[There was a video here]

On Sunday night's episode of her reality show Sarah Palin's Alaska, the former governor of Alaska shot, and killed, a caribou. So down-to-earth, or whatever! Except that experienced hunters don't seem to think Palin really knew what she was doing.

Now, as a "city folk," I am basically clueless about hunting. Like, what even is a caribou, and what did it do to you, that made you shoot it? So to me, well, Palin looked like she knew what she was doing (shooting a beast). But to people who are not clueless about hunting, and could tell the difference between a caribou and, say, a deer, or a squirrel? She looked like an amateur.

Abe Sauer, who runs the effed-up-non-urban-America beat at The Awl, collected some responses to the episode from Palin's Facebook page, the right-wing websites FreeRepublic.com and Hannity.com, and among hunters he knows. Some of their complaints:

  • Neither she nor her father "sight in" the rifle, which is, uh, a thing that people who use guns do.
  • She's got a "varmint rifle," despite the overwhelming evidence that caribou are not "varmint."
  • It takes her four or five shots to hit the caribou. And caribou are big!
  • She doesn't bring her own weapon, and has someone else carry and load it.
  • Her dad, theoretically a veteran hunter, uses his gun as a walking stick, which even I can tell you is a terrible idea.
  • After being given her rifle, she "immediately" puts her finger on the trigger, violating "the first lesson any responsible hunter ever learns": Don't touch the trigger till you're ready to shoot.
  • She asks about the rifle, "Does it kick?" which is (apparently) a silly, inconsequential question.

Of course, as Sauer rightly points out, Palin would not be the first dumb-looking fake hunter in American politics. She would just be the first one with a whole reality show, all about her and her family and the state that they apparently own.

[The Awl]