[Ghoulish Delight]

Yes, "peppered" is a commmon hunting term. Shutguns don't fire a bullet, they fire a cluster of little balls ("shot"). When something is hit with several of those shot, you say it was "peppered".

Sorry guys, but I find this to be a big non-story. Dude made a mistake. Unless it's something that concerns his performance as vp, I don't consider him as having an obligation to go running to the media to say he shot his friend. While I fully understand why it is newsworthy once it became public, I don't consider the delay indicative of anything other than the fact that he made a horrible mistake, nearly killed a friend, and was dealing with the reprocussions of that privately. It's no more his reponsibility to inform us of that than it was Clinton's to inform us of his cigar appreciation.