Effect of declining hunting on RKBA?

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MinMAN, I hate agree with you but it is the reality of this game. I tried to get a friend interested in this board recently and he declined to participate after reading some of the attacks people make on one another. He thought (in his words) this board was full of "ultra-righties" with a very "eat-their-own" mentality. Some people on here seem to feel that you either agree 110% with the hard core stance of NO RESTRICTIONS (no background checks, no automatic limits, no refusal to felons, etc) or you are as bad as the anti-gunnies. I was accused of being an "anti-gun troll" about 100 times when I first joined this board because I had the gaul to say I was "unsure what my stance on full autos is". And then many more times because I said "I'm not sure open-carry is a battle worth fighting". They accused me of being a fraud that didn't even own a weapon more times than I could count. When it became apparent that they were wrong they then tried to attack me personally (my service record, my education, where I live, etc) because they had no real ammo against my opinions but felt they had to attack me for something because I did not agree with them 110%. How dare I...I guess that makes me the enemy in some peoples mind. Unfortunately these people seem to be the most vocal in the movement. Another case of the "loudest minority" setting the tone for the silent majority. Just like the neo-cons do for my fellow "real republicans" or RINO's (republicans in name only) as "they" call us because of our refusal to follow blindly. I am afraid these people who think like this are in for a rude wake up call. When they manage to exclude all of us middle ground gun-lovers they will find that the anti-gunnies will outnumber them many thousands to one. I am glad to have hunters in the RKBA movement. I just feel we cannot rely on them as much as we have because of the declining influence hunting has on modern day culture.
 
PlayboyPenguin:

With all due respect, it's because it is people like you that hurt the RKBA while acting as if you support it. What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand? There is no such thing as a halfway Second Amendment supporter, you either do it to the letter, or you don't, period. That's not my "all or nothing thinking", that's the way a right works, it is absolute within the parameters of that right; it has to be, because that's the very nature of its necessity. If you cannot understand the nature of the Bill of Rights and the intent behind the Second Amendment, then every time you open your mouth and some fence sitter gets the wrong idea, you're hurting more than you are helping.

Just because you own guns does not mean you support the Second Amendment. In fact, I would go so far as to say that many gun owners only support the RKBA to the point that they feel they need it (e.g. 'I don't need more than 10 rounds in a handgun so I guess it's okay to outlaw those hi-capacity magazines'- or - 'you cant hunt with an AR-15 so I don't see a legitimate sporting purpose to it, so why not outlaw them?'). You can chatter and moan about the "minority", but the Bill of Rights is there to protect essential liberties from the malice, negligence or willful ignorance of the government and/or the masses. It's there to protect us from the likes of the gun grabbers and folks like you and the damage that can be done all in the name of what is reasonable.

If you want to know why we get so upset, it's because everyday many of us fight the battle to regain what folks like have given up in our name with the help of rubber-necked politicians and our so-called special interest groups. So now we have to work within our ranks just as hard as we do outside because some gun owners want to selectively ignore what a right is, the intent behind the amendments (not limited to the second by any means) and what the constitution says.
 
See...my point made. :)

I just hope attitudes like this do not kill the RKBA lifestyle before I can pass my guns down to at least one following generation...but at the rate things are going now. :(
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by K-Romulus
Could also be called "modern firearms."


I prefer "baby killers".
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Nineseven I reported the above as a "bad post". You should unplug the keyboard for a while, and seek help.



One has to be able to distinguish between, someone who disagrees, and an enemy of our rights and privileges. Just because someone disagrees on a point, does not make them the "enemy". The Anti-es troll forums such as these, and use some of the things that are said against us. "The angry people with the ugly guns" plays heavily into their game plan.
 
MinMAN, a right is a right, you either have it or you don't. Like it or not, free speech protects pornography. Some folks wanted to outlaw it because it's distatseful and they felt it was a "reasonable restriction" to do so. The constitution and the very basis of a right says otherwise. However, advocates of free specch put aside their own personal feelings to champion the right for what it is, no matter how distatseful an act it protected. We don't seem to have that on the Second Amendment, and that's the problem.

Anyway, this is drifting the thread off-topic, feel free to start a new discussion if you want to open this can of worms and perhaps I'll stop by.
 
Anyway, this is drifting the thread off-topic, feel free to start a new discussion if you want to open this can of worms and perhaps I'll stop by.
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Nineseven, Thank you, but no thank you.

"Freedom with responsibility" Quote FDR
 
nineseven said:
Like it or not, free speech protects pornography. Some folks wanted to outlaw it because it's distatseful and they felt it was a "reasonable restriction" to do so.
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"Outlawing" is not a reasonable restriction. Limiting sales to adults is a reasonable restriction with which I also agree. Some people's inability to see anything between A and Z is a real limitation to their thinking. It makes them believe that "slippery slope" arguments are actually logical. Which they are NOT.
 
Nineseven, I'm sorry - but if that's where you're going to draw the line, and that's how you're going to express it, then you lose my support as well.

I've got a buddy here in North Carolina that is absolutely rabid about this stuff. Not only does he think that full-auto's should be completely free under the law, he thinks that any restriction against any weapon is a direct violation of the 2nd Amendment. Want a boxful of fragmentation grenades? Why not? That's an 'arm', right? How about a pillbox on top of your house with an M2 .50cal machine gun in it? Hey, you're sure as hell armed with one of those puppies, eh? How about mounting a howitzer on the hood of that Buick? Absolutely. That's an arm too. Maybe that neighbor down the street mixing up nerve gas in his basement? Well, that's a weapon, right? A weapon is an arm, so therefore he's got a right to be making that stuff. Leave him alone. Now that I think about it, those crazy Arab kids (but still US citizens, mind you) are down there at the community college tinkering with a nuclear warhead. A weapon of mass destruction is a weapon, and a weapon is an arm, by any reasonable definition. Clearly if you don't support the rights of citizens to own grenades, heavy machine guns, howitzers, nerve gas and nukes, then you're just wimping out on the 2nd Amendment. We don't need your kind of limp-wristed supporters around here. We're better off without you.

You can accuse me of going too far with it if you want, but that's exactly what you're doing. You're drawing a line where you think it should be drawn, and announcing "My line is farther over here than your line, therefore I'm the expert and you don't count. In fact, you're worse than insignificant, you're bringing me down."

Well, as far as I'm concerned, you can spout off all you like. I'm comfortable with my opinion on this issue, and I don't require validation from some fruitcake with a tinfoil hat to feel good about it. I'll keep my NRA membership, and I'll keep contributing to causes I agree with, and writing letters to support legislation that I feel strongly about, and I'll keep voting for pro-gun politicians. You can accuse me of being anti-gun all you like, but it's not going to change that.
 
I think the main point here is that most of us agree 80 to 90% of the time. It is counterproductive to attack each other over the 10% that we don't agree on when we still have the first 90% to achieve. Arguing a few points is fine, but dwelling on it all the time and attacking other posters is pointless.

The only example that comes to mind is NFA weapons. There are many on the site that would be happy to go back to the original NFA act without the changes made in the 80's. Once we do that, then we can debate about whether those original restrictions are appropriate. Until we can actually legally buy new full-auto's again, what's the point in getting so worked up over the original act? We have to start somewhere. There are too many gun laws on the books for us to divide ourselves now.
 
MHO: The decline of hunting will have little to do with gun rights. Hunting and gun rights are slowly seperating from one another's political support base due to shifts in priorities and threats to their respective movements. Read recent hunting magazines as I did recently, and you might be shocked to find that pro-hunting groups are increasingly affiliating with more leftist environmental groups over the issue of preservation of available hunting land and wildlife habitat. IMHO-The loss of good quality huntable land is a far greater threat to hunting than the loss of gun rights. In our increasingly urban society, hunting has become a game for landowners only,so the alignment of hunters with green preservationist groups makes some sense. The public land that green fans want to preserve is often the only choice left for urban/suburban hunters who have no landowning relatives or friends (I was stuck in this situation until I married into a farm family).
Another sign of this growing divorce is that hunters are beginning to focus more on non-modern firearms and bowhunting to a much greater degree-decreasing their reliance on modern firearms that are likely to be legislated away. On the other hand, gun owners are increasingly more urban and interested in defensive weapons: handguns and semi or full autos. Those groups are associating with the political right,which is often opposed to the environmental groups that hunting is aligning with.
Hunters and shooters are becoming two very different groups with only slight overlap. It will take a long time for conventional wisdom to realize this, I think,so "good" gun use will probably be associated with hunting for a long time.
 
Anyway, to move back on topic, it really isn't the "hunting crowd" per se, just an attitude that has historically been more prevalent in the hunting only circles based on their use of firearms as compared to folks that own them for defensive purposes. You can't really fault the hunting group as a whole because this mindset is in no way part of the nature of hunting (which is generally a very honorable sport steeped in tradition and respect for the wild), it just so happens that gun owners that feel that military-style arms should or can be outlawed obviously do not typically migrate to circles that use or collect military-style arms...they instead tend to stick with shooting sports that do not require or typically employ (either for sport, aesthetic or legal reasons) those kinds of guns.

And because military arms are the extreme according to groups such as the VPC and they're what the media sensationalizes, folks that truly support the 2A to the letter would naturally gravitate towards those black sheep in the world of firearms (concealed carry handguns and military-style copies). there is, of course, a great deal of cross-over involved.

A decline in the number of hunters won't help the RKBA at all. I don't personally hunt, but I understand the wholesome appeal of it to others and unless those hunters are hanging up their tree stands and deer urine for race guns, CCW's and FALs and maybe even taking a more direct stance on the 2A, it's a loss to the ranks of gun owners. With the shooting sports growing however, the impact overall may be minimal.
 
'Card, the fact that you felt the need to insult me by calling me a "fruitcake with a tinfoil" hat really did not help your point very much. Don't worry, I of course, can handle it and won't report you or anything, that's just childish. Of course, the name calling isn't very High Road either, but to each their own, we all get carried away sometimes.


It's not my opinion, read the federalist and anti-federalist papers, do some research.

Educate yourself on the differences between arms, artillery, crew served weapons, ordnance and ballistic missiles and where nukes and nerve gas fit in there.


Then let's come back to the point before you started calling me names and start this discussion over again.
 
Nineseven: I also agree that WE can not allow the RKBA to be further diluted. It is happening all the time. In some states, the CCW laws have been passed and on the other side of things you get this crap going on in California, Maryland, and NYC restricting the US Second Amendment rights. It is the constant struggle between states rights and federal rights. We fought a war over this issue and the federal rights won. Oh let's not forget about city rights?

I grew up in PA, and I believe PA would be just like NJ if it were not for hunters and sportsmen. But, hunters seemed to have looked the other way when PA required that all handgun transactions be through a FFL. Bit of a brain fart... not sure at the moment about long guns. In the past, I posted comments about this on the PAhunting forum and the reaction to my comments was for the most part...you mean you want criminals to be able to buy handguns?

I believe hunters and sportsmen form the stiff backbone to the RBKA movement. The key is to have training and a desire to shoot or hunt or whatever instilled into young people. Most young people would love to shoot a gun.

Education is the why the anti-gunners are slowly winning.... through liberal education. Just say No..... Tobacco is evil.... guns are evil....it's okay to be gay..... it's okay to have premarital sex, but use birth control.... it's okay to lie because all business is conducted that way.... it's okay to try to cheat on your taxes..... it's okay to try to cheat your insurance company... it's okay to sue at will even if you are in the wrong...insurance companies will just throw you a bone (a bone you didn't have) etc.... No responsibility for anything anymore.

I fall back on the hard core "shall not be infringed" philosophy as we have had enough infringement. I believe in honesty and taking responsibility for your actions. Ethics!
 
LOL!

I wasn't specifically referring to you with that comment, but to the "wild-eyed freakazoid" (he of the tinfoil hat) I mentioned in my earlier post in this thread - but you play the unjustly abused, tender-hearted, but nobly-rising-above-it victim so well I'd hate to deny you the opportunity. :cool:

That was also a pretty decent crack at misdirection, but you still haven't addressed the fundamental point. It's obvious that you agree that a line has to be drawn somewhere, right? Artillery, crew served, whatever... you're playing with semantics and we both know it. A full-auto weapon is as far beyond the definition of 'arms' (as intended by the framers of the Constitution) as a nuke is beyond any definition we might have for it, but the point is nonetheless valid. If you agree that some line has got to be drawn somewhere, then what gives you the right to dictate to other supporters exactly where that line should be?

You can hold your own opinion. You can advocate your opinion. You can attempt to sway others to agree with your opinion, but pronouncing that anyone who's opinion is not as 'righteous' as yours is actually on the other side of the issue entirely, is simply short-sighted and self-destructive.
 
22-Rimfire,

One thing, that you have illustrated, that I have failed to acknowledge out of admitted ignorance is an agreement we have, at least partially. I think for a long, long time, hunters and sportsmen were the backbone of the Second Amendment, and for the longest time, they and their organizations were responsible for safekeeping our rights. I believe that in many states, this may still be true. In Pennsylvania however, the access-oriented sportsmen's groups have squashed any real players with independent thought and they take a real soft approach on the 2A for the most part. The only time they talk tough is election time when a repub needs a vote and the NRA is backing them on it.

Like I said, it's not a hunter problem, it's more that these types tend to gravitate towards hunting if they do any shooting discipline, that's not really the hunting crowd's fault.
 
"On topic", Most of the hunters I know, also own Military style weapons, including myself. The hunters that I know who do not own Military style weapons, are not against them. In fact, they like knowing, if they want to, they can own them.

This so called divide is media generated. And BTW, hunting magazines are the media. We can either unite and conquer, or be divided and conquered.
 
The NRA has gathered more members over the years because of hunting than any other single source alone. The attitude I have read here by some is disgusting. Elmer Fudd hats, that one takes the cake for the epitome of dunce. It's attitudes like that that put a wedge between us and hunters and keep them at bay. Hell, I'm one of us but reading some of the comments against hunters makes me not want to be one of us, it's embarrassing.
 
'Card, you sure made it sound like your comment was pointed at me. A simple mistake, I can see how one could make it.


I have to run for a while, but do you have a literal or historical basis for these claims? And if so, I'd like you to demonstrate them here.


1.
A full-auto weapon is as far beyond the definition of 'arms' (as intended by the framers of the Constitution)
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. Cite your source from the framers that defines what "arms" are and what their purpose is. Then further cite your source on how to clarify why a fully automatic rifle does not comply with that definition. Why do semi-automatic copies comply where full-auto samples do not?

2.
as a nuke is beyond any definition we might have for it
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<--clarify that, not sure what you are trying to say. A nuke would not allow us to oppose domestic tyranny from the federal government or foreign invasion on our domestic lands. A nuke is not a domestic weapon, nor is it a generally a defensive weapon. So what is your point with this? Again, I did not draw this line, see my question to you above.

3.
If you agree that some line has got to be drawn somewhere, then what gives you the right to dictate to other supporters exactly where that line should be?
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I didn't draw the line, the framers of our founding documents drew it, ad it is very clear. have you read the federalist and anti-federalist papers, the whole of the Constitution, it's amendments and Bill of Rights?


Thanks.
 
MinMan: I do know some hunters who do not own military style firearms. But, you know, take one of them out shooting one of those "black rifles" and run through 500 rounds and you see that little light in their eye..... This is FUN!
 
MinMAN said:
"On topic", Most of the hunters I know, also own Military style weapons, including myself. The hunters that I know who do not own Military style weapons, are not against them. In fact, they like knowing, if they want to, they can own them.

This so called divide is media generated. And BTW, hunting magazines are the media. We can either unite and conquer, or be divided and conquered.
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I know 25 hunters people, 23 of them have stolen something in their lifetime, therefor, most hunters must be thieves. Anecdotal and circular. See the point?


But I must ask you, you say they own military style weapons or are for them? What about actual military rifles (full-auto)?
 
MinMan: I do know some hunters who do not own military style firearms. But, you know, take one of them out shooting one of those "black rifles" and run through 500 rounds and you see that little light in their eye..... This is FUN!
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22-Rimfire, Been there, done that. With the addition of a stop at the local Gun shop to see him buy an AR.;)
 
"Sporting firearms"

Since "militia" is mentioned in the 2nd amendment one might conclude military weapons were/are protected by it. Now when one considers "sporting arms" just a simple googling "sporting firearms" & Nazi will easily disclose the source of this straw man argument.

So, who's version of "reasonable" gun control would you accept? Dianne Feinstein's or the VPC/Brady's? I'm quite sure they think they are reasonable. When one realizes this it should be easier to understand why a hard line position needs to be taken.

When rights are negotiated, the rights are negotiated away.
 
I do think a reduction in the numbers hunting will affect the RKBA movement if you want to call it that. With population increasing and things becoming more and more urbanized, hopefully the self defense crowd with take up any slack left by hunters.

Hunters have done more for the conservation effort than any single group in America. The fact that hunting can be done by the common man is a credit to our society (not that way in Europe), and the foundations of our society. If pro-gun folks want to alley with the generally leftish conservation groups for setting aside more land, so be it. But the Sierra Clubers generally don't want hunting on their lands such as is currently the rule in National Parks and many State Parks. It is knd of like supporting the Talaban in Afghanistan during the Russian "Vietnam".... suited our purpose at the time.

And yes otherguy, I believe that this IS the reason to take firm positions on gun rights. The other side believes they are right and they are probably pretty reasonable people overall. That is why they keep getting re-elected time after time.
 
So, who's version of "reasonable" gun control would you accept? Dianne Feinstein's or the VPC/Brady's? I'm quite sure they think they are reasonable. When one realizes this it should be easier to understand why a hard line position needs to be taken.

When rights are negotiated, the rights are negotiated away.
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I agree, and support whole heartedly taking "a hard line position". However, I am particular in how that position is put forth. There is a fine line between a hard line position, and an extremist position. The two can be difficult to discern. An extremist position will never be successful in this day and age.
 
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