The Other Shoe

If you are a shooter, or just someone concerned about the ongoing assault against key provisions of the Bill of Rights, the National Shooting Sports Federation has a website for you.

Every year 15 million Americans purchase a hunting license. Given this statistic, it has long been known that hunters have the numbers to affect elections and influence policy, yet up to this point, it has been unclear whether or not sportsmen were truly a voting bloc, wrote Gable.

The survey her organization commissioned helped define the hunters recent voting habits, demonstrating their desire to flex their collective electoral muscles.

This survey clearly suggests that not only do hunters vote, they vote with their sporting interests in mind, Gable concluded. With the election of 2000, we have witnessed the maturation of American sportsmen as an important constituency and a force to be reckoned with in the political process.

During the 1990's, forces dedicated to stripping Americans of their right to keep and bear arms gained a lot of ground. They have now lost much of that ground, and with the sunset of the Brady provisions governing high capacity magazines and certain cosmetic details on what are commonly called "assault weapons" they will have lost almost all that they had gained during that decade.

It would be foolish for Bill of Rights supporters in general, and shooting sports enthusiasts in particular, to rest on our laurels. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, after all, and that is never more true than when it comes to the Bill of Rights.

Stay vigilant.

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