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When it comes to your hunting lands, your
hunting guns and your hunting rights, your NRA doesn’t
care who stands in opposition.
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NRA Protects Hunting And Hunters
If you’re like me, when October
rolls around, you’ve already been scanning the skies, scouting
the fields and getting your gear ready for hunting season.
But this season dedicated hunters should watch
out for predators as much as for prey. Powerful political groups
are setting their crosshairs on you and your sport—for them,
hunting is prey.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the
Humane Society of the United States and other anti-hunting groups
nationwide are working to kill off your traditions forever—one
state, one season, one method at a time—and they become more
powerful every year.
Last year, they banned dove hunting in Michigan.
This year, they tried to do the same in Minnesota and Rhode Island.
Last year, they sued to block black bear hunting
in New Jersey. This year, they’re fighting to end bear hunting
in Maryland.
From bans on lead ammunition to bans on hunting
with dogs, these groups will do anything to stop you from hunting—including
teaching your kids that hunting is cruel and “uncool.”
It’s all part of the “Culture War” Charlton Heston
warned us about years ago.
Meanwhile, as more and more of your hunting land
is posted and padlocked, developed and devoured by the sprawl of
suburbia, fewer Americans are buying hunting licenses each year.
This trend should alarm you even if you don’t
hunt, because hunters are among the most important constituents
and stakeholders of Second Amendment freedom and the Right to Keep
and Bear Arms in America.
If you do hunt, your biggest, strongest and most
capable ally is the NRA—just ask Congress. In a National Journal
poll of congressional insiders, your NRA was rated the most effective
lobbying group in Washington, D.C. Even AARP—with triple the
budget and eight times as many members—couldn’t top
the NRA.
NRA’s credibility and clout allow us to
take on fights that other groups wouldn’t attempt, much less
have a chance of winning. For example, when federal officials proposed
closing a 100-year-old road in Colorado’s Brown’s Canyon
Wilderness Area, your NRA cried foul. We knew that closing the road
would put the 31-square-mile area off limits to elderly hunters,
disabled hunters just back from Iraq and ordinary hunters like you
and me, who can’t afford to spend days hiking into the place
just for one day of hunting. So we fought the rule—and won.
Likewise, last year your NRA helped pass the Valle
Vidal Protection Act, a federal law to keep 100,000 acres of world-class
habitat accessible to hunters in New Mexico’s Carson National
Forest.
In North Carolina, when the U.S. Navy wanted to
relocate an airfield near the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge,
we went toe-to-toe with them, convincing them to consider other
sites. After all, that refuge is the wintertime habitat for thousands
of migratory waterfowl and is vital public land for hunters of deer,
ducks, feral hogs and upland game.
When it comes to your hunting lands, your hunting
guns and your hunting rights, your NRA doesn’t care who stands
in opposition. We have the members, manpower and money to fight
for you—and win.
That’s how we have helped pass hunter protection
laws in all 50 states and win “Right-to- Hunt” constitutional
amendments and laws in 11 states so far. And it’s how we’re
winning “no-net-loss” laws that require states to open
one acre of land for public hunting for every acre they close. So
far, we’ve won such laws in eight states and with the help
of U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, we’re fighting
for a federal no-net-loss law, too.
Make no mistake: The only reason we’re able
to achieve such victories is because of you and your NRA membership.
Your membership dues help support important programs
like the Youth Hunter Education Challenge, Hunter Clinic Instructor
Program, Women On Target, Shooting Sports Camps and the Great American
Hunters Tour.
When you stay informed on the issues by reading
this magazine or logging onto NRANews.com and then spread the word
to fellow gun owners, you serve as a vital link in the communications
network that results in millions of pro-freedom letters, faxes,
e-mails and phone calls to lawmakers.
Therefore, I urge you to tear out this column,
take it to hunters you know, get them to read it and then get them
to join the NRA. The more of us there are, the more powerful and
effective we become.
Together, we can safeguard and sustain America’s
precious hunting heritage as the legacy and birthright of future
generations. Together we can win this “Culture War.”
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