Bethesda, MD ---- Today, Ray Schoenke, the President of the American Hunters and Shooters Association (AHSA), blasted the culture of corruption of the leadership of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and called for them to come clean about revelations that showed the they hired a spy to sit on the boards of their opponents, correct the distortions they have been making about Obama's record, and demanded they apologize for the race baiting in their latest email.
 
Schoenke said, "I find it difficult to understand why, 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, race baiting out of the Jesse Helms playbook, and Dick Nixon-esque ‘dirty tricks.'"

In the wake of the revelations in last week's Mother Jones story that 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. Schoenke stated, "There are serious allegations of misconduct 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 honesty and integrity on the part of their leaders.  America's gun owners are waiting."

From a recent fundraising email the NRA sent out, Ben Smith in Politico found a host of distortions of Obama's record and he wrote 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. In one case, though, it interprets an Illinois proposal he backed to close gun shops near schools and parks as a plan to ‘close down 90 percent of the gun shops in America.'"

In the same email, Smith pointed out "LaPierre also attacked Obama for his association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a front John McCain and the GOP have avoided. "There's Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his church, to which Obama contributed $26,000 over the years, even as Wright spouted anti-American hatred," LaPierre writes in a list of Obama's "friends.""

Schoenke stated, "While the distortions of Obama's record need to be corrected immediately, what in the Lord's name does Jeremiah Wright have to do with hunting and shooting? Sounds like race baiting to me. It's unfortunate the fates of gun owners are so closely linked to the power-hungry leaders of the NRA. They continually put their selfish partisan political interests ahead of the gun owning community.  The leaders of the NRA have become not only poisoned by the "inside the beltway" mentality but now they are using tactics from the Nixon playbook while hunters and shooters suffer the consequences.  America's gun owners deserve better."
###