Dick Cheney may have accidentally shot a man in the face while he was vice president, but that didn't stop Fox News from flying to Nevada to get his advice on recently-proposed gun control laws.
Fox News correspondent Griff Jenkins caught up with Cheney over the week at the Safari Club International convention for gun owners and manufacturers, where the former vice president and his daughter, Liz, participated in a discussion about gun rights and the realism of torture in the film "Zero Dark Thirty."
Cheney told Jenkins he was "worried" about President Barack Obama's efforts to increase gun safety.
"We may end up in a situation where you get a proposal or a proposition that does, in fact, threaten the rights of law-abiding Americans, and at the same time, doesn't do anything with respect to the problem everybody's concerned about, such as the shooting that happened in Connecticut," the Wyoming Republican said.
"I find especially in groups like the group here and an awful lot of my folks in Wyoming who supported me all those years in Congress are very, very concerned that there isn't adequate regard for the rights of law-abiding citizens," he added. "We understand that there's clearly an effort underway, but one of the things we've done in Wyoming -- with respect to Jackson Hole, where I live, with respect to safety of schools -- we have a deputy sheriff, armed deputy sheriff at the schools in the city. And that's probably a more effective deterrent than anything that Congress seems to be debating at the present time."
"How worried are you the President Obama's gun control plan threatens the Second Amendment rights of every law-abiding American?" Jenkins asked.
"I think a lot of people are worried," Cheney said, pointing to a recent ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit which found that Obama had violated the Constitution by making recess appointments while lawmakers were using gimmick to keep Congress in session over the holidays.
"So I think the concern is very real and very legitimate, that the administration sometimes isn't as cautious or as precise, if you will," Cheney opined.
While on a 2006 hunting trip for quail in Texas, Cheney mistakenly shot 78-year-old Harry Whittington in the face.
"I am the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend," he later told Fox News. "That is something I will never forget."
