Washington, D.C. - Ray Schoenke, the President of the American Hunters and Shooters Association (AHSA), expressed support for Judge Sonia Sotomayor as Supreme Court Nominee. Schoenke made the endorsement in a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Patrick Leahy (D-VT).

Schoenke, a life long hunter, and gun-owner stated his firm belief that gun owners have nothing to fear from Sotomayor:

“Based on the available case history, it appears that Sotomayor honors precedent. Now that D.C. v Heller is precedent, gun-owners should feel secure that their rights are safe.

After sending the letter, Schoenke stated, “As with most issues involving the Second Amendment, concerns about Sotomayor are being stoked by groups who benefit financially from the politics of fear. At AHSA, we believe strongly that the Second Amendment is an individual right, as determined in the landmark case, D.C. v. Heller. We know are gun rights are secure and look forward to the expansion of those rights to the states.

Schoenke noted, “In a recent Second Amendment case, Judge Sotomayor simply followed precedent in cases involving Second Amendment rights as it applies to the states. Other conservative judges in the Seventh Circuit took a similar position. What we should be focusing on is making sure that, Heller, through the 14th Amendment’s process of incorporation guarantees Second Amendment freedoms in all states.”

Contact: Colin at colin@huntersandshooters.com

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Recently my local paper carried the familiar headline of an accidental shooting. The tragedy involved two teenage roommates, one of whom allegedly shot the other in the head with a newly purchased shotgun he was fooling around with while the victim slept on the couch. As skeptical as experienced gun handlers might be of the odds of “accidentally” shooting someone in the head, if you’ve spent time with novices you know how often such events are narrowly avoided.

In addition to the shotgun, a police search of the apartment discovered the victim, eighteen years of age, owned a handgun from which the serial numbers were scratched off. Again, all too typical. A couple kids get curious about guns, and promptly buy them by whatever means available, including an apparently black market purchase. What caught my interest in this story was a comment by the victim’s father, who said:

“My only real regret is not knowing about their interest in getting [a gun]. I wish I would have known . . . I just don’t think a lot of people understand the volatility of a weapon, how easy it is for the thing to go off or how volatile, or how irreversible it is. It’s sad that it takes a tragedy like this to learn that lesson.”

With the utmost respect for this aggrieved father, it doesn’t take a tragedy to learn this lesson. The statistics are readily available. For 2006, the Center for Disease Control lists 642 accidental firearms death in the United States. 102 of these victims were minors. This is far lower than the exaggerated rate of “8 children a day” claimed by some anti-gun organizations, but that’s little solace to the families of the victims. These statistics are only for fatalities, not the other damaged lives.

For accidents like this one, the cause isn’t malice. It’s ignorance. Regardless of your stance on guns, a few facts cannot be denied: the country is filled with guns, popular culture celebrates violence, and most if not all people will encounter guns in some way in the course of their lives. Less of a fact but a statement I’d stand by is that guns are "cool;" young males in particular are drawn to them like moths to a flame. Even without the Hollywood hype and myths about guns enhancing masculinity, kids are still going to want them. In the case above, the unfortunate thing is that no one appears to have prepared these young men for their first encounter with weapons. This amounts to the same “abstinence only” approach to sex ed that most of my fellow progressives rightly decry as a dangerously ineffective program that relies on misinformation and scare tactics instead of providing information that can save a life or prevent pregnancies.

“Abstinence only” sex education has been an abysmal failure in education. Rather than educating the young and the hormonal about risks and effective protections against those risks, abstinence only education relies on shame and fear to fight off the combined influence of moonlight, daddy’s car keys and hot summer nights by the lake. Unsurprisingly to those with knowledge of human sexuality, the approach doesn’t work. A 2006 study revealed that 95% of Americans have had premarital sex. (Yes, that’s nine-ty-five or 19 out of 20 of us, if you prefer.) My guess is those are higher rates than children admit to their parents (or parents to the children), but these rates appear to have been consistent at least since the 1950s (grandma!) When you put the prevalence of this behavior in the same room with a “See no evil, hear no evil” education program, the results are predictable: studies show the rates of unprotected sexual activity for teens in abstinence-only programs match rates for teens who get no sex education at all!

As a parent, I want my schools to do better than that in protecting my kids from AIDS and other life-altering consequences of risky behavior. Yes, protecting minors and other young people from the physical and emotional dangers of precocious sexual activity is part of a parent’s responsibility. But that gives little security regarding their peer group. I can talk with my own children, but I can’t sit down with my neighbor’s kids to give them “the talk” they need to get from their own folks.

When most people inevitably have their first encounter with sex, they aren’t expected to be experts the first time out of the gate. But with guns, you had better be. For the sake of yourself and those around you (like a roommate on the couch) you need to be an expert in safe handling from the very first time you pick one up without supervision.

Denying children direct knowledge and experience with firearms promotes a dangerous ignorance. It means that instead of learning from their parents, some kids are learning about gun safety from the worst source possible: each other. Gun avoidance programs are a good start for younger children. Especially for a kid with no family experience with firearms, the best thing to do with a gun they find is of course to leave it alone and call for an adult. Who can argue with that? But these programs are generally aimed at younger kids. When kids get older, the fascination with all things dangerous will lead some to guns, regardless of their guardians’ wishes. As the report cited above about abstinence-only sex ed says, “Peer support may be protective but erodes sharply during the teen years.” You can say the same thing about “eroding” fear of guns: a second grader is likely to call an adult; a ninth grader—or his friends—is more likely to think “cool” and pick it up.

While this may seem counter-intuitive to some; I would posit that the more likely a kid is to want a gun, the more important it is he knows how to handle one. This belief shared by my friend Donny Adair, who mentors at-risk youths in hunting safety and ethics in the African American Hunting Association. The young men Donny mentors learn firsthand from an adult what a gun can do, and are taught to see through the hollow machismo often attached to firearms by those with low self-image.

Unfortunately, such approaches are not universal. Public schools and many youth organizations that used to teach marksmanship and gun handling no longer do so, or face declining enrollment in their programs. As a result, respect for guns, knowledge about the positive role of guns in society, and even respect for the lives misuse use of a gun will alter are decidedly lacking for far too many of our youths. This is especially so for those who come from families with the “abstinence only” approach to raising these young people.

We of course live in a world where many activities can be fatal; including unprotected sex, swimming pools, alcohol, reckless driving and other highlights of the Hollywood lifestyle. We must talk to our children about these risks, and we need to talk to them about guns, too. Moreover, we need to teach them how to handle a tool most are likely to pick up at some point in their lives. And we need our schools to make sure everyone’s children get the same message. As parents, ask your schools what they are doing to teach older students about safe gun handling, as well as avoidance. Take your children to the range, even if you aren’t a regular shooter yourself. Have “the talk” about guns.

As with other aspects of growing up, realize your child is someday going to need to know how to pick up their tools without you being there to guide them.

I went shooting yesterday with my buddy Brian. The gun club is free for members, so shooting didn’t require a second mortgage; it just felt that way. We had a store of .45 and .22 rounds, but had to pick up two boxes of 9 mm and another of .38s for my SP-101. The 150 rounds ran us 65 bucks. The box of 50 .38 rounds was $23.75. For wadcutters! And this was from a FFL who sells out of his garage with no overhead.

At least we could find ammo to buy, which apparently puts us in a minority. The same extreme ammo shortages are being experienced by customers, dealers and stores nationwide. The only shooting accessory not rising through the economic roof is Hoppe’s 9, since there’s no need to clean a gun you can’t shoot.

“I bought a case of .223 last week,” our supplier told us. “I asked for six but [the dealer] said it was restricted. He’d only sell me one.”

What is going on? Are shooters heading headlong into the world of Mad Max 2 - the Road Warrior, where empty guns are abandoned for crossbows and bullets, yes bullets, are handed down as precious family heirlooms?

No, I think not. Bullet scarcity and price inflation is fueled by the same crowd impulse that sparks runs on banks or makes Dot.com start ups and tulip bulbs seems like must-have investments: panic. Panic of losing out or panic of just plain losing. In this case, hysteria was spawned by the panic of losing an election.

The current “run on the blanks” began when the right-wing political establishment went “all in” last November in their attempt to stop the election of Barack Obama. The level of fear-mongering was impressive even for gun politics, a serious issue too often subject to ill-considered attacks. And just look at the response: The Treasury Department reports that in the fourth quarter of 2008, i.e. the quarter immediately following the election, Firearms and Ammunition Excise Tax collections were $98,158,645 compared to $74,783,993 for the same quarter in 2007—an increase of roughly 30%. As proud Democrats might point out—President Obama was helping to stimulate the economy before he even took office! Unfortunately, the effects of current ammo shortages are not so sanguinary.

But other than ammo shortages, all the attacks achieved was to marginalize the right’s traditional proponents of gun rights. The right-wing sound machine now has about as much influence on the Obama administration as a howling coyote envying your campfire has of getting warm. They threw everything they had at the president and got decimated at the polls. As a result, the president and the Democratic-controlled Congress have a free hand to do what they want without right-wing alliances. So do the Democrat’s actions justify the continued hoarding of ammo for a coming ATF Armageddon? The president’s record to date would indicate not:

The Blair Holt Bill, an ill-considered and blatantly unconstitutional gun ban and registration bill died in Congress for lack of enthusiasm. Congress passed bills allowing freedom to transport firearms on Amtrak and to give primacy to state concealed carry laws in national parks, monuments and wildlife refuges. Both bills passed with large, bipartisan majorities and were signed without hesitation by the president. After early missteps by the Attorney General, who repeated in good faith poorly vetted data from the Mexican government which grossly exaggerated the role of straw buyers and gun shows in the U.S. in arming Mexican drug cartels, bipartisan Congressional coalitions and the administration itself moved quickly to assure Americans their Second Amendment Rights would not be abridged by international agreements or treaties, including CIFTA.

Knee-jerk attacks against Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor as an “extreme gun grabber” proved equally unfounded when a three-judge panel of Republican-appointed judges in the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals reached the same conclusion she had regarding the Second Amendment and the “incorporation doctrine.” (The 7th Circuit decision is currently under appeal, and we at AHSA are hopeful the Supreme Court will extend 2nd Amendment guarantees to protect civil rights from intrusive state law as it did for federal law in the D.C. v. Heller decision. So far it is only the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals—typically viewed as the most liberal—which has ruled that the Heller decision extends to state law.) So far it is Democrat Russ Feingold, the liberal's liberal, who has promised to raise the issue of 2nd Amendment protections during confirmation hearings.

Most importantly, the Obama administration has shown a willingness to engage gun rights organizations, including AHSA, to examine data and move forward with fact-based policy decisions that include the views of the 37 million gun owners who voted for Obama last November as well as the concerned gun owners who didn’t. AHSA believes this engagement is a positive attribute of the administration’s emerging style, which shows the advantages of valuing consensus over conflict.

While the legislative agenda of this and future Congresses will always bear watching, current paranoia over any zealous anti-gun agenda remains exactly that--paranoia.

While it is always good advice to keep your powder dry, there remains no rational basis for hoarding a lifetime’s supply.

AHSA welcomes New Media Director, Zak Johnson. A lifelong gun owner, Zak hails from Portland, Oregon and was the founder and first chair of the Gun Owners Caucus of the Democratic Party of Oregon. The caucus works to promote gun ownership as a nonpartisan civil right embraced by all Americans. Zak began his writing career as a reporter in South Africa in the late eighties and has since worked in conservation and resource management industries from commercial fishing to mink ranching. Zak looks forward to the day when the 2nd Amendment is as uncontroversial as mom, baseball and apple pie and knows AHSA is the team to forward that goal. Read Zak's blog.