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August 2008
AHSA exposes NRA support for Members of Congress with worst records on conservation
Today, the American Hunters and Shooters Association (AHSA) released a report, "Slash and Burn: Why Does the National Rifle Association Leadership Support Congress's Biggest Opponents of Conservation?" and an accompanying website: www.realhuntersrealconservation.com.
Our goal is to pull back the curtain on the ugly truth: The leaders of the National Rifle Association, who have long claimed to represent hunters and shooters, have instead overwhelmingly supported the biggest conservation opponents in Congress. We want America's 70 million gun owners, most of whom, like me, consider themselves conservationists, the opportunity to learn about the NRA's dismal record on conservation.
With research from the League of Conservation Voters and the assistance of former Congressman Pete McCloskey, we launched this effort today. In 2006, Rep. McCloskey recently worked to unseat one of the NRA's leadership's favorite anti-conservation critters, now former Congressman, Jim Pombo. Given Pombo's terrible record on conservation issues, McCloskey said that for the NRA to have give Pombo any money was "an outrage."
As the self-proclaimed "largest pro-hunting organization in the world," the National Rifle Association has long claimed to represent America's hunters and shooters in the fight to protect one of America's oldest traditions. The NRA's bylaws include an article setting a core goal "to promote and defend hunting...as a viable and necessary method of fostering the propagation, growth and conservation...of our renewable wildlife resources." But it turns out that its by-laws are just empty rhetoric.
AHSA's report reveals an ugly truth: The NRA's leadership is spending its members' money to support the campaigns of the biggest conservation opponents in Congress. Contrary to its stated goals and assurances to the hunting community, our unprecedented analysis shows that NRA's leadership overwhelming supports Members of Congress with the worst conservation voting records.
The NRA's campaign contributions, endorsements and ratings of Members of Congress expose the organization's strong anti-conservation bias. Despite their lofty bylaws and forest friendly taglines, the NRA is standing by silently as its allies in Congress are helping to destroy America's wilderness.
Hunting is an American tradition that depends on conserving America's wilderness and wildlife. To fully enjoy our rights and heritage, hunters and shooters deserve leadership that will protect our guns and our land. America's hunters are beginning to ask whether anyone in Washington recognizes that.
The American Hunters and Shooters Association, unlike the NRA, is dedicated both to protecting the gun rights of Americans and preserving America's hunting heritage through conservation and responsible wildlife management. We understand the crucial relationship between protecting our rights as gun owners and protecting the lands we love.
For the three million NRA Members who are tired of seeing their $25 dollar contributions wasted by an NRA leadership supporting anti-conservation Members of Congress and Wayne LaPierre's $900,000 salary, we offer a different choice. And, for 77 million gun-owning Americans who are not Members of NRA, we invite you to join an organization that is steadfast in protecting our Second Amendment rights, conserving our environment, and will support common sense efforts to keep guns away from criminals.
America's hunters and shooters should no longer stand by the NRA because it's clear the NRA has long stopped standing up for them. And by the way, I don't fly on private jets and my salary is a dollar a year. I can also outshoot Wayne LaPierre and I'll gladly challenge to him a wild hunt. That's a challenge I look forward to, but I won't hold my breath that he'll ever take it.
Time for the NRA Members to Stop Lying About Obama
Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer is right:
As for Obama, Schweitzer said, "He ain't going to take your gun away. He ain't ever going to take your gun away."
Obama doesn’t want to take your gun away. But, that won’t stop the very partisan leaders of the NRA from lying about Obama. That’s how those NRA leaders operate these days. They put partisan interests over the best interests of America’s hunters and shooters. There’s a reason the NRA has right wing leaders like Grover Norquist and David Keene on its board. They’re more interested in conservative political victories than the interests of America’s gun owners.
Let’s be honest: The recent Supreme Court case on the D.C. gun ban established once and for all that individuals have the right to keep and bear arms particularly for self-defense. The issue has been decided. No one is going to take anyone’s gun away.
In the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama had the chance to vote for gun confiscation. He voted against it. Even before the Supreme Court ruling, Obama was very clear that he viewed the Second Amendment as an individual right.
But that doesn’t stop the NRA’ p.r. machine from trying to gin up their members to send money & defeat Obama. Ben Smith at the Politico found a host of distortions of Obama’s record in a recent NRA email, noting that the email "included a wallet card listing what the NRA claims are Obama's positions on guns, though they are not in fact his campaign positions, and in many cases it seems flatly to contradict them. The NRA claims Obama wants to bar the use of firearms for home defense and ban the manufacture and sale of handguns. How the group reaches those conclusions is unclear."
Unclear is a nicer way of saying not true.
A new poll shows strong support for Obama among sportsmen. This may be "surprising" to some, but not to me:
Few hunters are pining for a day in the woods with Barack Obama but a surprising number of sportsmen say they’ll vote for him – far more than backed Al Gore or pheasant-hunting John Kerry.
According to a Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation poll to be released Wednesday, John McCain leads Obama by a 45 to 31 percent. That’s only about half the 27-point edge respondents say they gave George W. Bush over Kerry four years ago and far short of the 65-to-15 percent margin gun owners gave to Bush over Gore in 2000.
The poll of 1,009 hunters and fishermen, conducted by Braun Research between July 10 and July 24, could be a reflection of McCain’s up-and-down relationship with gun advocates and suggests the presumptive GOP nominee has not yet persuaded a core Republican constituency.
This poll confirms that the days of the NRA’s leaders calling the shots are over.
I’m the president of a gun rights group, the American Hunters and Shooters Association (AHSA), a lifelong hunter and a committed conservationist. Those three go together.
True sportsmen and women, those of us who spend time in the outdoors, know we need a president who is looking out for our interests. We haven’t had one for the past eight years. At a time when hunters and shooters are worried about issues like protecting wildlife habitat so we can have something to hunt,improving hunting access, keeping roadless lands roadless, reforming the 136-year-old mining law, preventing the selling off of public lands, and many other conservation issues threatening the future of hunting; the leadership of the NRA is engaged obvious distortions of the truth.
And, the NRA is dealing with its own brewing scandal. Before Wayne LaPierre casts anymore aspersions on Barack Obama, he needs to come clean about the NRA’s involvement with his own spying scandal.
Yes, while gun owners have been looking for leadership, the actual leaders of the National Rifle Association (NRA) has become enmeshed in a spy scandal worthy of the Nixon administration.
In the weeks since Mother Jones revealed that the NRA had a hired a private investigation firm to hire a spy to join the board of their opposition, the NRA has refused to answer any questions about their secret tactics. It’s sickening that Wayne LaPierre won’t come clean about revelations that showed they hired a spy to infiltrate the gun control groups. There are serious allegations of misconduct – with possible legal ramifications -- being asserted against the leadership of the NRA and American gun owners deserve answers. Yet, the silence from the NRA in the wake of the allegations against them is deafening. If the NRA used its members' dues to pay for a spy in the gun control movement, there could well be violations of federal and state laws. The members of the NRA deserve a modicum of honesty and integrity on the part of their leaders. America's gun owners are waiting.
America’s gun owners also deserve honest answers about Obama’s record. If the choice is listening to Governor Brian Schweitzer or Wayne LaPierre/Grover Norquist and the less than honorable NRA leadership, I’ll trust Schweitzer any day.