North to the Future

An interesting sequence was where Palin and the mother with eight children went to a firing range to practise shooting at bear targets. Just in case. As if their only line of defence was Sarah Palin and the mother with eight children.

The mother with eight children had never handled a firearm and made that fact perfectly clear. She genuinely seemed not to know what the instructor was talking about. But much has been made of Palin’s shooting at wolves from aircraft. Ignoring the fact that hunters generally consider this cowardly and point out that it is what poachers do, it takes a certain level of skill to hit a running animal from a moving aircraft. When Palin was at the firing range she could not hit the side of a bullet with a barn.

Worse than her aim was that she did not know the difference between a cartridge in the magazine or in the chamber. This is a very important safety distinction that everybody should know before they even touch a firearm. Every hunter in the world knows the difference. She also seemed overly concerned about recoil. This is something an experienced hunter would never worry about.