On the argument of politics some seem to think that any news source or some Internet sources as gospel. Here is an interesting proof you always cannot trust what you read while it is not political it does show that facts can be twisted either by mistake or intent.
First article says it is a 50 cal machine gun now that one will inflame all those that are against ownership of such a gun or the round in a rifle:
NEAH BAY, Wash. - An injured California gray whale was swimming out to sea Saturday after being shot with a machine gun off the western tip of Washington state, officials said.
Coast Guard Petty Officer Kelly Parker said five people believed to be members of the Makah Tribe shot and harpooned the whale Saturday morning. The extent of the whale's injuries were not immediately known.
Tribe members were being held by the Coast Guard but had not been charged, said Mark Oswell, a spokesman for the law enforcement arm of the National Marine Fisheries Service.
A preliminary report said the whale was shot with a .50-caliber machine gun, Oswell said.
Coast Guard officials created a 1,000-yard safety zone around the injured whale, which was shot about a mile east of Neah Bay in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The whale had begun heading to sea Saturday afternoon, Oswell said.
Although the tribe has subsistence fishing rights to kill whales, Oswell said preliminary information indicates the whale may have been shot illegally.
"We allow native hunts for cultural purposes. However, this does not appear to be of that nature so far," he said.
The Makah Tribe has more than 1,000 members and is based in Neah Bay.
A call to tribal officials was not immediately returned on Saturday. Tribal Chairman Ben Johnson told The Seattle Times that the tribe has been seeking an exemption from the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act so that it could take up to five gray whales per year. However, Johnson said the tribe had not yet secured that exemption for a new hunt.
Now I am sure after the flap of this 50 cal misuse hits the media and the net we get this story that it was a 460 rifle.
Tribe Denounces Whale Shooting
56 minutes ago
NEAH BAY, Wash. (AP) — The Makah Tribal Council on Sunday denounced the killing of a California gray whale that was harpooned and shot several times off Washington's coast, calling it "a blatant violation of our law" and promising to prosecute those responsible.
But one of the men suspected in the killing told a newspaper Sunday that he was "feeling kind of proud" and whaling is "in the blood."
"We are a law-abiding people, and we will not tolerate lawless conduct by any of our members," the council said in a statement released Sunday.
The U.S. Coast Guard detained five men believed to have killed the whale on Saturday, then turned them over to tribal police for further questioning.
In its statement, the council said the men, whose names it did not release, were booked into the tribe's detention facility and released after posting bail. The council said the men will stand trial in tribal court, but did not set a date.
The American Indian tribe has more than 1,000 members and is based in Neah Bay at Washington's westernmost tip.
Wayne Johnson, captain of the whaling crew that in 1999 legally killed the tribe's first whale in decades, told The Seattle Times that he and four other tribal members plunged at least five steel whaling five harpoons into the animal then shot it with a .460-caliber rifle.
Johnson, 54, said he had no regrets — other than waiting so many years to do it.
"I'm not ashamed," he told The Times in a story the paper posted on its Web site Sunday. "I'm feeling kind of proud. ... I should have done it years ago. I come from a whaling family, on my grandmother's side and my grandfather's side. It's in the blood."
The Makah tribe's treaty rights to hunt whales have been tangled in the courts for several years.
The federal government removed the gray whale from the endangered species list in 1994. Five years later, with a permit from the National Marine Fisheries Service, Makah tribal members killed their first whale in more than 70 years.
Animal welfare activists sued, leading to a court order that the tribe must obtain a waiver under the Marine Mammal Protection Act to continue hunting whales.
John McCarty, a former tribal whaling commission member who has been an advocate of the Makah's right to resume whaling, said the tribe had been working to obtain the waiver and that the process was close to completion.
"I don't know why they did this. It's terrible," McCarty told The Times. "I think the anti-whalers will be after us in full force, and we look ridiculous. Like we can't manage our own people, we can't manage our own whale."
The Times reported that four of the five men detained Saturday took part in the 1999 hunt. All five could face civil penalties of up to $20,000 each and up to a year in jail, said Brian Gorman, a spokesman for the National Marine Fisheries Service.
The whale was headed toward the Pacific Ocean after being wounded and later disappeared beneath the surface, dragging down buoys that had been attached to a harpoon. A biologist for the tribe declared the animal dead, Petty Officer Shawn Eggert said.
Just goes to show you should take everything the media and net says with a grain of salt.
