I’m with you: Phasing out lead is probably a good idea. But responsible elected and appointed officials understand that phasing out something that’s ubiquitous means giving manufacturers time to find alternatives. I know you’ve been planning to test non-lead cartridges yourself, so you’ve obviously been braced for this.

But the .22 lead ban is crazy. It doesn’t make sense. Funny thing is, that’s a move I would’ve expected from the Legislature, where there’s less expertise about hunting; not from the Fish and Game Commission, which should be a little more knowledgeable. I just don’t get it.

You hit the nail on the head about how we need to react to it, to. Hunters have to pay attention to what our elected and appointed officials are doing, and we have to be ready to act when things like this happen. It’s not enough to let the NRA do our job for us, particularly considering the NRA isn’t as popular among California government types as it is in other states.

However, a general boycott of hunting licenses, while it would definitely be effective in an ideal situation, is not likely to fly. You’d have to convince a huge majority of hunters in this state to stop hunting for a season… or longer. I hate to throw water on an idea (an idea I’d considered as well) before the spark even takes off, but I think we need to look at more realistic and workable approaches.

Here’s a thought. At the Fish and Game Commission hearings where the lead ban was being discussed, there were seldom more than 20 or 30 people in attendance. In fact, the lead ban almost went all the way through the process the first time before some hunters finally took enough notice and care to attend a meeting and speak up. Fortunately, this happened in time to stall the proceedings and let the hunting community offer at least a vocal argument. Even then, the meeting attendance never got much larger. Most hunters sat back, confident that the NRA and the small contingent of grassroots activists would fight and win the battle for us.

So, instead of sitting back and letting someone else do our fighting for us, maybe we need to get hunters out to these meetings…wherever they are. I’m not talking about 50 or 100 hunters, but a thousand or more. And not at just one meeting, but at every meeting until our voices are heard.

Look, the anti-hunters, anti-gunners, and environmentalists have this stuff down. They show up, make a scene, and essentially raise hell until someone finally tosses them a bone. They don’t take anything lying down. We can take a page from their playbook and do the same thing.

I’ve heard too many hunters complain, but those complaints are usually made to other hunters. What I haven’t seen is hunters getting active. “The meetings are too far away,” they say. “The meeting is on a week night,” they say.

The excuses have got us where we are now.