Why some gun owners are unhappy with Bush

http://csmonitor.com/2003/1204/p02s01-uspo.html
They say the administration has strayed too far from earlier GOP principles on the environment.

By Todd Wilkinson | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

When Jimmie Rosenbruch went north last month, bound for the high country of southeast Alaska to stalk mountain goats, the Utah sportsman and master hunting guide toted more than a rifle into the wilderness.

Mr. Rosenbruch, a burly lifelong Republican and acquaintance of former President George H.W. Bush, also carried personal displeasure over the natural- resource agenda of Mr. Bush's son.

In particular, Rosenbruch and a groundswell of other gun owners from the lower 48 are challenging the Bush administration's plan to undo protection of Alaska's Tongass and Chugach national forests by opening both to increased logging and road construction.

For the current president, who relied upon unwavering support from the so-called "hook and bullet" crowd to win in 2000, the kind of public criticism now being voiced by political conservatives like Rosenbruch represents a potential problem in 2004, observers say.

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