I know most people are preoccupied by the presidential campaign – and rightly so. However, there was a very important Second Amendment case argued before the Supreme Court this week. The case, District of Columbia v. Heller, the constitutional challenge to the D.C. hand gun ban, is the first case in 70 years where the US supreme court will decide whether or not the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. This case could affect the validity of gun laws all across the nation.

It was especially significant for my organization, the American Hunters and Shooters Association (AHSA). With eleven retired military officers from the highest levels of the armed forces, we submitted an amicus brief in the case on behalf of Mr. Heller who is challenging the gun ban. I wrote a post about our brief when it was submitted to the Court. We strongly support the Second Amendment as an individual right.

But, we took a different, thoughtful approach – a unique approach, as I explained in an earlier DailyKos diary:

I thought our brief could have an impact – and it did in the oral argument on Tuesday.

The lawyer for the plaintiff, Alan Gura, actually referred to AHSA’s brief in a response to a question from Justice Breyer regarding why the DC law violated the 2nd Amendment (A pfd of the full transcript can be found at the Supreme Court site):

Yes, I know that sounds very legalistic, but the "military amici" to which Gura refers was based on AHSA’s brief. Now, I’m not a lawyer, but the lawyers with whom I work tell me that was a very significant event – having Heller’s lawyer cite our brief. We have already played a key role in this historic case and I look forward to reading the Court’s opinion when it comes down in June.

On the same day as the Supreme Court argument, AHSA also got featured in a Washington Post article:

Unfortunately, the NRA is extreme because of its current leadership. And, in that article, the NRA leadership continued its attack on AHSA and me, of course. They are running out of ammo against us. Their latest argument was an attempt to compare us to the now defunct Americans for Gun Safety. Nothing could be further from the truth. AGS was a DLC-type organization, with no members, run by policy wonks who were not hunters or shooters. Anyone who knows gun owners knows that type of group would never gain traction with sportsmen. You need gun owners talking to other gun owners – and that’s what AHSA does.

The NRA leadership is concerned about AHSA because they know that we do represent hunters. And, after this week, they can never again challenge our Second Amendment credentials.

It takes real hunters to take on the NRA leadership.

BrownSox has a post up today on the political woes of Rep. Don Young. He’s got some real problems. I had my own encounter with Young last week that tells a lot about the kind of guy he is.

Last Tuesday, I was on Capitol Hill to testify before the Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans of the House Committee on Natural Resource on HR 5534, "The Bear Protection Act of 2008." I spoke as the President of the American Hunters and Shooters Association (AHSA) and as a lifelong hunter deeply concerned about our hunting heritage.

HR 5534 is an anti-poaching bill that would assist state and federal wildlife law-enforcement efforts regarding bear management while creating a sound national policy against the trade in bear gallbladders and bile.

Our concern is that the growing illegal trade in bear parts has put our country on a fast track toward the eventual decline of otherwise healthy bear populations here in the United States.

Wildlife management experts agree that the market demand for bear gallbladders and bile is on the rise and is negatively impacting bear populations worldwide. Evidence points to a systematic pattern of killing bears in the United States and Canada in order to satisfy the demand for bear parts in consuming nations, primarily Asian markets. The bear parts trade is international in scope and difficult to regulate and contain.

HR 5534 is narrowly crafted to address U.S. involvement in the bear gallbladder trade –and to provide a uniform national "bright line" prohibition on the trade of bear gallbladders and viscera will greatly clarify the rules for all American hunters.

So it is an anti-poaching bill. Similar legislation, which was approved by the United States Senate twice before, has overwhelming bi-partisan support and was supported by dozens of representatives of state wildlife agencies.

So, remember, I am testifying at a hearing about cracking down on poaching, which is anathema to hunters. And, even Alaska, a state with the largest bear population, is susceptible to poaching and illegal trade. Alaska has a ban on the commercialization of bear parts, poaching occurs because gallbladders can easily be smuggled out of the state and sold in other non-restrictive states.

So who showed up to challenge me? Congressman Don Young (R-AK) who is also an NRA Board Member.

I’d heard that Young has a reputation for being a bully. I don’t get intimidated – remember, I played professional football. And, I don’t get intimidated by bullies. And, I told him that. Here’s how the Anchorage Daily News reported our exchange:

And, Don Young thinks that was supposed to intimidate me? I can assure you that faced a lot tougher opponents in the trenches during my NFL career.

Now, I get that Young is cranky these days. He’s under federal investigation. He’s down in the polls and he’s facing stiff opposition from Republicans and Democrats.

But, there was so much wrong with that interaction. First, I was testifying about is an anti-poaching bill – you’d think the NRA would be on our side. But, the only thing the NRA’s Board Member in the House could do was attack me.

And, only in the warped world of NRA leadership are hunters not conservationists.

My experience on Capitol Hill confirmed several things for me. 1) Our hunting heritage needs protection. 2) The NRA leadership doesn’t care about hunters; and 3) AHSA is getting under the skin of those NRA leaders.

I’d actually say that the current NRA leadership has undermined the hunting tradition. On an anti-poaching bill, you’d think that the NRA leadership would be on the same side as AHSA. But the NRA leadership doesn’t think about issues that affect hunters – no, they only think about politics and money.

I believe hunting is a natural, beneficial and enjoyable use of our renewable wildlife resources and it is an American tradition to be passed on to future generations. And, I think it’s worth fighting to protect that heritage – even when that means taking on Don Young and his colleagues who run the NRA.

A couple weeks ago, I wrote a diary about the 670 hunting and fishing organizations that signed a letter to Congress urging action on climate change. My organization, the American Hunters and Shooters Association (AHSA), was proud to sign that letter. As, hunters, we see first hand the impacts of global warming or "climate change".

There was a conspicuous absence from the signatories to that letter: The National Rifle Association.

You’d think the leadership of the National Rifle Association would be highly concerned about one of the most important issues facing our sporting community -- climate change -- because it is having a dramatic impact on hunters.

But, I’ve figured out why the NRA didn’t sign the letter.

Leaders of the NRA are playing politics again with issues of grave concern to America’s hunters and shooters. They have assumed a key role in the movement of "global warming deniers".

If you want clear evidence, check out the Heartland Institute’s "International Conference on Climate Change" held in NYC this week. Don’t let the name fool you. These are the folks who want to disprove global warming, a rebirth of the "flat earth society" if you will. Diarist Target Global Warming liveblogged the event here and here. Even the New York Times provided coverage:

One of the "most powerful political actors" is none other than NRA Board member and right wing guru, Grover Norquist. His group, Americans for Taxpayer Reform, was a conference co-sponsor for the gathering of the self-proclaimed global warming "skeptics."

NRA Board Member Roy Innis, from the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was a speaker and his group was also a co-sponsor.

Not like we needed any further evidence that the current NRA leadership is nothing but a front for the radical right wing agenda, but there it is.

This is another example of how far removed the NRA leadership is from its membership. Not only does the group not focus on the real concerns of hunters, they’ve got board members sponsoring a conference that claims climate change doesn’t exist.

The NRA’s leadership has repeatedly worked against the interests of hunters and shooters. That’s probably because many of the NRA’s leaders don’t hunt. If Wayne LaPierre, Grover Norquist, Roy Innis and their allies actually hunted on a regular basis, they wouldn’t be skeptics. They’d know firsthand the problems climate change is causing. They’d understand why those 670 hunting and fishing groups consider it "our moral responsibility to confront climate change in order to protect our outdoor heritage and our children’s future."

There is no getting away from what the current leadership of the NRA has become. They’re a right wing front group in bed with the GOP -- lock, stock and barrel.

To the great detriment of America’s hunting tradition, NRA’s leadership has abandoned hunters for their cozy political allies. Their actions speak louder than words -- there is no room for real hunters. We hunters don’t fit into their extreme political agenda.

So, NRA board members sponsor a conference that denies global warming while 670 hunting and fishing groups are demanding action. That says it all.

The NRA lackeys have put a lot of time and energy into attacking AHSA and me. I just wish every now and then, they’d put half the amount of energy into something worthwhile that would have a positive impact.

They’ll keep launching full-scale attacks on AHSA and me. They don’t intimidate me. What I am fighting for is too important.

NRA's right wing attack dogs have been having quite a time this past week trying to weave a web of deception designed to discredit me and the leadership of the American Hunters and Shooters Association (AHSA). In my recent diaries at Daily Kos (here and here), I have carefully laid out how AHSA, a new progressive gun rights organization, tapped into the concern of rural hunters and shooters over NRA's failure to address access to public land and environmental issues resulting in a stunning NRA defeat in the hotly contested 2006 Missouri US Senate race. I'm sure many Kos readers were as surprised as I was that NRA, once again, acknowledged AHSA's campaign made the difference for Claire McCaskill in that key 2006 Senate race.

Now, in the second attempt in a week to deflect attention away from their own failures, NRA tries again to label AHSA as anti-gun. They use the tired old "guilt by association" game to argue that AHSA is not serious about gun rights or protecting our hunting and shooting heritage. Moreover, they feign surprise that some rational and reasonable gun owners would describe ultra-conservative NRA lapdogs as "whackos".

I, like many progressive hunters and shooters, have supported many leading Democrats who the NRA has tried to demonized and defeat. I have also supported Democrats that the NRA has supported. That doesn't mean I am anti-gun, it means I spend my political dollars wisely to support those progressive candidates that I believe, on balance, will make America a better place to live. NRA has a hard time accepting the fact that the overwhelming number of candidates the NRA supports, mostly Republicans, may be good on gun rights, but universally are the worst of the worst on preserving our precious resources and protecting our hunting heritage.

NRA lackeys go after Bob Ricker, AHSA co-founder and Executive Director who has a reputation as one of the nation's top gun policy experts. A former assistant NRA general counsel and top lobbyist for the gun industry, Bob stepped forward a few years ago and went public about the NRA/gun industry conspiracy of silence and their refusal to address the problem of corrupt gun dealers who sell guns to criminals. NRA has long had it out for Bob after he was quoted in the New York Times as saying someone in the gun industry needed to speak up about bad dealers because ''we've got a bunch of right-wing wackos at the N.R.A. controlling everything.''

I can remember when I got my first gun as a kid growing up in Texas. The NRA was a respected hunting and gun safety institution. Over the last twenty years however, the organization has changed dramatically. Their leaders call our first responders "jack booted thugs"; they fight efforts to restrict armor piercing handgun ammunition that threaten cops; they oppose background checks on all sales at gun shows; they opposed voluntary industry efforts to provide free child safety locks with all new guns sold; they oppose efforts to keep guns out of the hands of terrorists; they want to repeal restrictions on keeping guns out of bars and restaurants when liquor is served; they want to force employers to allow guns in the work place; they oppose efforts of our nation's big city mayor's to stop illegal gun traffickers; and, incredibly, they want to criminalize efforts by law enforcement to share crime gun trace information. This is just a short list that more than justifies labels like "right wing whackos."

The final absurdity of NRA's new attack involves the accusation that somehow the friend of the court brief AHSA filed in the landmark US Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. Heller, is nothing more than an "opportunity to create false pro-gun credentials" for AHSA.

The AHSA brief was co-signed 11 senior military leaders and was written by the national powerhouse law firm Greenberg Taurig. We argue that that the District of Columbia's Gun Law directly interferes with various Acts of Congress that are aimed at ensuring the national defense by promoting firearm training amongst the citizenry. AHSA believes the D.C. Gun Law's categorical prohibition on pistol ownership by D.C. residents not only conflicts with the Second Amendment and the Defense, Raise and Support Clauses of the Constitution, but also with the District of Columbia Home Rule Act.

Using tortured logic, NRA claims in its hit piece that AHSA's argument, if adopted by the Court is an under handed attempt to make it easier for states to pass more restrictive gun laws. How absurd.

NRA, as usual, fails to mention that several other amicus briefs filed in support of the lower court decision rely on arguments similar to AHSA's. Including the briefs signed by Dick Cheney and members of congress and a brief filed by a number of state rifle and pistol associations. Most importantly, Wayne LaPierre's attack dogs failed to mention NRA's devious attempt to scuttle the Heller case in its early stages.

There is a good reason why NRA is not leading the fight in the most important 2nd Amendment case to reach the US Supreme Court in over 70 years. According to Robert Levy, the millionaire Cato Institute Scholar that is bankrolling Heller, NRA interference almost killed the case. Levy's assertion were confirmed when LaPierre acknowledged NRA backhanded efforts in the New York Times on December 3, 2007:

In other words, Wayne was worried that the NRA might win in the appellate court but it could become a "problem" if the DC gun ban case reached the Supreme Court. My question is: A problem for whom? DC gun owners or future NRA fundraising appeals?

People who know me know that I do not tolerate bullies. In my day, there were plenty of players in the NFL that tried to play the role of bully and more times than not when challenged with a quick, solid counter punch, their true nature as cowards would show through. The current NRA is run by bullies and I've laid down the challenge. Come on Wayne, are you man enough to meet me in the duck blind to prove who is a real hunter and shooter?