Once upon a time there was a campground in my town that was used by the Boy Scouts. Every summer, hundreds of scouts gathered there, learning to set up tents, build fires, and cook meals. They didn’t just work though. They had fun as well. They’d go swimming and canoeing, they’d fish for trout and crappie in the Kettle Ponds, just as they landed striped bass and bluefish off the beaches nearby. Some dug clams while others learned to shoot rifles in the gravel pit. But soon, scouting fell out of popularity, and in time the camp was closed.
But not to folks like my wife, my kids and me. We were allowed access same as the other shooters in town. Folks were allowed to shoot firearms in the gravel pit where the scouts once learned the ropes. It’s the same area where I taught my kids firearm safety and proper techniques.
After their exhale-and-squeeze shots were tightly grouped and consistent, we moved on to shotguns. It was a lot of fun to throw straightaways and crossers from my late-grandfather’s Remington hand trap. We added some lead to the dirt, but not nearly as much as in the previous century when shooting rifles was a cornerstone of scout activities.
Shooting at the scout camp ended several years ago after a bill presented at a town meeting passed. The bill stated that the lead tainted the environment and made the water in the aquifer unfit to drink. Nothing negative was said about hunting or shooting or the 2nd Amendment. The focus was on reducing the lead to improve the water quality. Since we all drink water from our wells, the vote passed almost unanimously. I responded to the contrary and wanted to know this:
“If we need to stop shooting to improve the water quality, that’s fine. But a full excavation of the residual lead needs to follow because what we currently add pales in comparison to what is already there. If you’re not planning on removing a near century of lead, then you shouldn’t close the range.”
I stood alone, and since no one stroked a multi-million dollar check to clean up the environment, we can see the real reason behind the bill: to stop shooting. Okay, I get it.
That one-off and indirect method of proposing legislation has shown itself again. It’s not in my town but a long way from here in Oregon. Senate Bill 723 is set to prohibit “the taking of animal life in contests” with a focus on coyote events/hunts. The focus is on prohibiting events where trophies, ribbons, and medals are awarded based on animal sacrifice. The bill, introduced by Sen. Michael Dembrow (D-Portland) and Sen. Jeff Golden (D-Ashland) extends to other platforms with a similar award system. Aren’t fishing tournaments and stocked-bird field trials the same? Sure seems that way to me.
Fortunately, the folks at the Sportsmen’s Alliance are speaking up.
“While anti-hunting groups focus their rhetoric on coyote contests, their real intent is to end all hunting, including waterfowl and upland bird hunting using dogs,” said Bruce Tague, Sportsmen’s Alliance vice president of government affairs. “The biggest irony here is that well-trained dogs are the greatest conservation tool a hunter employs. They find and retrieve birds that hunters without a dog would never be able to recover. But senators Dembrow and Golden obviously don’t care about wildlife and dog owners but would rather cater to animal-rights activists.”
We’ve heard that anti-hunting rhetoric before, particularly from the former President/CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, Wayne Pacelle. He recently stepped aside from the organization thanks to the #metoo movement, but his position on hunting had been crystal clear.
“If we could shut down all sport hunting in a moment, we would. “Pacelle stated. “Only 7% of Americans are hunters. That means there are more of us than there are of them. It is simply a matter of democracy. The majority rules in a democracy. We are going to use the ballot box and the democratic process to stop all hunting in the United States. . . We will take it species by species until all hunting is stopped in California. Then we will take it state by state.”
Shutting down coyote contests means you’ve got precedent to shut down field trials. Shut down field trials and you’ve got precedent to shut down bird and waterfowl hunting. Think it won’t happen? Guess again. New York’s proposed bill AB 722 is a carbon copy of the bill proposed in Oregon and is supported by the HSUS with an objective of ending all hunting contests nationwide.
I didn’t think a shuttered scout camp would be closed to shooting. Eating an elephant is like changing public opinion and the public policy. It’s done quietly, just one bite at a time.