Issue 29
October 21, 2004

Click here to read past issues of On Target.



IN THIS ISSUE

Sportsmen for Kerry. By the NRA's own admission, John Kerry has been "extremely effective" at evading the gun lobby's smear campaign against him. Here's why.

In the News. Scanning the headlines for news, editorials, and commentary on guns and electoral politics.

Dates and Places. Upcoming events and important gun violence-related dates.





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Sportsmen for Kerry

This week, The Washington Times, carried a stunning admission from the NRA. Said NRA President Kayne Robinson: "Sen. John Kerry has been 'extremely effective' in portraying himself as a gun enthusiast and hunter in the 2004 campaign."

Now normally, On Target wouldn't take things that appear in The Washington Times as fact. After all, the right-wing rag is owned by a cult leader named Sun Myung Moon, who thinks he is the Messiah. (And who On Target originally thought played loveable scamp Punky Brewster, until we realized that was Soleil Moon Frye.)

But something about Mr. Robinson's quote caught On Target's attention. John Kerry has been "extremely effective"? Robinson sounds more frantic than an earnest Hill press secretary explaining his boss's attendance at the Rev. Moon's, uh, coronation.

Perhaps the reason for Robinson's near nervous breakdown can be found in mainstream press headlines. Take, for example, this Miami Herald headline: "Some Outdoorsmen to Consider Backing Kerry". Or perhaps this one from Knight-Ridder: "Some Hunters Disenchanted with NRA". If the NRA really is the most powerful lobby in America, such accounts are alarming indeed.

John Kerry knows a thing or two about guns. He's been a hunter all his life. He's actually been shot at with AK-47s. And John Kerry - like most mainstream gun owners - knows the difference between shotguns and assault weapons. Just last year, Field and Stream polled its readers to discern their attitudes on assault weapons. Fully 67% did not consider these military-style guns legitimate hunting weapons.

And according to the Associated Press: "A recent National Wildlife Federation poll said many sportsmen disagree with the administration's environmental policies, federation spokesman Vinay Jain said. The poll, conducted in July, found that 75 percent believe carbon dioxide emissions should be reduced and 49 percent think the oil and gas industry have the most input into Bush's conservation and hunting and fishing policies. 'The poll affirmed what we'd been hearing for years anecdotally about increasing hunter and angler backlash,' Jain said."

Some time ago, the NRA might have seen this coming. The organization used to be a sportsman's group that cared about preserving the environment. But in the past couple of decades, it has become a wholly owned subsidiary of the right wing of the Republican Party. How else to explain the presence of conservative henchmen David Keene and Grover Norquist on the NRA s board of directors?

From their office in the White House, about which Mr. Robinson once boasted, NRA leaders turned a blind eye to Bush's slash-and-burn environmental policies. In the process, they lost touch with gun owners and their own members.

Of course the NRA has only itself to blame. NRA leaders drank their own Kool Aid (Yep, another cult reference!). They truly believed that they would be able to cast Kerry as a rabid anti-gunner, all the while ignoring the sophistication and mainstream attributes of America's gun owners and their own members.

John Kerry has successfully driven a wedge between the NRA's field and stream membership and the group's soldier of fortune leadership. Which is why the NRA's efforts to dog Kerry with an anti-gun label simply won't hunt?

BS!  If he was as effective as stated, the 'gun' issue would be an issue in this campaign.

I'm gonna puke!

John Kerry has successfully driven a wedge between the NRA's field and stream membership and the group's soldier of fortune leadership.

SOF LEADERSHIP??!!

I guess retired LEO's are considered SOF's...what pure crap and nonsense.

Hopefully Bush will get elected and the Republicans will sweep the House and Senate.  Then instead of fighting anti-gun bills the NRA can focus on educating the "hunters".  It's the Field & Stream "Hunters" that are causing the biggest problem for gun rights.  As long as no one takes away their thousand dollar skeet gun or their grandpa's deer rifle, they don't care if everything is taxed, registered, or banned.  Only when it's too late will this group of people realize their mistake.

John Kerry has been extremely effective in pulling the wool over some idiotic, Democraptic, un-informed "sportsmen"...Who actually think that when he voted to ban "All semiautomatic shotguns", he was not talking about their semiautomatic, Remington 1187 duck hunting/trap shooting guns.
And when he supports efforts to ban hunting on Federal land...he, of course, does not mean the Federal land THEY hunt on.
They also are quite sure that...when groups who are all "huggie kissy" with John Kerry state that all "SNIPER RIFLES" should be banned; and those same groups define a "SNIPER RIFLE" as a rifle that can shoot a 2 inch group at 100 yards...They cant possibly mean ANY RESPECTABLE DEER RIFLE.

Um, this is a propaganda piece put out by the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

Source

I don't know about that.
While we were going to a gun show last Sat. in MI, we passed 4 big signs saying "Sportsmen for Kerry".
You can't miss them, they are very bright orange with white lettering.
The one that really hit home was in front of a Karate school of all places.
I guess that qualifies as a sportsman, huh?
It was enought to make you hurl.
I really wanted to steal one, pepper it full of 00 buck and put it back.
Thought it would be appropriate to their candidate.

The ONLY way the "sportsmen" are going to get hit with the clue-bat is when the legislation is offered up to BAN their precious skeet guns and deer rifles.

I'm convinced that 25% of that group will just simply cave in and willingly give up their "sport" and "sporting implements" and find something else to play with.

Another 50% *may* get the wakeup call but they'll be so busy trying to cover their own asses that they would gladly throw us "gun nuts", "black rifle freaks" and "Militia types" to the wolves in order to stave off the assault by giving away OUR guns to protect THEIRS.

That leaves 25% that will "get it" and fight, but by then It's probably going to be far too late to turn the tide and law-abiding gun owners in this country will have some VERY HARD choices to make.

Quoted: The ONLY way the "sportsmen" are going to get hit with the clue-bat is when the legislation is offered up to BAN their precious skeet guns and deer rifles. I'm convinced that 25% of that group will just simply cave in and willingly give up their "sport" and "sporting implements" and find something else to play with. Another 50% *may* get the wakeup call but they'll be so busy trying to cover their own asses that they would gladly throw us "gun nuts", "black rifle freaks" and "Militia types" to the wolves in order to stave off the assault by giving away OUR guns to protect THEIRS. That leaves 25% that will "get it" and fight, but by then It's probably going to be far too late to turn the tide and law-abiding gun owners in this country will have some VERY HARD choices to make.

<---part of the last 25% since long before I was of voting age, and pretty tired of hearing gun nuts rail against me because I like to shoot animals, with nce walnut/steel firearms, more than I like to shoot cardboard with aluminum and plastic firearms.

NRA's field and stream membership and the group's soldier of fortune leadership.

If I get one bullet for every time I've heard this, I could fire a minigun for an hour.
This whole campaign to seperate sporting guns from everything else has been the most damaging thing EVER to the constitution.  

Well, second most.  Letting 18 year olds vote, should've been letting people with an IQ over 18 vote.