Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Hunting on Public Lands at Risk Following Petition Attack on Traditional Ammo

You may have seen the news that the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), along with other anti-hunting groups and individuals, filed a petition with the Interior Department demanding rules against hunting with traditional ammunition on public lands – one-fifth of the total land area in the U.S. We warned this was coming after their playbook was discovered. After all, this is the same HSUS that is run by Wayne Pacelle, who has made his goals known:  “If we could shut down all sport hunting in a moment, we would.” (The Kingman Daily Miner, 30 December 1991). “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.” (Full Cry Magazine, 1 October 1990). The 50 page-petition is littered with junk science and fails to make the case that the use of traditional ammunition is a threat to wildlife populations or to humans that would warrant such a drastic action. Are we really to believe USUS finds hunting acceptable just so long as hunters use alternative ammunition?  Hunters, sportsmen and target shooters aren’t gullible.  We know better than to trust HSUS with setting hunting policy for the entire country. But we can’t assume the Obama Administration’s Interior Department is on our side. Call Interior Secretary Sally Jewell today at 202-208-3181 and tell her to reject this scientifically baseless petition from HSUS to ban traditional ammunition. Let the Department of the Interior know that requiring the use of alternative, non-lead ammunition, is nothing more than a back-door way to ban hunting by raising the price of participating in an American sporting tradition...more


1 comment:

Floyd said...

It is time for the Counties to start being much more specific about what the phrase “public lands” means. According to the definition of public lands below, the bullet restriction would only apply in Washington DC and a few other places with federal jurisdiction.

Dr. Angus McIntosh tells us that two of many U.S. Supreme Court cases that define what the courts view as public land include: Bardon v. Northern Pacific R.R. Co., 1892; and Northern Pacific R.R. Co. v. Townsend, 1903
“….by public land, as it has been long settled, is meant such land as is open to sale or other disposition under general laws. All land, to which any claims or rights of others have attached, does not fall within the designation of public land.”