For those of you hatin’ on the NRA because all they do is support hunters, and they don’t support “staunch 2A advocates”, apparently there are some hunters that feel like the NRA doesn’t support them either.
The bone of contention in this particular issue is that in the legislation that would have created the Brown’s Canyon Wilderness, it would have also closed off an access road, which the NRA believed would have limited the access of disabled hunters to the area. The NRA’s position as I understand it was that by closing the access road, hunters that chose to use ATVs would not be able to get to the hunting areas; so they fought the law and apparently won.
This upsets the writer of the editorial, because he doesn’t like ATVs; which turns out to be his entire motive.
In a nutshell, OHVs are carving up our public lands like a cadaver, and it has to stop.
So, because he doesn’t like ATVs, but the NRA has decided to defend the access of all sportsmen, then clearly the NRA is bad, right? Unfortunately, the author let his personal bias against the NRA and off-road vehicles color his writing – and it ruined any point he may have made.
See, I don’t like ATVs very much. I feel like if you’re going to go hunting, you really ought to be walking into the woods. But, if the use of ATVs is legal and responsible, than there isn’t any logical reason to restrict their access. In this case, the NRA was correct to defend the hunters that chose to use the motorized vehicles to access the hunting area.
Just because you don’t like something, doesn’t mean that it should be illegal. Like I said, I think the NRA did the right thing here, and the author of the editorial is just grumping because he doesn’t like ATVs.
I’ve seen crap on that New West site before. I think they are a lefty operation. Either way, I agree that it looks to me like he’s more interested in banning ATVs in National Forests than he is in protecting hunter interests.
I suggest that it might be more of an elitist problem. My friends F-I-L is a hunter & I’ve had several conversations with him. I talk about how big a problem deer overpopulation is in CT, while he talks about how it’s sometimes hard to find deer where he hunts in PA. He believes many hunting methods are unfair & gives me the impression that he would support making everybody else hunt the way he does, with a single shot black powder rifle.