs who are your companion animals (and reports are that they were using dogs to flush out the birds, so guns would have been pointed skyward to minimize potential accidents for the dogs), and you never, never, NEVER squeeze off a round without first ascertaining the entire visual in front of where you will be shooting, within the designated path of your particular firearm (different guns have different ranges and shot patterns, depending on caliber and load) -- in other words, look very carefully before you ever pull the trigger.

That Mr. Whittington was in the line of sight for Dick Cheney is regrettable. But no matter whether Whittington walked into the line of sight or whether Cheney turned to shoot at quail and placed Whittington within his line (which is a more likely hunting scenario, given that you generally try to walk up on a hunting party from behind if at all possible if you are at all experienced, to minimize possible accidents), it is the hunter's responsibility at all times to be secure in what he is seeing before he ever pulls the trigger. Period.

And more on the type of gun Cheney was using, and what that does to someone at 30 yards:

Well, that's interesting. A 28-gauge shotgun is a fairly specialized firearm. My dad called it a "ladies gun" when I learned to shoot as a kid -- it was the first gun I ever took out for target practice at the quarry. It shoots a fairly small pattern, compared to the spread you get from a 12-gauge, say, so the buckshot comes out in a fairly concentrated pattern, and there is little to no recoil -- which means you don't get that smack into your shoulder when the gun rebounds from the pressure of the shot like you would with a higher-gauge (stronger) shot.
...

Katherine Armstrong told the WaPo that the 28-gauge has a "smaller shot pattern." What she meant to say, I'm sure, is that the shot pattern is "more concentrated" - meaning that the pellets stay in a small circumference as they move forward, rather than rapidly spreading outward in a larger pattern like you get with a 12-gauge.

Which means that at close range, a 28-gauge can do some serious damage. And at 30 yards, give or take, it explains why the blast pattern on Mr. Whittington was limited to face/neck/chest.

Cheney shot - shot - a man, and we only heard about it 22 hours after the fact - from a third party?

What's up with that?