Another Voice / Conservation
NRA is not shooting straight with its members
Updated: 08/28/08 6:55 AM
As the self-proclaimed “largest pro-hunting organization in the world,” the National Rifle Association has long claimed to represent America’s hunters and shooters in the fight to protect one of America’s oldest traditions. The NRA’s bylaws include an article setting a core goal “to promote and defend hunting . . . as a viable and necessary method of fostering the propagation, growth and conservation . . . of our renewable wildlife resources.”
But it turns out that its bylaws are just empty rhetoric.
A new report by the American Hunters and Shooters Association (which I founded in 2006) reveals an ugly truth: The NRA’s leadership is spending its members’ money to support the campaigns of the biggest conservation opponents in Congress.
For example, 144 House members supported the Roadless Conservation Act of 2007, which seeks to limit road construction and corporate development in our national forests. Those 144 members received an average grade of D-minus from the NRA. Meanwhile, the 291 House members on the other side of the issue averaged B-pluses— and seven times as much campaign money from the NRA.
Did the NRA’s leaders even take a position on the Roadless Conservation Act of 2007? No. They are flat-out ignoring conservation issues.
Given this, it’s not surprising that since 2000, the NRA’s leaders have contributed $4.1 million in campaign money to support the 193 members of Congress who received poor ratings from the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) and only $390,897 — more than 10 times less — to the 245 members of Congress who have received high ratings from LCV. (The report is available online at www.huntersandshooters.org/ nrareport. pdf.) The NRA’s campaign contributions, endorsements and ratings of members of Congress expose the organization’s strong anti-conservation bias. Despite its lofty bylaws and forest-friendly tag lines, the NRA is standing by silently as its allies in Congress are helping to destroy America’s wilderness.
Hunting is an American tradition that depends on conserving America’s wilderness and wildlife. To fully enjoy our rights and heritage, hunters and shooters deserve leadership that will protect our guns and our land. America’s hunters are beginning to ask whether anyone in Washington recognizes that.
The American Hunters and Shooters Association, unlike the NRA, is dedicated both to protecting the gun rights of Americans and preserving America’s hunting heritage through conservation and responsible wildlife management. We understand the crucial relationship between protecting our rights as gun owners and protecting the lands we love.
America’s hunters and shooters should no longer stand by the NRA because it’s clear the NRA has long stopped standing up for them.
Ray Schoenke is president of American Hunters and Shooters.
