Lead Ban Chronicles – And here we go…

I think both of you have good points, and I can’t really disagree about the fact that we need to get the word out that there are bigger threats to the environment than hunters… and that the antis are leveraging the lead issue to push their own agenda… creating anti-hunting sentiment amongst the general public at the same time as the costs and complexities of new laws will drive more hunters out of the sport.

However…

Because hunters are, sadly, a small voice in the bigger picture of this country, any outcry we attempt to raise will only appear as deflection… trying to turn attention away from our activities by highlighting someone else’s wrong-doing. It’s a pretty weak ploy, particularly as long as so many hunters are still denying the impacts of lead ammo.

If and when the hunting community steps up to accept the fact that lead ammo may be a problem, and if and when we take pro-active steps to research and resolve this problem… maybe we can successfully say, “Hey, look. We’re trying to mitigate our own, small impacts. In the meantime, you folks need to focus that spotlight on the bigger perpetrators here.”

I’ve been pretty consistently disappointed in the response by the hunting and shooting community whenever this kind of issue comes up. Every time, right or wrong, the instant outcry is that, “this is another attempt by the antis to ban hunting (or guns, or whatever).”

That may or may not be the case, but there’s nothing at all constructive about that approach. It doesn’t help us as a community, and it doesn’t do a danged thing for our relationship with the non-hunting, non-shooting public. It just makes us look like a bunch of whiners…embittered and clinging to our guns, so to speak. There is a reason Obama chose those words. That’s exactly what a lot of gun-owners and hunters look like to folks outside our little world. We need to recognize that as a fact, and address it.

How do we address it?

That’s the harder question. What our sport needs is a really good PR firm who recognizes that we have to sell hunting outside of our own established community. The idea is not to sell hunting products, nor is it even necessarily to recruit new hunters… but to simply sell our sport’s image based on the facts. Conservation, safety, family values… they’re all part of what we do, but non-hunters seldom get that perspective.

In the meantime, as hunters and shooters, we need to focus our own efforts on being constructive. We should be directing our energies inwardly, encouraging the industry to research the lead issue and provide real answers to whether lead ammo is a threat to the environment, the animals, and to people. We think we know the answers to most of this, but let’s be honest here… for the most part we don’t, really.

With all the money organizations like the NRA throw into propaganda against the antis, you’d think some of that could be directed into the efforts of objective researchers… and the results of the research need to be heeded and acted upon, even if it’s not what we wanted to hear.

The NSSF should have a team already working on this… doctors and scientists performing valid studies while the ammunition industry steps out in front to come up with solutions.

But none of this is going to happen unless WE, the hunters and shooters, demand it.

By the way, I’m not saying we shouldn’t continue counterattacks against the B.S. spewed by the HSUS and PETA, and I applaud the efforts (successful efforts) of the folks who are out there exposing these organizations for what they are. That’s an admirable mission, and I think it’s actually being very well executed.

But it’s not going to save the hunting and shooting sports. We can’t do that by bringing someone else down… we have to raise ourselves up.