Joel Achenbach takes aim at the other time a Vice President shot someone. An excerpt:
So Burr called him out. They would settle the matter like gentleman, face to face, with pistols. Complicating matters was that Hamilton had declared an aversion to shedding blood in private combat and insisted that he would “waste” his shot, intentionally missing Burr. Was this suicidal? Henry Adams and various psychobiographers have argued just that: Hamilton was depressed and wanted to die. [New theory: Texas billionaire intentionally lunged into Cheney’s line of fire.] Hamilton wouldn’t practice with a pistol, while Burr practiced regularly. It was going to be a slaughter.