[url]http://www.berettausa.com/news/press_room/will_handgun_owners_save_hunting.htm[/url]

[b]Will handguns owners save hunting?[/b]

Astute gun control advocates are often careful not to oppose the rights of hunters. Those who call for handgun registration or handgun bans in one breath are often quick in the next to assure that none of their restrictions would affect hunters.

Their reasons for avoiding offense to hunters are easy to discern. Attacking hunters attacks a long-standing tradition in the United States, one which calls to mind images of parent and child together on weekends, of sport, of recreation, of exercise, of being outdoors. Gun control advocates who eat hamburgers or chicken could denounce hunting only at the peril of being labeled as hypocrites.

Equally important, gun control advocates know that some hunters support additional restrictions on handgun ownership. Owning a shotgun or rifle, which also serve as an effective means of self-defense, but living in areas where crime is low and the need to carry a concealable weapon is limited, a fair number of hunters feel no passion in defense of the need to bear a handgun. So long as gun control measures do not take away the shotgun or rifle used for hunting on weekends and for protecting the home at all times, these hunters feel little inclination to aid the rights of smallgun owners.

What hunters miss when they accept handgun restrictions is the importance that handgun ownership plays in protecting the privileges of hunters. If handgun ownership became a thing of the past, the vast numbers of handgun owners who, for example, live in cities and do not hunt but support, through their votes and through their purchasing power, the strength of the pro-gun community and industry, would be drastically cut.

In addition, a very simple and, some might say, compelling argument could be made against hunting once handgun ownership is curtailed. If handguns are eliminated because the need to protect one's life is not considered worth the societal costs attributed by critics to handgun ownership, the argument could then easily be made that, if we no longer allow people to own guns to protect their lives, why would we continue to allow them to own guns for the more trivial purpose of sport shooting or hunting?

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Some might say that an argument like this would never be made (especially gun control advocates who simply dislike guns but do not want to show their full hand too soon), but the seeds of this future moment already exist in the anti-hunting demonstrations of PETA and in less extreme examples, such as when suburban and urban groups decry managed game hunts in nearby areas. In the end, they will say, the right to own handguns at least came from the recognized right of self-defense. Hunting, on the other hand, is just a sport.

Without the tenacious political power that handgun owners bring to the gun ownership debate-a tenacity which comes, in part, from the importance which handgun owners place on the need to own a handgun to help protect their lives-restrictions on the shooting sports that are difficult to accomplish now, including elimination of shooting ranges to abate noise pollution or restrictions on hunting areas or on hunting itself to save animals, would be a large step closer to realization.

Gun control advocates know that if they do not upset hunters, their chance to eliminate one of the most powerful friends which hunters have-handgun owners-will be greatly advanced. If handgun ownership is curtailed, the political power and thus privileges that hunters now take for granted will be at risk. Hunters who fail to recognize the risk that their indifference to the handgun debate plays in undermining the future of their own sport do so at their own risk and become the unwitting foils of their own demise.

Hey I hunt with my handgun!  I simply can't believe that if you own a gun, any gun you can't stand with everyone else on the RKBA team.  Just goes to show the indifference many people have for others, and that's not just in the gun control arena.  By the way why do we refer to it as gun control?  Everyone knows they are working for an outright ban.

Good Topic.

The don't care mind set the takes over the majority of a group whether it is a gun group, a union, a local church or what ever, seems to be the norm today. This will in effect render the group useless in any venture. I still believe we are a gov, of and by the people, but when a minority of out citizens vote, our leaders are elected by less than probably 25% of reg. voters. 80,000,000 gun owners could get any thing they wanted if they could get along and pull together for a common cause, the name of which is FREEDOM.