Hunters Vs. Shooters

[tombogan03884]

So, what about crows, rats, coyotes and other vermin? I think it is ok to shoot them and not eat them. It can also be great fun and is hunting.

Is that "hunting" or house cleaning / Home defense. I used to like going to the brickyard or dump and shooting rats. I never lived in an area that was Primarily farm country, so not really concerned with crows and coyotes or prarie dogs. But, if I ever get out your way my attitude is subject to change.

[dj454]

I grew up in the North Carolina mountains and grew up hunting white tail, turkey,squirrel,and rabbit. I miss hunting sometimes I just don't have the time or even a place to hunt anymore. I moved further downstate and I just don't know as many people to find a place to hunt and I don't own any land to hunt on. I am concerned for hunters and shooters rights. I would like to be a hunter again but I am always a shooter first.

[Michael Bane]

You guys know this is a subject that has been on my front burner for years, right?

I stopped hunting a long time ago, largely because I have the attention span of an 8 year-old...made me a good IPSC shooter and a miserable person in a tree stand. Hunting and shooting are, in fact, two sides of the same coin. My gripe was that hunting was the giganto senior partner, to the virtual exclusion of the shooting sports side of the coin.

Several things have happened to change that perception:

• Eventually, people in the industry started listening to me and other voices, like Paul Erhardt, Jim Shepherd, Tom Taylor at S&W, Steve Sanetti and Ken Jorgensen at Ruger, Paul Januzzo (formerly) at Glock, etc. When I keynoted the last huge hunting enclave several years ago — the guy who was there to tell people what they didn't want to hear — my comments were met with stony silence.  I said the truth — deal with us, work with us, because we're half the market and we pay 75% of the excise taxes that state fish and game run on...I said taxation without representation is STILL tyranny...one of the reps from a huge hunting accessories company pigeonholed me after the talk..."Good work, jerk," he said, although he used a stronger word than "jerk." "You're single-handedly going to tear this industry to pieces." At the upcoming NSSF Shooting Sports Summit in a couple of weeks, the list of speakers has totally changed...me, Erhardt, Shepherd, Sanetti (now head of NSSF), etc.

Even more importantly, for the first time we have a definitive study that totally backs up everything we've been saying...the (as yet unreleased) omnibus NSSF study on hunting and shooting trends in the United States. It's scary negative, but here's the key stat...of the overall market:

• 43% define themselves as primarily hunting
• 43% define themselves as primarily shooters
• 14% do both

EQUAL MARKETS, as we've been saying for the better part of a decade!

• The Zumbo Effect...no other single event had the profound effect on the industry as the slagging of Jim Zumbo. Jim made his ill-thought-out remarks on a Friday afternoon; by Sunday evening the entire firearms industry understood who was now driving the machine. I've told Jim to his face that I was sorry for the role I had to play, but that it had to be done! We could not continue, much less go into another election cycle, with everyone, including Congress, acting like "hunting" and "shooting" were synonymous, so all anybody needed to do to suck up to us was conserve some wetlands and talk about ducks!

• The ascendency of the AR-15 platform as the most popular rifle on earth...when I first started talking about the size and depth of the black rifle market 3 or 4 years ago, I was flatly told by "industry experts" that I was crazy. This numbers are now accepted as the baseline (and 2008 sales, driven by Obama, are at levels that are already breath-taking even to me). OUTDOOR LIFE magazine considers my 6-page article on ARs in the field a year or so ago to be one of the single most important articles they've ever published, and it laid to rest the naysayers.

• The rise of industry "heroes," like the inestimable Ronnie Barrett, who showed everyone what "standing up" looked like, and people like the aforementioned Sanetti, Taylor, Jorgensen, Bob Morrison at Taurus, former NSSF head Doug Painter and NSSF legal expert Larry Keene, former NRA Prez Sandy Froman and new Prez John Siglar and many others, who understood and understand that the world is changing and were willing to put the gun culture first.

I've said this before, we go into the most important elections of our lives more united than we've ever been before. We on the shooting side need to reach out to the hunting side...there is still some awkwardness, but nothing we can't overcome.

Make no mistake about it...the gun culture is going to war. The Democrats have given in to their basest instincts and given us a candidate who, all hyperbole aside, will if he gets the power take our guns — all our guns! — and gut the Second Amendment, a man who holds what we believe in to the core of our beings in utter contempt.

I watched Bob Barr on Glenn Beck last night. Bob is a man I've met, a man I hugely respect, a warrior, a man who has a spot-on analysis of America at this juncture...and a man I will not vote for this November! If te Dems had run one of their "political whore" candidates, maybe even the lovely and talented Hillary Clinton, I might have opted to vote Libertarian, where my heart is, rather than for a man I particularly dislike who champions a morally and ethically bankrupt political party of weasels and morons.

But that's not what the Dems have done...they've played the scary card.

And as is typical, we as a voting block are invisible. Ever wonder why the MSM never seems to mention guns as a major battleground? Because they totally understand, as do the Dems, that the more invisible we are, the easier we are to step on after the election. Is there anybody here who doesn't believe that an Obama as President with a huge majority Democratic House and Senate won't do exactly what he says he will do and ram through a new — and permanent — AWB? Ammo controls like microstamping? "Smart gun" initiatives and restrictions on "unsafe" guns? Closing public lands to shooting? Lots and lots of "reasonable" gun laws...

Okay, rant mode off...remember, my job is to be strident, because so many in our culture aren't.

Michael B

[Ron J]

Shooters and hunters need only to look across the “pond” to see what will happen if WE do not unite to defeat the Democrats this November.  Marshal’ette’s excellent post on the RKBA forum is a good example of this. 

http://transsylvaniaphoenix.blogspot.com/2008/05/british-called-they-want-their-guns.html

Bottom line, if you like a boom stick of any kind … may it be a M1A or a Sako bolt gun, a Beretta O/U or a Mossberg 590; your future of pressing the trigger is at risk if Barack Hussein Obama is elected. 

There is too much at risk this November.   This is my point from my rant on another thread.  We need to orchestrate and execute a marketing campaign that illustrates what will happen to ANY one who enjoys ANY shooting sport if B-HO is elected. 

[tombogan03884]

Okay, rant mode off...remember, my job is to be strident, because so many in our culture aren't.

Michael B

Rant away MB, You get your facts and say what you beleive without BS. It's why we support you and your shows.
Got to admit, despite what I've said in some of the threads, the more I hear about Obama the better McCain looks.

[Sponsor]

[ericire12]

So, what about crows, rats, coyotes and other vermin? I think it is ok to shoot them and not eat them. It can also be great fun and is hunting.

Technically pest control.... or maybe extermination. Most varmint hunting is done for controlling species so that they don't interfere with using the land to make a living. I guess if it is 100% recreational, then it would be called hunting.

[Ron J]

Rant away MB, You get your facts and say what you beleive without BS. It's why we support you and your shows.
Got to admit, despite what I've said in some of the threads, the more I hear about Obama the better McCain looks.

You are wise beyond your years ... or is it ears?   

[ericire12]

Is there anybody here who doesn't believe that an Obama as President with a huge majority Democratic House and Senate won't do exactly what he says he will do and ram through a new — and permanent — AWB? Ammo controls like microstamping? "Smart gun" initiatives and restrictions on "unsafe" guns? Closing public lands to shooting? Lots and lots of "reasonable" gun laws...


Michael B

More importantly then "what he says he will do", it is what he has done. These are not just words with him. He has the liberal voting record to back it up. Many candidates (Obama included) often will say anything to get elected. This is why you must look at past voting records to see what they are really about. With Obama, its not just a stump speech. He has the track record to prove that he is serious about raping our 2nd amendment rights.

[Rastus]

I'll voice my opinion as well now. I used to hunt, but I saw so little game that I gave it up. I'd rather see the animals than carry them out of the woods (kind of lazy as well   ) .........

Yeah, yeah, yeah....blame it on a lack of game.  We know what it really is.     

MB...musta' had your Wheaties this mornin', eh? 

It's a while to the conventions....maybe things will change.  Not that we want to do anything less to mobilize the vote. 

Remember when the weasels call asking a politicla survey take it and then break their Karma by saying, "No....I want to talk about guns.  I am not going to answer any questions until we talk about guns.  Period."  It would take amazingly few people in any single national survey (5-15)  to throw a campaign into a panic.  They want their questions answered and if a statistically significant group refused to answer for a solitary reason it will be reported and send shivers up and down the chain of political bovine scatology.   Don't forget guys....tell them to kiss your rear ends about anything but guns if they call.  Deal?

[Rastus]

I meant to say take the call for the political survey....don't take the survey!!!

Bovine Scatology...did I steal that from someone on this board?