When it comes to hunter safety, political spin doesn’t fly.  Neither do arguments that blame the victim in Vice President Dick Cheney’s ill-fated quail hunt Saturday in Texas, said Mike Streeter, hunter education coordinator for the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.

“Any attempt by whomever to take the blame off the shooter and put it on the victim is wrong,” Streeter said Monday.

Point blank: The guy who pulled the trigger was the vice president.

News accounts of the incident quoted the property owner saying the attorney got shot because he put himself in Cheney’s line of fire without signaling or announcing himself. That makes gun safety more complicated than necessary, Streeter said.

“The principle is to be sure of your target and what’s beyond it,” he said. “That’s the principle that apparently wasn’t followed.”

The “sure target, safe shot” mantra is one of 10 rules of gun safety that all Nebraska youngsters are required to learn through a certified course before hunting with a firearm or bow and arrow. Others include maintaining muzzle control and to always treat every firearm as if it were loaded.

Among members of the International Hunter Education Association, Saturday’s shooting falls in a category called “swinging on game.” In such cases, after a bird flushes, a hunter shoulders and swings the shotgun, focusing on the bird in preparation for the shot. It’s almost like the hunter gets tunnel vision and doesn’t notice anything but the quarry.

In Nebraska, swinging on game is the most common hunting accident, Streeter said. Since 1958, 164 of the 819 total hunting incidents have fallen in that category.

What most surprised Streeter about Saturday’s shooting was the age of the shooter — Cheney is 65. In Nebraska, most swinging on game incidents involve a shooter between 10 and 19 years old. Hunters over 60 rarely violate any firearm safety rule.

While losing track of your surroundings happens easily whenever intense concentration is required, safe hunting demands the discipline to hold your fire until absolutely sure the shot won’t hit unintended targets. Unfortunately, social pressure and conventional definitions of success in the field fail to reward hunters for the shots they don’t fire.

“When you go hunting, the first question everybody asks you is did you get ’em?” he said. “Not did you have a good time?”

When volunteer hunter education instructor John Cariotto learned about the shooting, he knew he’d been provided with a teachable moment. Cariotto, who has taught three hunter ed classes per year for more than 20 years, said he planned to discuss the incident at a new class Monday night in Lincoln.

He’ll explain that hunters do have a responsibility to maintain safe positions in the field and make themselves seen by wearing bright orange clothing and communicating with others in their party. They also must establish safe zones of fire, which rule out things like spinning around for a quick shot at a bird that flushes behind you.

But Cariotto planned to deliver another message to his students as well: Hunting is a safe activity.

Streeter agreed, saying that of the estimated 140,000 people who hunted in Nebraska in 2005, only six were involved with firearm-related injuries. Of those, four of the injuries were self-inflicted.

“When you look at injuries per 100,000 participants, hunting is lower than all the ball sports,” he said.

Reach Joe Duggan at 473-7239 or jduggan@journalstar.com.