Politics: Hunters vs. Shooters (Re: November)

[Texican]

This is from Jim Shepherd's ShootingWire; a darn fine publication - please take the time to read

Hunters vs. Shooters

Editor's Note: As we roll toward the 2008 Shooting Industry Summit, we're going to be taking a look at key topics that will impact all of us going forward. With the elections only a few months away, and Supreme Court ruling imminent, it is time to, as they say "galvanize the base". As shooters (and hunters), we represent a large voting percentage. Actually, we represent a large under represented voting group. This year, it is vitally important that we stand up and step forward. When it comes to galvanizing the base, my friend Michael Bane has few equals. This is an excerpt of one of his postings this weekend on his blog. Shooters (which I consider myself to be, although I do hunt) will instantly identify. Hunters, I hope, will realize that we must all be identified as "gun owners" or we risk being more than marginalized; we risk being eliminated.... Jim Shepherd

Hunters vs. Shooters

You guys know this is a subject that has been on my front burner for years, right?

I stopped hunting a long time ago, largely because I have the attention span of an 8 year-old...made me a good IPSC shooter and a miserable person in a tree stand. Hunting and shooting are, in fact, two sides of the same coin. My gripe was that hunting was the giganto senior partner, to the virtual exclusion of the shooting sports side of the coin.

Several things have happened to change that perception:
- Eventually, people in the industry started listening to me and other voices, like Paul Erhardt, Jim Shepherd, Tom Taylor at S&W, Steve Sanetti and Ken Jorgensen at Ruger, Paul Januzzo (formerly) at Glock, etc. When I keynoted the last huge hunting enclave several years ago - the guy who was there to tell people what they didn't want to hear - my comments were met with stony silence. I said the truth - deal with us, work with us, because we're half the market and we pay 75% of the excise taxes that state fish and game run on...I said taxation without representation is STILL tyranny...one of the reps from a huge hunting accessories company pigeonholed me after the talk..."Good work, jerk," he said, although he used a stronger word than "jerk." "You're single-handedly going to tear this industry to pieces."

However, at the upcoming NSSF Shooting Sports Summit in a couple of weeks, the list of speakers has totally changed...me, Erhardt, Shepherd, Sanetti (now head of NSSF), etc.

Even more importantly, for the first time we have a definitive study that totally backs up everything we've been saying...the (as yet unreleased) omnibus NSSF study on hunting and shooting trends in the United States. It's scary negative, but here's the key stat...of the overall market:

- 43% define themselves as primarily hunting
- 43% define themselves as primarily shooters
- 14% do both

EQUAL MARKETS, as we've been saying for the better part of a decade!

- The Zumbo Effect...no other single event had the profound effect on the industry as the slagging of Jim Zumbo. Jim made his ill-thought-out remarks on a Friday afternoon; by Sunday evening the entire firearms industry understood who was now driving the machine. I've told Jim to his face that I was sorry for the role I had to play, but that it had to be done! We could not continue, much less go into another election cycle, with everyone, including Congress, acting like "hunting" and "shooting" were synonymous, so all anybody needed to do to suck up to us was conserve some wetlands and talk about ducks!

- The ascendancy of the AR-15 platform as the most popular rifle on earth...when I first started talking about the size and depth of the black rifle market 3 or 4 years ago, I was flatly told by "industry experts" that I was crazy. This numbers are now accepted as the baseline (and 2008 sales, driven by Obama, are at levels that are already breath-taking even to me). OUTDOOR LIFE magazine considers my 6-page article on ARs in the field a year or so ago to be one of the most important articles they've ever published, and it laid to rest the naysayers.

- The rise of industry "heroes," like the inestimable Ronnie Barrett, who showed everyone what "standing up" looked like, and people like the aforementioned Sanetti, Taylor, Jorgensen, Bob Morrison at Taurus, former NSSF head Doug Painter and NSSF legal expert Larry Keene, former NRA Prez Sandy Froman and new Prez John Siglar and many others, who understood and understand that the world is changing and were willing to put the gun culture first.

I've said this before: we go into the most important elections of our lives more united than we've ever been before. We on the shooting side need to reach out to the hunting side...there is still some awkwardness, but nothing we can't overcome.

Make no mistake about it...the gun culture is going to war. The Democrats have given in to their basest instincts and given us a candidate who, all hyperbole aside, will if he gets the power take our guns - all our guns! - and gut the Second Amendment, a man who holds what we believe in to the core of our beings in utter contempt.

I watched Bob Barr on Glenn Beck last night. Bob is a man I've met, a man I hugely respect, a warrior, a man who has a spot-on analysis of America at this juncture...and a man I will not vote for this November! If the Dems had run one of their "political whore" candidates, maybe even the lovely and talented Hillary Clinton, I might have opted to vote Libertarian, where my heart is, rather than for a man I particularly dislike who champions a morally and ethically bankrupt political party of weasels and morons.

But that's not what the Dems have done...they've played the scary card.

And as is typical, we as a voting block are invisible. Ever wonder why the MSM never seems to mention guns as a major battleground? Because they totally understand, as do the Dems, that the more invisible we are, the easier we are to step on after the election. Is there anybody here who doesn't believe that an Obama as President with a huge majority Democratic House and Senate won't do exactly what he says he will do and ram through a new - and permanent - Assault Weapons Ban? Ammo controls like microstamping? "Smart gun" initiatives and restrictions on "unsafe" guns? Closing public lands to shooting? Lots and lots of "reasonable" gun laws...

Okay, rant mode off...remember, my job is to be strident, because so many in our culture aren't.

Michael Bane

Michael Bane is a writer, shooter, television producer/host and longtime industry figure.

[FWiedner]

I don't particularly like the way this guy Shepherd looks down his nose at hunters, nor will I buy into his panty-wetting fear fest.

He left out a third segment of the gun-owner population which will figure into any new gun legislation which might be enacted in an Obama administration.

That segment of gun-owners is best identified in this short article:

http://waronguns.blogspot.com/2008/06/concise.html

Concise

Exclusive to David Codrea's War on Guns Blogspot
by Mike Vanderboegh

10 June 2008

Author's note: David has recently taken me to task, not without reason, for being too long winded. Therefore, I have written the mini-essay below just for War on Guns.)

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

The End

In my mind there are no candidates in this race that are worth voting for. The candidates are worthless and the issues are false. Just more of the same.

It just doesn't matter what new gun laws get passed or who passes them, there are those who simply will not comply.

[Ysabel Kid]

I will need to re-read the article, but it did not appear to be a slam against hunters. As I have said here - and have been saying for my entire adult life, the leftist who want to destroy our liberties know they must destroy the Second Amendment to do so. They have also had plenty of experience with running headlong against the Amendment - trying to ban guns outright - with little to no success. Each year they make progress - such as the Clinton "Assault Weapons Ban", but our side just as often rolls back their "gains" and makes a lot of progress on our own (the "Individual Rights" view of the Amendment is once again properly the standard; CCW in most states; "Castle Doctrine" rapidly moving through most states, etc.). A long time ago the "anti's" decided, quite correctly, that the only way to make real progress was to split our side up into as many factions as possible, and then attack them one at a time or a few at a time, especially when tied to emotional things happening in larger society. Even the progress they made was on this template - attacking the "evil assault rifles" - but promising the foolish and ignortant that they would never go after our hunting guns. So it's hunters (split into a large number of sub groups), shooters (even larger), collectors (large again), plinkers, self-defense, re-enactors, gunsmiths, hobbiests, etc., etc., etc.

Each division we allow makes us weaker and them stronger. This is not to say that anyone who shoots must participate in the full range of activities and interests shooting and firearms ownership has to offer - I doubt anyone could (other than just touching them all). But what we should all remember is that we are all "brothers (and sisters) in arms" (pun intended), that we all believe in freedom and our God-given rights, and that while we may not hunt - for example - an assault on hunting is an assault on those freedoms and rights. United they will not defeat us. Splinter us and they will pick us off, one by one.

Obama is a danger - mainly because of the judicial nominees he will put forth. I don't trust McCain a whit - but I'd rather take a little chance than no chance at all. We will elect a President - and it will be either Obama or McCain barring any calamity (like the one Hillary is hoping for). A protest vote, or not voting, simply gets Obama in the White House...

[Cherokee]

I am a shooter. I support hunters but I don't hunt. Choice. If we do not stick together, we will hang individually down the road. Like it or not, Mc is the only option for "gun" people. Otherwise, we get bombed. We need to work to change the attitude of the elected things. It can be done if enough people make the effort.

[Andrew]

That was a neat read but I don't understand alot of it, mainly cause I didn't know there was any kinda "hunters vs shooters" thing going on.

Is he talking about people that don't care about gun legislation as long as it doesn't effect them, ie. "The Assault Weapons Ban"? As far as I am concerned that law may never appy to me but I would love to see it smashed into a bajillion peices.

That's how Roll.

[ole pizen slinger]

In my neck of the woods the hunters and shooters seem to be the same group. It's the "shotgunners" who think none of the gun laws will affect them.
ole pizen slinger

[Old Ironsights]

I didn't read it as a slam on hunters per-se, but as a recognition that if we continue to promulgate the fiction that 2nd Amendment meand "Hunting" then, as he said, the Gooberment can pretend to be "pro hunter", and therefore "pro-gun", by promoting "pro hunting"/conservation laws... while gutting the RKBA down to the Soviet Standard of "approved hunting equipment". (And until last year "hunters" in Indiana WERE (and largely still are) shotgunners....)

Yes, hunting is important. But I have seen, and argued against, far too many "hunters", members of the NRA all, who would sell out "EBRs" and handguns in a heartbeat as being "unnecessary".

Like the Liberal Blogger from the KOS article said... the 2nd Amendment is about Revolution, not Rabbits.

[Travis Morgan]

In my neck of the woods the hunters and shooters seem to be the same group. It's the "shotgunners" who think none of the gun laws will affect them.
ole pizen slinger

Plus one! They're the ones giving the benchrest fols lessons on being snobby.

I, personally, believe that the constitution is to be take literally. I have the right to whatever guns are out there. Period. No exceptions. If a member of our populace abuses his right to bear arms, in a perfect world, where we all are allowed to keep and bear arms, this is elf correcting. People will either put up with him, or they will "correct" the situation.

[Texican]

From my perspective, the article is from the perspective of a shooter frustrated at the lack of 'representation' in politics (and to some extent the firearms industry). We've had discussions here regarding "Are you a hunter that also shoots or a shooter that also hunts". While the vast majority of us do both, not all do it in the same proportions. Most of my firearms experience has been in competition (Silhouette, CAS, IDPA, etc.), that doesn't make me anti-hunting - not one whit. Hunting is a part of our heritage, an atavistic pursuit that I treasure and enjoy. I do notice hunting gets far more 'press time' than competition does. I have to believe that the individual competitive shooter expends hundreds of times the ammunition than that of the individual hunter. They are also constantly changing gear, getting bored with one game then gearing up for another, etc. I do understand the ratio of shooters participating in competition compared to hunting probably skews the numbers back towards the hunters somewhat. But, those that identify as hunters may not always be active either (certainly none in this group, of course ). But we all know 'a few guys' that may have a camo fetish, enjoys identifying with the outdoor lifestyle and financially supports the hunting accessories market and hasn't fired a shot in this decade. This again skews the gun culture demographic back towards hunting. The non-hunting (or less-hunting) shooter may feel somewhat slighted when the majority of gun related TV programming is hunting and fishing. The Outdoor Channel has gone a long way towards helping this with shows like Self Defense TV, Cowboys, American Shooter, etc.

With political sensitivities as they are, it's a safe bet to appeal to the hunters. In 2004, I ran the Rifle & Pistol Club for my Grad School. At the time of the presidential election I we offered a raffle for a Target Model 10/22 with $5 tickets; a non-political fund raiser. I had a union plant worker (that's how he identified himself) stoutly refuse to buy a ticket from me on the sole basis that he saw my "W" sticker on the rifle case I had transported the rifle in. He was convinced that John Kerry was pro-gun because Kerry had staged a press event where he put on an orange vest and walked out of sight and came back with an aid carrying a goose. Even though I expressed my viewpoint had nothing to do with the raffle and none of the proceeds went towards any candidate he still cursed me under his breath and stomped off. I was left wondering how in the h377 could a person at a Texas gun show could think that Sen. Kerry, who missed so many votes in the senate to campaign but left the campaign to return to D.C. to vote to attempt restoration of the AWB, could be 'pro-gun'? He courted the (uninformed) hunter. With regard to politics: Pro-hunting does not equal Pro-gun. Many liberals will excuse their candidate's forrays into courting the 'bubbas' as politically expedient to gaining office knowing full well the promises are empty. Apparently Mr. UPW didn't get the memo.

Back on topic: My identity is as a 'Shooter' (or Gun Guy, firearms enthusiast, etc.), it's not something that I do, it's an integral part of who and what I am. It's not "Self Defense" or "Tactical/Combat" or "Hunting"; those are thing that firearms are used for. It is that very aspect that is absent from almost all polictical debate. The coming Heller v. D.C. decision has helped foster discussion about our rights (not hunting); and thankfully so. Still I don't expect to see a viable candidate posturing at a DCM or IPDA match anytime soon.

[JP_TX]

I can see where he is coming from. When he said the AR-15 is the most popular base firearm... Anyone that thinks that the libs wont notice a "Blackgun" with a 30 round magazine stuck in it, just isn't paying attention. If I had the plans the Dems have for this country, I'd be worried about those guns and the folks that like them too.

That being said, I think he is right about one simple fact. "Either we hang together or we will hang separately." The first thing they will do will be to try and separate the hunters from the shooters. To get at the "Black gun owners." while telling the hunters they have nothing to fear. If we hunters, don't support them. We will be next. I don't know how to say it any cleearer.

Tyrants and would be tyrants are always afraid of guns in the hands of people they don't control. The solution is always, always, ALWAYS to disarm the the people.

JP

[sw41mag]

I'm a hunter and a shooter and no one loves their guns more than I do but if you think McBush is going to take care of us you're sadly mistaken. When was the last time the Repub party had a crappier candidate? Plus there are a lot of other important issues to be worked on as well. Everyone says Obama is going to take our guns away. The POTUS doesn't enact or enforce laws. He just signs them or veto's them. It doesn't matter what the Pres wants or doesn't want as long as Congress is on board.

[FWiedner]

The POTUS doesn't enact or enforce laws. He just signs them or veto's them. It doesn't matter what the Pres wants or doesn't want as long as Congress is on board.

Gonna have to disagree with you on this one.

The vast majority of laws don't become laws if the president doesn't sign them. The only ones that he doesn't have to sign are the ones he vetoes and that Congress overides with a super-majority vote to enact.

As the Chief Executive of the nation, he is directly responsible for the adminstration of law enforcement. The U.S. Attorney General and the Director of Homeland Security report directly to the president.

[Texican]

Everyone says Obama is going to take our guns away. The POTUS doesn't enact or enforce laws. He just signs them or veto's them. It doesn't matter what the Pres wants or doesn't want as long as Congress is on board.

Considering that the Dems have both houses of Congress and their leaders are the ultra-left elites (Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, etc.) and also considering that Obama has the most liberal voting record of any senator, the combination of the leftists owning two branches of our government and the potential to fast-track agendas should chill your blood. I'd rather be 65% satisfied and 35% upset, as I imagine I will be with McCain, rather than be 100% upset 24/7 with Obama.

Also remember that the POTUS makes judicial appointments and due to the obstructionist tactics of the Dems, the next POTUS will have nearly twice the normal appointments to make AND as many as three possible appointments to the SCOTUS.

The next POTUS will have influence; to deny otherwise is folly.
[now disengaging rant mode...]

[O.S.O.K.]

The fact that the dems try their damnest to vilify and marginalize shooters/hunters/gun owners in general and have put forth a rabidly antigun candidate is one of the reasons that I am begining to accept that a violent revolution will ensue if the dems get into power this november.

Of course, if the SCOTUS decision on Heller v DC comes down against the 2A, then it could start even sooner.

And if both happen - we will be facing a simple choice. As it was said 232 years ago "live free... or die".

Oh the second choice may take quite some time, but believe it - we will most certainly die in a social and very real sense.

I won't go quietly into the night and I won't stuff all over my children's future and my forefather's sacrifices.

[TCB in TN]

I don't particularly like the way this guy Shepherd looks down his nose at hunters, nor will I buy into his panty-wetting fear fest.

As a former hunter who has become more of a shooter, I understand where he is coming from and I don't see his comments as looking down on hunters. Further more after watching the gun control attempts by many in BOTH parties (although more from the left) I agree that we really need to leverage our impact on BOTH political parties. I am not a fan of McCain, I see him as a very liberal thing candidate for the POTUS, but when compared to Obama, well I think we have to hold our noses and swallow.

[TCB in TN]

doubled up my post. sorry!