Posted on 05/22/2007 1:30:31 PM PDT by neverdem
National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre is the man when it comes to protecting the rights of citizens to bear arms. And when you have the man looking you squarely in the eyes, you have to ask the question nearest and dearest to your heart.
With more than 3.5 million members, 550 staffers and an annual budget of $120 million, LaPierre is well prepared for battle on both issues of gun ownership, hunting, and wildlife conservation.
What advice would LaPierre have for those gun clubs and other outdoor organizations which are trying to lower the hunting age for big game in New York? Every annual attempt to lower the big-game hunting age has been met with defeat.
"I'd encourage them (legislators) to see what other states are doing," said LaPierre, guest speaker at the Sullivan County Friends of the NRA dinner this past Saturday. "There are no problems with it. It brings young people into the hunting area. It teaches them about wildlife, habitat and wildlife management techniques.
"Study after study has shown that young kids that learn about firearms and hunting from their parents are the least likely to be involved in any incident or accident with a firearm. It's really an important area in terms of education our young people."
How can it be fine for our youth ages 12-15 to hunt everything but big game? Why would they be less safe hunting deer than say squirrels, turkeys or ducks? What makes any legislator think there is a different standard for safety when it comes to big-game hunting?
The point is clear: If you can safely handle a rifle or shotgun for small game, you can certainly handle it with big game. New York is in the minority on this issue and allows only those 16 years and older to hunt whitetails or black bear.
But what can we do at the state level to get this issue resolved?
"I think just talking to people in the Legislature and showing them what goes on in other states," LaPierre said. "Maybe bringing in other people from those states and letting them talk about what they do in those states for youth hunting.
"Continue to write and call your local legislators and let them know that this is an important issue and what needs to be done."
During his dinner speech, LaPierre noted that, "I know here in New York state, you're living in one of four or five states that is right in the heart of the beast in terms of saving this freedom," referring to our Second Amendment rights to gun ownership among other things. "We can't give up on New York and we've got to turn it around in this state."
LaPierre knows what it takes to win: grassroot efforts. The way to get the hunting age lowered is by making sure every legislator knows how we feel.
You can hear LaPierre's full speech at the Sullivan County Friends of the NRA dinner on my podcast at http://web.mac.com/dirksoutdoors.
Does this make sense to anyone?
Maybe the NRA/NRAILA can help make sense of the fact that WA State firmly stands on clause 2 of the 14th amendment for legal immigrants who have green cards?
‘cause that’s what the WA state .gov is doing to me...
Unfortunately, nobody I knew owned a gun when I was kid, and it continues to today *sobs*
Organize to fight gun crime
(http://www.suntimes.com/news/jackson/395313,CST-EDT-jesse22.article)
May 22, 2007
JESSE JACKSON jjackson@rainbowpush.org
We mourned the murder of Blair Holt on Friday at the House of Hope in Chicago. The 16-year-old died a hero, using his body to shield a friend as his crowded bus was shot up by what was apparently an enraged gang member.
Americans saw the horror at Virginia Tech, the worst mass murder in U.S. history, where 32 students died. But this country experiences a Virginia Tech every day, as an average of 32 people are murdered by gunfire. America’s cities — and particularly America’s poor neighborhoods — are terrorized by gun violence.
Our cities don’t manufacture guns. Most don’t allow gun dealers to operate inside the city limits. But our urban borders are even more porous than our national borders. Just outside Chicago, as outside many large cities, the dealers set up shop. There is no limit on the number of guns an individual can buy. And President Bush allowed the assault weapons ban to expire, so there is virtually no limit on the kind of guns that can be purchased.
Any big-city police chief will tell you the easy access to guns contributes directly to the death toll in our cities — and endangers the lives of the men and women who serve on the thin blue line of police.
Metropolitan areas — where most people live — have no use for gun peddlers, for people packing concealed weapons, for kids fighting gang wars with assault weapons. If given their choice, most citizens in cities and suburbs would simply ban handguns, ban assault weapons and ban gun shops and gun dealers. Hunters could buy their guns in the rural areas where they hunt.
Why are the warnings of police chiefs across the country ignored? The answer, largely, is that the gun lobby, led by the National Rifle Association, has been taken over by zealots and promises to punish politicians who want to get guns off our streets. The NRA doesn’t simply play defense. It has gone into statehouses to pass laws prohibiting metropolitan areas from enforcing their own gun bans, and to make licensing easy for concealed weapons. The gun nuts’ answer to Virginia Tech is that students should pack concealed weapons.
Politicians quake before the NRA’s muscle. My own sense, however, is that the NRA is more swagger than actual swat. In 2000, they organized big time against Al Gore. But Gore won the popular vote. He won Michigan and Pennsylvania. Gun-control initiatives passed in Colorado and Oregon, both hunters’ states. The NRA lost the great bulk of the House and Senate races that it pumped the most money in. The NRA has a lot of money and makes a lot of noise, but its members have other concerns: Iraq, health care, the economy.
But the NRA is mobilized. The victims of gun violence are not. The gun dealers sell the guns; innocent people get shot; we mourn. But mourning isn’t enough. This will change only if the victims — the parents and the children, the police and the firefighters — organize. Americans should not have to live in fear of sitting on their porches, walking the streets or riding the buses. There must a victims’ rebellion. They must demand laws that protect them, and value and honor those laws.
The NRA wants guns on streets. The gun dealers profit from the sale. Guns are becoming a statement of manhood. The victims — and their friends, relatives and neighbors, police and firefighters — must demand real gun control. Gun control won’t end violence, but it will lower the casualties and help protect the innocent. It will make it harder for terrorists — foreign and homegrown — to buy guns in America. It will strengthen the porous borders of metropolitan areas against the gun peddlers who profit from selling guns to gangs. It might even allow us to celebrate the life of the next Blair Holt rather than mourn his death.
Does this make sense to anyone?”
I can see having younger hunters hunt small game for a couple years before they go deer hunting. It gives them some experience before they are out when the woods is crowded with hunters.
I think 14 should be old enough for big game if they start small game hunting at 12.
No he didn't.
Congress allowed the "assault weapons" ban to expire. President Bush said he'd sign a renewal if Congress passed it.
Perhaps Jesse Jackson should raise funds to build walls around our urban areas to keep guns and drugs out. Heck, I'd even throw in a few bucks to keep Daley and his crooks imprisoned in the h***hole of his making safely inside a gun-free city of his making.
President Bush said he would sign to renew it ONLY if nothing was added to it.
Then he met with Bill Frist and had him agree to let the RATS go wild adding things to the bill until nobody would dare vote for it.
It died because of that.
President Bush played the RATS like a banjo on that one.
Most youth hunting I am familar with occurs on private land and is heavily supervised.
Children as young as nine can safely occupy a blind with a parent who instructs them in field etiquette and hands them their rifle when it is appropriate to make a shot.
Usually such a parent has spent the entire off season in range sessions with the child and in various types of field preparation exercises.
If the child has the correct temperament and is amenable to instruction it is entirely possible for them to shoot a spike buck or doe at least once a year for their entire childhood.
They quickly adapt to the adult size responsibilities and it colors their entire outlook on life.
New York children should not be denied this experience.
Best regards,
This does not compute...This does not compute...This does not...ERROR...ERROR..
Ramapo man pleads not guilty in Sloatsburg courtroom shooting
FReepmail me if you want on or off my New York ping list.
Buy your own.
Make new friends.
I can’t think of too many 12 year olds that could drag their deer out of the woods in New York, especially if it involved uphill. What really surprises me is that the Times Herald Record printed this. Has that bird cage liner decided that conservatives exist, or is this the annual sop to gun owners so they can pretend they’re not total antis?
“Any big-city police chief will tell you the easy access to guns contributes directly to the death toll in our cities...”
It’s the total disregard for human life in some parts of our cities that contribute directly.
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