Gun control

What gun control that would effect hunting are you concerned about? There doesn't appear to be any.

If a state were to pass very strict laws outlawing the kinds of guns most popular for hunting in that state, that would harm hunting related revenues.

But just about zero states have laws which put restrictions on the firearms most commonly used for deer hunting so it seems a moot point.

0ne3 said:

OK, so when we talk gun control just what are we talking about, and what kind of guns do you think are going to be controled? I thought gun control was for all guns.

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Either you are playing some sort of game, or you aren't willing to educate yourself on the basic firearms law proposals of your municipality, state and nation. They are all right here, on the internet and on the news.

Which one is it?

Pittman-Robertson excise taxes on firearms and ammunition (there are similar taxes on fishing gear) are the leading source of federal conservation funding. Disbursements are made to the states but the taxes are federal. License fees, that go directly to state treasuries, are a lesser source of overall revenue, although it can be quite substantial in some states.

The irony of course is that Obama has been the greatest firearms salesman in the history of our nation and that, thanks to his regularly unsuccessful efforts to strip Americans of their civil rights, he has given an enormous boost to conservation.

So, the impact of Obama's ineffective gun control campaigning has been a massive increase in Pittman-Robertson tax revenue with, one would hope, a boost in conservation expenditures. However, had he been successful in diminishing our civil rights, or were states to illegally impose severe restrictions on those rights, one would see a substantial fall in P-R tax revenue. The question is the extent to which the non-sportsman conservation community is aware of this and whether it would temper their anti-civil rights bent. My guess is, not a great deal.

The P-R act money is earmarked for habitat improvement and teaching hunter safety.

Hunting revenue is a little different. License sales, and hunters spending money for hotels, gas and food does help local economies. Especially from out of state hunters.

I don't think most proposed gun control laws would have a huge impact on hunters. If there are shooting events in your local area that would be eliminated because certain types of guns were banned it could well impact the local economies as people would no longer visit to participate in the shooting events.

One3 remarked,

I live in Ohio the biggest draw our state has that gnerates money for the state is deer hunting. I do not remember what the act/law is called that a poration of sales from sporting goods goes into a fund. What all this generates for our state I do not know.

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Just FYI:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittman–Robertson_Federal_Aid_in_Wildlife_Restoration_Act

I have heard several times that some people will not hunt in Colorado any more because of both the increase in licensing costs and "in revenge" for Colorado passing several anti-gun measures recently, Apparently, a lot of Texans like to hunt in nearby Colorado and if anybody could afford the increased fees, it would be Texans... right? And that's from where I've been sniffing a lot of the "revenge" aspect of the out-of-State licensing question. Just my undocumented opinion, though.

So there's probably an impact from anti-gun laws on our own State's revenue from out of state hunters, but I think the major impact on hunting is from the urbanization of our grassy little State... again, just my undocumented opinion, though.

Hey, just because someone is relatively new and doesn't have the background information to phrase a question "correctly," it doesn't make them a troll. Also my undocumented opinion, and welcome aboard, One3.

Terry, 230RN

Let's not worry about the 2A being done away with. That discussion IS basically about WWIII. It would not pass quietly into the history books.

Lets focus on how the existing gun laws in Ohio do affect things. IIRC hunting regulations there require the use of straightwalled cartridges based on pistol ammo and there is a list naming the ones that are legal, which is highly restrictive. No rifle cartridges are included - which was the previous minimum level of force needed for centuries from coast to coast.

Why aren't Ohio hunters doing something about that? If you can't hunt with hunting rifles for game considered to need rifle caliber level amounts of power, isn't that gun control? There's no incentive to purchase or shoot with them if you can't hunt with them.

I see it as Ohio having gun control and the gun banners already won the fight outlawing hunting rifles. It also goes to doing due diligence in understanding local laws and their impact. We aren't going to have much of a discussion when the basic facts aren't at hand or understood.

Compare your existing anti rifle laws to the number of rifles sold locally and see if there isn't already gun control there.

NO, I am not playing some kind of a game, I was wandering what would happen if the 2nd amend. were done away with. And what do you think would happen if the antis and the popliticans get there way. I have been hearing about gun control since the 60's.

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In a nutshell:

The 2nd Amendment being done away with is pretty much an impossibility. That's not how gun control advocates work because it would take a Constitutional amendment to do that, and they are VERY hard to make happen.

Instead the gun control folks push for smaller sets of restrictions on groups or types of guns that they think the average voter doesn't care enough about to really fight them -- and which they can point to as being involved in some kind of common violence.

Handguns were the big thing for a long time, and that kind of makes sense because in the huge majority of violent crime IF a gun is involved, it's a pistol or revolver. Unfortunately for the anti gun crowd, the last 10 years or so has seen a huge upswing in the number of Americans interested in pistols for defense and competition. And with concealed carry now being legal and even common in almost every state, handguns have fallen out of favor as the number one "to ban" item.

The next has been "assault weapons" which is defined as rifles (and some shotguns) which are "military style." So AR-15s, AK-47s, and all the similar "tactical" stuff. The occasional national-news-making mass shooter event made it seem like these guns were a serious threat to society and Mom & Pop America just might be facing a madman with one at their local mall next Tuesday. So back in 1994 there was passed the famous "Assault Weapons Ban" which really didn't ban anything but managed to enrage the gun community to (in my opinion) spur the wild swing against gun control that we're riding the wave of today. Now that the AR-15 is "America's Rifle" and these days everybody who shoots seems to have one, or three, or a dozen, that goal of banning them seems farther away than ever.

All of that to say: Almost no hunters go into the woods with handguns. (A few, but probably not even 1 in 1,000 hunters.) And AR-15s and AK-47s, while they can be capable hunting rifles if set up for that, aren't what very many people think of when they talk about hunting guns.
The bolt-action and lever-action rifles, and the shotguns, which most Americans reach for when they go hunting have rarely, if ever, been caught up in the anti-gun laws passed in any of the states. They are the least regulated, easiest to purchase, and least socially "troubling" guns available and so if you're asking if gun control laws would make it hard to get them and thus damage hunting revenues in a state, the answer is "almost certainly no."

Tirod makes a good point, in that HUNTING REGULATIONS (not gun control laws) in many states make one or the other kind of gun especially popular, or essentially unwanted, in that state.

Now, I don't see that as a gun control issue, per se, because it is still perfectly legal to buy, own, and shoot a .300 Win Mag rifle in Ohio. You just can't hunt with it.
Here in PA, you (for the last few generations anyway...seems to be changing soon!) can't hunt with a semi-automatic. AR-15s and M1As and all that great military stuff are still wildly popular, but the few more hunting-specific auto-loaders (Remington 740s and similar) probably don't sell well here.

But the path to opening up hunting regulations isn't the same as the path to fighting "gun control" laws, and the overall ramifications are very different.

You should have done more home work . Meaning getting facts/figures on the money you ref. going to the "state.'
You live there.
As far as deer hunting being the states biggest draw, money wise I question that. Generate maybe. J s/n.

Deer hunting permits generates $10 million in revenue to the state of Ohio. Annually.
Give or take a couple of bucks.

What`s the state budget >

Just as a reminder, the 2nd Amendment is not about hunting (or other recreational uses). Theoretically, then, Fudd (hunting) guns could be banned without running afoul of the constitution. No one is proposing that. The antigunners are going after the "scary" guns, precisely the ones that are protected by the constitution.

I seriously doubt that excise and sales taxes on hunting guns, hunting license fees, etc., have much budgetary impact on the state of Ohio. Anyway, this hasn't been raised as an issue.

Tirod said:

Let's not worry about the 2A being done away with. That discussion IS basically about WWIII. It would not pass quietly into the history books.

Lets focus on how the existing gun laws in Ohio do affect things. IIRC hunting regulations there require the use of straightwalled cartridges based on pistol ammo and there is a list naming the ones that are legal, which is highly restrictive. No rifle cartridges are included - which was the previous minimum level of force needed for centuries from coast to coast.

Why aren't Ohio hunters doing something about that? If you can't hunt with hunting rifles for game considered to need rifle caliber level amounts of power, isn't that gun control? There's no incentive to purchase or shoot with them if you can't hunt with them.

I see it as Ohio having gun control and the gun banners already won the fight outlawing hunting rifles. It also goes to doing due diligence in understanding local laws and their impact. We aren't going to have much of a discussion when the basic facts aren't at hand or understood.

Compare your existing anti rifle laws to the number of rifles sold locally and see if there isn't already gun control there.

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Hmm, the straight wall cartridge rifle hunting was actually a benefit, not a reduction. Previously, before 2015, the only long guns permitted were shotguns.

You say there are no rifle cartridges permitted, and that would be incorrect. Here's the list: Straight-walled cartridge rifles in the following calibers: .357 Magnum, .357 Maximum, .38 Special, .375 Super Magnum, .375 Winchester, .38-55, .41 Long Colt, .41 Magnum, .44 Special, .44 Magnum, .444 Marlin, .45 ACP, .45 Colt, .45 Long Colt, .45 Winchester Magnum, .45 Smith & Wesson, .450 Marlin, .454 Casull, .460 Smith & Wesson, .45-70, .45-90, .45-110, .475 Linebaugh, .50-70, .50- 90, .50-100, .50-110, and .500 Smith & Wesson.

Many, including .38-55, .444, and .45-70 up to .50-110 are not normally considered pistol cartridges. I guess their thinking is to restrict cartridges to slow moving, short distance trajectories. They are certainly all up to the force necessary to hunt whitetail, which is the largest game animal in the state. This is a start, perhaps after they analyze a few years stats, if safety is still insured they may go to an unrestricted cartridge program. Other states have restricted hunting rules by county, i.e., shotgun or bow, this is nothing new.

As far as gun control laws, Ohio's are among the least restricted in the country, with machine guns and silencers allowed. Shall issue and open carry, no permit needed for just possession.

To say gun owners only buy guns they can hunt with seems a little short sighted. Plenty of AR's and other non hunting rifles can be seen at ranges.

I think you sort of missed the mark in your analysis of this state.

P-R excise taxes alone, that is the 11% retail tax on long guns, archery equipment, and ammo and the 10% wholesale price for handguns, generated almost $1 billion last year. To put things in context, that is almost as much as the annual royalty payments to the federal government from coal mined on federal lands. It is hardly chump change. Were it doled out to the states evenly (it is not) that would be $20 million per annum. In the context of total state budgets, P-R disbursements, revenue from fishing gear excise taxes, and revenue from licenses combined are not very significant. But in the conservation world, these revenues are indeed very significant. So much so that prior to Obama's fabulous job of vastly increasing firearms sales, it was the state fish and wildlife departments that took the lead, via the Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies, in creating the Council to Advance Hunting & the Shooting Sports.

A leading reason for that effort was the aging out of the US hunting population. in 1980 the median age of the US hunter was 32. In 2011, it was 46. In 2006, the percentage of the population that hunts (more than one consecutive season) had fallen to 5% (it is now back above 6%). So, from a revenue and conservation perspective, and I think there is an awareness of this in those circles, the great boon to P-R revenues has not been driven by hunters, but by Tommy Tacti-kewl and the Evil Black Rifle Crowd. It has been sales of non-hunting firearms that have driven the revenue boon in recent years and the awareness can be seen in the success that NSSF and others have had in driving P-R revenues to things like public range building and maintenance rather than solely to habitat and species restoration.

There's a lot going on here. Traditional "Fuddists" as they are derogatorily termed, in the conservation community are becoming increasingly aware that it is the AR-15 and the LCR more than the Remington 700 that are funding their pet programs. This is positive as it ads a political constituency to the bulwark against stripping Americans of the civil rights, but it also highlights the criticality of unity and dialogue across the broad gun owner-sportsmen-conservation community, and the need for a broad church approach in which differing messages and takes on protecting those civil rights are recognized as helpful and important even if they don't adhere to the rigid orthodoxy of one groups particular focus.

0ne3 said:

I thought gun control was for all guns.

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It IS... despite the lies of gun control advocates. It's just a question of political feasibility and time tables.

Over the years, I've seen numerous calls for bans on "sniper rifles". Do you know the difference between a "sniper rifle" and a scoped deer rifle? Me neither.

Clinton wanted "Australian style" gun control. Guess what that would have banned... a third of the modern firearms allowed for hunting deer in Ohio.

As to revenues, they simply don't care. If the lives of women beaten, raped and murdered because they couldn't defend themselves don't matter to them, they certainly don't care about lost sales to local businesses catering to seasonal hunters.

No idea what the heck the OP is talking about but in the list of the many objections to gun control "the effect of lower P-R tax revenues on the state" has to be pretty near the bottom. Given the civil war that would likely rage at that point, who the heck cares?

Also note that many hunters user muzzle loaders and bows. Here, the season can be much longer for those shooting non-firearms. If just Ohio banned firearms, then they would suffer somewhat reduced hunting revenues. If it was nationwide, then I think hunters would shift to alternate equipment (as would many if it was just a state thing). I would think shotguns would be the last to go, and that is probably the most common hunting weapon in Ohio.

suemarkp said:

I would think shotguns would be the last to go, and that is probably the most common hunting weapon in Ohio.

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Hillary Clinton wanted "Australian style" gun control. Pump shotguns were among the FIRST to go.

If it was nationwide, then I think hunters would shift to alternate equipment

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...or alternate game animals

I don't think you upset anyone One3, I think what is happening is people are trying to figure out what you are talking about or what you are asking. The gun issue does not revolve around money or decreased revenues for the government coffers, it revolves around a basic human right for self protection and ownership of a gun for any darn reason you want. If you want to make a flower pot out of it and set it on your coffee table have at it.