The 1994 ban on scary-looking guns was a watershed event in the gun rights community. Disparate elements, ranging from people whose CCW pistol held more than 10 rounds to NRA High Power Rifle shooters whose target guns were blacklisted, found themselves thrown together in a broad-based and politically energized coalition.
There's never been a similar singular national event to unite elk hunters and waterfowl shooters and the guys in the deer woods, and Sebastian ponders that this may be why hunting is still suffering from the death of a thousand cuts while the broader gun rights scene is retaking ground at a ferocious pace.
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The Fudds trust the government when they say they will eat them last.
Idiots.
And referring to them as Fudds isn't going to help. Talking to them and trying to get them together might help, but name calling rarely does.
Uh, Kristopher, I'm all in favor of hunting and wish I did more of it, and I'm no kin to Elmer...
No doubt about, tell a free man he can't do or have something and he'll do it/get it even if he had no urge to before.
The activism that was spurred by the gun-grabbing idiocy had another side benefit -to dealers anyway- in that it was by far the most active and profitable period of firearms and magazine sales of my career...granted that I was out of the loop by the time gun shops had posters of BO on their walls proclaiming him Salesman of the Year.
At the same time, there was virtually no demand, except the normal surge around October, even for high-end deer rifles in my neck of the woods.
Like Zumbo, many traditional hunter-types had a bit of a superiority complex and believed they enjoyed something of a protected status when it came to gun control, even going back to the Carter years and the big push to ban "saturday night specials" (aka anything with a barrel under four inches and weighing less than a couple pounds), and continuing through the Brady Bunch, the AWB, and the current shall we say, chilly climate at the fed level.
Zumbo learned a hard and costly lesson; maybe now the other "Fudds" will realize too, that an attack on one segment is an attack on all...it ain't about the hardware, it's a philosophy and a very dark long term plan and goal.
Sometimes you gotta lose something before you'll fight for it; my Daddy said it best by stringing together three old saws: "Familiarity breeds contempt, absence makes the heart grow fonder, and you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone." That's true of most worthwhile things in life, 2A rights included.
AT
I didn't think Kristopher was referring to all hunters in general, just the ones who were willing to throw other hunters and shooters under the bus to protect their own little niche. I can understand the fear of alienating the hunters, but at the same time I wonder -- why do certain in their ranks not care about alienating us shooters? Are we seeing only the worst of their attitudes?
I did not care if others went on canned hunts .... until one of those high fence operations brought CWD to Nebraska..... it ain't a Good Idea to concentrate "wild" animals in a pen.... and then ship them around the country....
Do what you will with your property, but when your property causes the destruction of public resources, resources that I use, I have a problem with that.
Fudds? Some of us "Fudds" also hunt bipeds in places where someone who sports a picture of a flying fat kid in a super hero costume as their web persona most likely couldn't rate as a fobbit.
It is a weird rift in the culture though, almost a form of elitism."Your Savage 99 isn't fit to be in the same safe as my matched Purdey's" I personally think canned hunts are shooting, not hunting, it's not really that different from buying your meat at the store...But that's me, it is their property, and their $. Ask Ted Nugent:-)
It would help if there was anyplace left to hunt.
Need to be 500ft from a dwelling, and 150ft from a road, and before you know it, 85% of the state is off limits to hunting.
Wow. Is it just me, or did the temperature in this thread drop a few degrees lower in the Kelvin scale with the last anonymous posting above?
Hunting bipeds. Nice.
There is definite snobbery between hunters, I am sure that my Marlin 336 and 700 BDL are the objects of some elitists contempt.
But still the attempt must be made to these hunters that support the banning of 'bad assault guns' to inform them of the attempts by some states and the fedgov to ban their rifles under the bogus "intermediate sniper rifle" bullshit.
We're in the same frickin boat, we need to show them how to row, and why the should.
@Gewher
Yeah, actually it did.
I hunt bunnies and deer y'know.
As do I. Bunnies, deer, elks, gooses, and recalcitrant hard drives. Never advertised the whole "hunting bipeds" thing myself, at least, not on a public blog. Trained to do so courtesy of Uncle Sam, but nothing I'd be so bold as to brag about while beating somebody else up over their Google Blogger avatar...
Didn't the Brits just go through this problem. "We're from the government and just want to protect you from the evil guns er criminals." "We won't touch your lovely antique rifles and pistols." Ha that worked. Now I think they want to register gun shaped lighters and kitchen knives.
Really put a hurt on those criminal types now didn't it. I think its LMFAo hilarious that they're Olympians can't even bring their gats in country. Bi-atheletes must'a bin jack'n drug stores.
Bill
Bil,
Where do you think the anti's get their game plan from?
There's a reason divide and conquer is a cliché.
Same with hang together, or hang separately.
And about an execution being a wonderful mental focus.
Oh, and can't forget the frog and the pot.
Hunting also suffers from decreased numbers and interested members. I'm a hunter myself, but I haven't gone in a few years. While I regularly hit the range and daily conceal carry.
It's your blog. I'll not use the term Fudd here again.
I do hunt as well ... but I also support the second amendment and self-defense as a basic human right.
hunting on a 10k acre public land good, but on a 10k acre private land is bad why?
Fudd(any hunter) A does not like the rifle/location/look of Fudd(other hunter) B hunting/target/location so is willing to take away the rights from Fudd B. Yeah thats going to work well for Fudd A, now there is precedent to remove the rights from Fudd A, hey it was ok when we took that right from B.
This is why even non-hunters need to stand together, and work to protect all of our rights. An infringement on one is an infringement on all!
Glad to see that the NRA is working so hard to get this over thrown, they put out a mailer, good gorilla, heres your banana. WTF over! They need to do more then just send out a damn mailer!
Kristopher,
I don't care if you use the word Fudd or not, and I understand what you mean by it, (ie, hunters who only own firearms to hunt and who don't really care about guns outside of that narrow usage,) but as you can see, it can be counterproductive.
Similarly, on self defense issues, you're unlikely to win converts by tossing the term "sheeple" about willy-nilly.
"hunting on a 10k acre public land good, but on a 10k acre private land is bad why?"
-Bradley
2 reasons I can think of right off:
1. High fence hunting operations that import amnimals have a history of spreading disease (Specificly CWD in my state), leading to infection of wild populations and large scale culling operations as the prevention/cure for the problem = less hunting opertunity for me.
Pay to hunt operations are springing up where I deer hunt, leasing farmer's land and posting it. They don't allow for anyone to hunt other than their paid clients. Very few deer are taken, and the ones that are are bucks = more and more deer = more land owner complaints to Game and Parks for crop damage and car/deer collisions. Meanwhile the only effective management tool G&P had is prevented from hunting, and withers over time from lack of recruitment of new hunters. The farmers generally figure out that the Hunting Lease operations are not in it for the long haul, and the leases don't last, but the damage to hunting is already done ... fewer and fewer hunters.
Wild game is (by law in this state) a public resource, and belongs to me and every other citizen. I would like to see it managed so my kids have the same oportunities to hunt that I did, and not have to pay 8 Grand for the same deer I grew up thinking was my birthright.
For some reason I think it was Hitler that said, "Give me your children and I will take your nation."
We have few hunters, because we gave our schools to the liberals, the tree-huggers - the social engineers that deliberately and with malice aforethought teach children that guns are evil, instead of depending on the Boy Scouts to teach shooting safety.
I understand that children in families were Dad hunts get to see firearms in action. But when schools in rural Northern Oklahoma suspend, permanently, a high schooler, and call the cops over a knife that is "spring assisted", we have been letting the liberals teach this generation's potential hunters, and next generation's potential hunters - that shooting is evil.
The charges were dropped when it was shown that the knife in question - found on the kid, never shown or brandished - was in fact not spring assisted. The school never relented or let the kid back in.
You cannot teach children that all firearms are criminal and evil and going to kill them - and prepare a generation prepared to understand and defend freedom. Let a kid grow up believing that only evil people own or allow guns near them - and you raise a generation that doesn't see that tyrants must be resisted at any cost.
People in the CCW community, most of them, have had reality shake that crap from in front of their eyes, and see what they need to do. People that have learned shooting from a trusted friend have been rudely introduced to the regulatory and activist atmosphere surrounding gun use and ownership.
Hunters are often isolated, and practiced at avoiding government attention, and are less likely to stick their heads up. They quietly go about their business, often taking pride in keeping their neck of the woods safer and better managed than would be if they weren't out there in the woods, seeing what there is to see.
If you want to look at the decline in number of hunters and gun-aware adults, you have to look at what Sesame Street and 2nd grade teachers were teaching some years ago. Which is nothing to what they teach today.
Obama is frankly counting on the results of the last generation's school system. Those that haven't been hit with a dose of reality already.
This is particularly thought-provoking post. More than once I - of the CCW and Eeeevil Black Rifle crowd - have found myself dumbfounded having a gun conversation with hunters that could give two shits about gun rights. This may be a way to reach some of them. Thanks!
tweaker
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