Have you ever felt disappointed? Betrayed? Sure. We all have at one time or another. That is how I am feeling now.A group of self-important writers who specialize in scamming companies for free gear and free hunting and fishing trips has tossed us under the bus. It is terribly sad because these are not important Hollywood or New York City writers; they just wish they were.I believe the United States is immune to invasion, that no power on earth can cross the oceans in sufficient strength to overthrow our government and trample our way of life. The
corollary to that belief is that the United States will collapse from betrayal within. From small steps, the disaster that follows will be calamitous. We will look back and say we predicted it, but it starts with men and women willing to betray America to satisfy their own tiny grievances and lusts.In July 2004, former NRA president Kayne Robinson spoke to the annual meeting of the Outdoor Writers Association of America (OWAA).
He warned about stealth opportunists, such as Sierra Club, sowing environmental discontent inside the hunting, fishing and shooting communities. The OWAA board of directors quickly voted 11-4 to send Robinson a letter “expressing [its] disappointment in [Kayne’s] harsh criticism of fellow OWAA supporting member Sierra Club.” The June 30 letter was a flea barking at an elephant and described his comments as inappropriate.
The NRA subsequently withdrew moral and financial support from the OWAA and threw its support to the Professional Outdoor Media Association (POMA), a stronger, healthier splinter organization. Thereupon,
OWAA’s leaders cut off the organization’s nose to spite its face and invited PETA to become a member and promote its mawkish anti-hunting, anti-fishing, anti-shooting, an-animal-is-the-equal-of-your-child message.
We do not need an AR to hunt. Let’s all give up any weapon more powerful and effective than Fred Bear’s recurve bow. We do not need a semi-automatic to defend the house. We do not need forks to eat or soap to bathe. According to one small group of self-important outdoor writers, we can simply live off love and “prana,” the Hindu life force that permeates all existence. We the sheep should lie down with Big Brother’s wolves. Too bad ISIS and MS-13 don’t feel the same way.
Now, certain members of the OWAA’s Circle of Chiefs have signed an article about guns in America. They are led by Obama’s former Fish & Wildlife Service Director, one Daniel Ashe. This group of sly provocateurs includes
Mike Furtman, Paula Del Giudice, George Harrison, Jim Low, Rich Patterson, Dr. Leonard Lee Rue III, Scott Stouder, Dr. Kris Thoemke, Joel Vance and Ted Williams (probably no one you have ever heard of, but very important people in their own minds).If you see these names in print, I suggest you ignore what they are peddling. They have sold the rest of us out for a brief moment of celebrity to the
Huffington Post —
and they call us supporters of Second Amendment radicalism.Their “
Open Letter From Hunters About Gun Reform” encourages gun control in America, everything Michael Bloomberg desires: “We do not need AR-15s or any assault-style weapon to hunt game,” wrote Ashe. “That’s not to say some people won’t use them to hunt. But they are simply not necessary, and are actually not preferable for legitimate, fair-chase hunting.”To quote Dave Workman, this handful of people simply does not understand the Second Amendment. It is not about hunting, Workman writes, but rather “freedom, self-defense, checks-and-balances on government and the ability of the people to resist. It affirms and protects a right to keep and bear arms but was not included in the Bill of Rights to defend against marauding deer or Alfred Hitchcock’s birds.”I recall the proud moment when I was first allowed to join the OWAA. At that time in the ’80s, I was primarily an archery writer. By the grace of God, my writing horizons widened. When the OWAA allowed the PETA wolf into the sheepfold and POMA organized,
I quit the OWAA. It’s hard to get over the feeling of betrayal. It makes me sad and angry that for 30 pieces of Bloomberg silver, this handful of sententious, condescending writers would eat their young.