Shooting Blanks

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.