American Hunters and Shooters Association Screech
You see, they are the righteous pro-hunting, pro-conservation, pro-gun group! The NRA betrays hunters at every turn. At least, that’s what they tell us. Behold Ray Schoenke’s screed at The Daily Kos. It’s so disjointed I can’t really fathom the point other than tooting the AHSA’s horn. Which is amazing, since they have no significant accomplishments nor significant membership that I know of. Only a screed with zero actual evidence about why they’re good and NRA is bad. So, let’s look at the American Hunters and Shooters Association record on guns:
The NSSF has a fact sheet on them here:
Reported in an article by Bill Schneideri that the operating budget for AHSA is $500,000. Where did this money come from? With only a handful of members (paying $25 dues) – who is bankrolling their operation?
When you follow the money, they read like a who’s who of gun grabbers. They are a front for the anti-gun Democratic Leadership Council so that anti-gun politicos can say they belong to a group that sounds pro-gun.
Members (five of them that they disclose) of the AHSA are anti-gun lobbyists.
They’re basically a shill group set up so that anti-gun candidates can try to woo the hunting crowd. Note that their only endorsement victory (McCaskill) did not sign on to support Heller.
AHSA wrote a non-opposition opposition to Heller for it’s wording.
The president allegedley helped a reporter break the law by engaging in straw purchases.
They pay people to stand outside NRA meetings to protest. Can’t get any volunteers with all your members?
They support they anti-gun Mayors Against Guns.
Field and Stream (you know, real hunters and real shooters) don’t seem to be a fan.
They keep peddling the Zumbo myth.
They call gun owners extremists and whackos. That’s correct. The Executive Director of a supposedly pro-gun group is calling those who buy weapons for self-defense (i.e., the largest growing demographic of gun owners) whackos. So, who exactly are the shooters in American Hunters and Shooters?
They say any woman who buys a gun is a sign of law-breaking.
It takes a great person to turn on their previous employers, to form a small organization funded by shadowy sources and harangue the NRA for many years without any popular support.
It takes a man of principle to receive instructions from those same shadowy sources and carefully position oneself as a sensible, alternative voice to the NRA for no political gain whatsoever
It takes a true patriot to stand up and say that Americans do not have the right to own firearms save for a purpose determined by the government.
But remember, I’m just a shill for the NRA who is bad and not really pro-gun.
Update: Since someone’s already left a comment, I should point out that the VPC Blog is a parody.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Careful, VPC blog is a (wonderful) parody.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I know.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
It always amazes me when antis call gun owners extremists and whackos. All one has to do to see who the real extremists and whackos are is read the anti’s screed.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
It’s also worth noting that AHSA was a total no-show at SHOT ’08, which is odd for a group that claims to support hunters and shooters.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Doing some googling and working from memory, AHSA was founded by the Democrats (yes, the political party) in order to split the “gun vote” into hunters and non-hunters.
The leadership of AHSA is formed from a mix of DLC people and veteran anti-gunners. The old mailing address was the same as the DLC and their website was run by DCS Congressional.
It seems pretty obvious that the AHSA was formed because most nationally ambitious democrats (ie- those that want to become president) have extremely anti-gun histories, and in anything but a landslide, this causes them serious problems with getting elected. The initial theory was that by separating hunters from other gun owners they could neutralize this problem by preventing the NRA from mobilizing hunters.
They failed because the notion that most US gun owners are sportsmen is false. However, they are pretty much grasping at straws now- most of these ambitious democrats have decades of anti-gun history and the Democrats only recently caught on to the fact that being anti-gun is politically risky. In 2000, Gore was still proudly talking in Tennessee about how he would register handguns the week before the election. The Dems finally caught on that this is foolish but they can’t go back in time and undo everything that current Democrat power brokers and presidential hopefuls said during the 80s and 90s. So they try anything they can to blunt the impact of what they expect the NRA to do as November rolls around.
Do you think that we are aware of Obama’s history and the NRA isn’t? I am guessing they are very aware of nearly everything Obama and Hillary have been doing for the past 20 years and will be very active this year. They will have an especially easy time motivating gun owners due to the Heller v DC case that is coming up.