In celebration of our partnerships with the National Wildlife Federation Action Fund and Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, American Hunters and Shooters Association is pleased to announce our first National Sportsmen and Women Tele-town Hall.

Supporters are encouraged to call in Tuesday, Oct 20, to learn how to join in nationwide efforts to protect threatened hunting and fish grounds.

DETAILS

• Date: Tuesday, Oct 20, 2009
• Time: 6 PM (EST)
• Toll Free Dial-In #:1-877-269-7289
• Conference Code: 15158#

HOLDING POLLUTERS ACCOUNTABLE:

As you know, your voice--that of America's hunters and anglers--is critical to moving the U.S. Senate to pass legislation that holds polluters accountable for threatening your hunting and fishing grounds.

By dialing into the call, you'll learn how you can be a part of nationwide efforts to safeguard our nation's wild places and build America's clean energy economy.

With climate and clean energy legislation recently introduced in the Senate, the coming weeks will be key to elevating the voices of those Americans concerned about the impacts of climate change on our wildlife and natural resources.

So, be sure to mark your calendars and call in!

Autumn draws near. Soon now, some 12.5 million Americans will purchase a state hunting license as the first annual step into their personal adventure to slay a beast in the wild.
No single tale can tell the story of all these hunters. Some (too few) will be youths who make a single journey to bag a gray squirrel in a suburban oak tree. A tiny number will be grand slam questers spending a fortune to stalk a dall ram on an Alaskan peak.
Between are the millions of nimrod's of all ages and wallet sizes who go afield as often as possible pursuing as many game animals as they can find: sharing in common only the belief that a bad day hunting is better than their best day at work.
A second common thread among all hunters is the basic need for a hunting place to which they can go and the presence of game when they get there.
A relationship with wild animals and wild places may be common to every hunter. But the character of that relationship varies dramatically from one person to the next. Many hunters, probably a majority, achieve only a user's relationship; they go, they hunt, they come home, they don't give the land or the animals another thought. These folks simply expect it to be there for them when they want it.
Some hunters, however, become personally entangled with the places they hunt and the lives of the animals that become their quarry. Something inside these hunters gets caught by the experience and remains in the wild place all year - never ever completely returning to the city.
For these folks the health and vitality of the places they hunt, and the animals they seek, become blurred with their perception of their own personal health and vitality.
Who knows what infinite universe of emotions is felt among these hunters who can no longer separate themselves from their epiphany of the wild: nobody, after all, really gets the straight dope from inside another person's soul. What we can see, understand and describe, however, are their behaviors. Hunter folk who gain a personal relationship with wild places and things habitually act on their values.
We have a word for the sum of their actions - we call it CONSERVATION.
In his classic fable, ALICE IN WONDERLAND, author Louis Carroll has Alice begin her wondrous adventure by falling down a rabbit hole. My observation has been that the hunter’s path to becoming a conservationist would be familiar to Alice.
A fine morning's duck hunt in an autumn gold marsh can leave a person vulnerable to joining Ducks Unlimited. (You are now standing beside the rabbit hole looking in). A couple of good days afield and, whoops, you've volunteered to run the 50-50 fundraiser booth at the next local DU banquet. (Feel the brink of the rabbit hole passing over).
By the time you are on first name basis with the Mad Hatter and the Red Queen you have probably been elected to the Board of Directors of your state chapter of Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, or the Isaac Walton League, or the Wildlife Federation. You are likely helping run the town rod & gun club and for a few of special calling - helping teach Hunter Education classes. Perhaps you have written letters to state legislators or lobbied congressmen arguing for better laws for habitat funding or access to public resources (think Mad Tea Party).
You will have one last thing in common with Alice; you will see wondrous things. The next duck hunt conveys a different essence when you can see where the dollars from your DU booth landed out among a mixed flock of mallards and pintail.
That new law protecting habitat values can be savored as much more than dry words on paper when it is smelled, touched and tasted at dawn on the opening morning of deer season.
Far down the burrow through our conservation 'wonderland' will be a place where the journey comes full circle and we find ourselves greeting that part of our soul we left in a wild place - a greeting of mutual respect for these two aspects of our personal nature - taker and giver back - because our place in the wild was honestly earned by our actions in the human world beyond.

I just back from my third trip to Ohio where I spent the last couple days campaigning for Barack Obama. Something is happening out there -- this trip was tremendous -- you can feel the momentum growing.

With each campaign trip I do, I've found that gun owners are more receptive to Obama and his message of change. People are clamoring for it. I can't tell you how impressed I am with the Obama operation in Ohio and the way this campaign is changing the way gun owners are looking at him and his party.  

Ohio is full of hunters--and I've been talking to a lot of them.  Since Tuesday, I've been doing three or four stops each day across the state.  I was very pleased to be working side-by-side with members of several unions, including the United Mine Workers, Building Trades. Plumbers and Pipefitters, the Teamsters and Sheetmetal workers.  There are a lot of gun owners in their membership who are getting the right message about Obama.  And, they are working hard for him.

I even had the opportunity to go hunting on Lake Erie. I'll admit, I was surprised when that idea was first suggested. Years ago, when I used to play football in Cleveland, I never thought of Lake Erie as a pristine place for hunters and sportsmen. But, it is. (I also got to stop in Waldo for the world famous fried baloney sandwich. I was told it was the best sandwich in the world and it was really good.)

This year is different.  As president of the American Hunters and Shooters Association (AHSA) for the past couple years, I've talked to a lot of hunters and shooters who are Democrats so I know they're out there. Lots of them.  Obama understands that and is talking to them.  So, it's not a surprise to me that Obama is doing much better with rural voters than past Democratic candidates.    The latest poll of rural voters shows that Obama has pulled even with McCain. I have seen first-hand that rural America is coming to support Barack not only in Ohio, but on my other campaign trips to Minnesota, Colorado and Florida.

Don't get me wrong, the gun issue is a real issue. And, the NRA just keeps spewing its lies--all of which have been refuted. But, that doesn't stop them from trying. However, it is our side's message that is getting through.  Having our friends in the unions help spread the message and correct the record has been very helpful.

I couldn't be more excited about being part of this change. Gun owners understand that they have nothing to fear from Obama and that they have a place in the Democratic party. They're being welcomed. There is a conversation happening among people with different views and it's constructive. It's not the divisiveness that the NRA has been pushing for far too long.

While I've been talking to real hunters and gun owners, who are greatly concerned about the future and the economy, the NRA is continuing its assault on Obama and the truth. FactCheck.org just slammed the NRA again for it's latest false anti-Obama ad:

The National Rifle Association's misleading attacks on Obama continue. A new ad shows a terrified woman grabbing a gun after an intruder smashes his way into her home. It accuses Obama of voting repeatedly for a measure that would "make you the criminal" in such cases, and voting to "deny citizens the right of self-protection."

The NRA says the incident depicted is "a true story." Not quite.

Misleading. That's the NRA leadership's operating principle. They do a disservice to not only their members and but to all gun owners. I'm sick of being misled and lied to by the NRA.

That's the old way. What we're seeing this year is hard to describe. Barack Obama and his campaign are creating a climate where everyone has a place. This year, gun owners are part of the campaign. And, that means most of them aren't falling for the same old tired lies. They get that Obama respects the Second Amendment. That mean gun owners don't have to worry about their guns and can support him because of other issues like the economy.

If guns were the only thing the leaders of the NRA cared about, they'd be supporting Bob Barr, the Libertarian. He's on the NRA Board for crying out loud. While John McCain was fighting the NRA, Barr was their leading defender in Congress. But, they chose politics over principle. That's what makes their attacks on Obama even more disingenuous.

I know this post is long, but I want to extend my sympathies to the family of Tony Dean, one of the great conservationists of our time. I have enormous respect for Tony's vision and courage. This excerpt from his obituarygives a good sense of the man I was proud to call my friend:

Dean earned a reputation for standing up for conservation, no matter the financial consequences. He was criticized for supporting Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson and then again for backing Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

DeChandt said her husband's final work before he fell ill last month was recording commercials for Obama's campaign. If Obama were to win, she said, Dean was going to be on his transition team.

"He was absolutely thrilled. He felt strongly that Obama was the one with enough insight and was young enough" to appreciate land conservation, DeChandt said.

Future generations will benefit from the work of Tony Dean. He was right about Obama as he was right about so many things.

With less than two weeks left until the election we can do Dean proud by continuing his legacy and working hard for the candidate that supports his vision for conservation.  

We're in the last quarter of the game--time to dig deep and leave nothing on the field.

I'm just back from doing eight campaign stops in Ohiofor Obama over the past couple days.  I want to get out my thoughts on the decision by the NRA to officially endorse John McCain.  They're playing pure partisan politics with this decision.  Based on the NRA's own standards, McCain doesn't deserve the endorsement.

But, today, the National Rifle Association demonstrated once again that it is a partisan political entity, not a organization committed to the best interests of gun owners.

In 2001, the NRA’s magazine, America’s First Freedom (no link), said that John McCain was "one of the premier flag carriers for the enemies of the Second Amendment."  That came after McCain introduced federal legislation on gun show background checks, which came after McCain’s appearances in television ads support referenda in Colorado and Oregon to require backgrounds checks at gun shows.  

The ad from Colorado is here.   McCain knew that the NRA was fighting these measures and rubbed his support right in the faces of the NRA leadership.

There's a pattern of the NRA endorsing Republicans even when those Republicans don't support the NRA's agenda.  In 2004 the NRA endorsed George Bush despite his long-standing support for renewal of the federal assault weapons ban., a measure also vehemently opposed by the NRA.  In fact, John McCain voted for the renewal of the assault weapons ban in 2004, when he supported S. 1805, which included an amendment on assault weapons.

This history is important.  It’s hard to imagine any Democrat getting a similar pass from the NRA.  In fact, the NRA has been going over Barack Obama’s state senate record with a microscope to find any bad vote.  Meanwhile, Obama has repeatedly expressed support for the Second Amendment and has even supported a key NRA bill, the Vitter amendment, in the U.S. Senate.

But, the NRA’s long memory on Obama is contradicted by its lack of honest scrutiny of John McCain and his record.  The GOP nominee mocked the NRA to its face by appearing in those t.v. ads in 2000 and serving as the lead sponsor for gun show legislation.  The NRA is holding Obama accountable for votes taken 10 years ago, but giving McCain a pass for his actions within the past 8 years.

But, the leaders of the NRA always put their own political interests first.  They’re willing to spend the millions of dollars of their members’ money to fight Obama when McCain has led the charge against the organization.  The NRA is spending those millions to deceive its members and other gun owners.  Three independent sources-- FactCheck.org, CNNand the Washington Post, have found the NRA’s ads misleading and false.

And, the truth is that NRA has been selling out hunters on conservation interests for years.  The organization that I head, the American Hunters and Shooters Association, put out a comprehensive report showing that the NRA has support Members of Congress with the worst conservation records (Read the report at: www.realhuntersrealconservation.org) Our report showed that the NRA has stood with George Bush, John McCain, and the corporate lobbyists instead of standing up for hunters and shooters' interest in protecting our forests and public lands.

Today’s action by the NRA wasn’t unexpected.  It just confirms that Wayne LaPierre has made that once great institution nothing but a pawn of the right wing conservative politicians.