WP: NRA Pressured To Resist Bush Energy Policies: More emphasis on oil and gas than hunter access

NRA Pressured To Resist Bush Energy Policies
Hunters Wary of Limited Land Access
By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 7, 2007; Page A03

SEATTLE -- After years of close association with the Republican Party and hard-nosed opposition to federal land-use regulation, the National Rifle Association is being pressured by its membership to distance itself from President Bush's energy policies that have opened more public land for oil and gas drilling and limited access to hunters and anglers.

"The Bush administration has placed more emphasis on oil and gas than access rights for hunters," said Ronald L. Schmeits, second vice president of the NRA, a member of its board of directors and a bank president in Raton, N.M.

The new emphasis on the issue of access to public lands, which Schmeits said is at the "discussion" level among the NRA's directors, would represent a strategic shift for the NRA, whose leadership in Washington has long maintained that its 4 million members were not complaining or even asking questions about access to public lands.

But, during the past six years, an increasing number of the country's 46 million hunters and anglers, including Republican-leaning shooting organizations such as the Boone and Crockett Club, have been grumbling about the Bush's administration fast-tracking of oil and gas drilling leases on public lands.

"We find that our members are having a harder time finding access to public land," said Schmeits, who recently pushed the NRA to lobby for congressional protection of the game-rich Valle Vidal forest on federal land in New Mexico. "Gun rights are still number one, but there will be more time and effort spent on this issue (by NRA leaders) as we move forward."...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/06/AR2007010601300.html

Lotta that going around

I pointed out to a bush-supporting neighbor, who is a hunter and had one of those 'sportsmen for bush' stickers on his car - that the issues of hunting/guns was also linked to environmental concerns. He regularly kids me about being a "tree-hugger"

I told him, he could buy all the guns he wanted for hunting, but if there were no places to hunt - what good would it do?

If the habitats for the critters this guy like to hunt are destroyed or damaged, this means the critters will also be gone.

He also fished alot, I asked him if he eats the fish he catches. He said no.

me: why not eat the fish?

neighbor: because of the mercury and stuff like that

me: where does the mecury, PCBs etc come from?

neighbor: the rivers and stuff are polluted

me: so isn't it in YOUR best interest as a hunter and fisherman to have environments such as the forests and waterways to be as free of pollutants as possible?

neighbor: ummm (struggles to grasp the concept of clean environment = more critters to shoot) - well, no one is taking my guns.

me: if that's your main concern, then I suggest you keep those guns in good shape and ready to sell as antiques, because if bush and his buddies have their way long enough - there will no place to hunt or fish except on a video game system in your livingroom.

I see the GOP being pushed back to their more primitive era of organizing with tobacco money at militia meetings.

Right now I'm reading a book about Cecil Andrus, former three-time Governor of Idaho, Secretary of the Interior under Jimmy Carter, and a big hunting and fishing enthusiast. He expresses the same frustration with this paradoxical line of thinking that you do. I guess the brainwashing is so strong that the most basic common sense can't penetrate the skulls of some of these people.

Hell, look at who was perhaps our biggest hunting/fishing/gun enthusiast President of all time, Teddy Roosevelt. He was the father of the National Park system, for crying out loud.

David Horsey cartoon re NRA “YOU’LL RUIN MY FUNDRAISING”

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x133503

To republicans, the installation, promotion, and preservation of corporate rights and governance takes precedence over everything else, and this is what the NRA has been supporting.

I am so loving stories like this.

The NRA did not have to fear losing its guns because of the dems; they built up a sham and now the sham is "sham"eful.

of a pro-sport-hunting group was to a pro-gun-running group.