THANK YOU IOWA HUNTERS, NRA AND ISF MEMBERS
Kayne Robinson, President ISF
Your
overwhelming support for NRA and ISF as we negotiate another legislative
session is extremely valuable to our success and on a personal basis is
greatly appreciated by the officers and legislative specialists who coordinate
activities. Because of your
support it looks as though no anti-gun legislation will pass the Iowa
Legislature in 2002.
National
Rifle Association and Iowa Sportsmen’s Federation do many things, but first
of all we are civil rights organizations.
Like all civil rights organizations we act primarily with regard to
laws and administrative regulation. Gun ownership and its lawful use come
under attack mainly through law and regulation, usually instigated by anti-gun
pressure groups or public officials. Sometimes
government bureaus act in their own interest through elitist paternalism,
arrogance, employee convenience, cost-saving or other reasons, to produce
regulations not necessarily intended to harm gun owners - but harmful
nonetheless. Every civil rights
organization faces this situation.
Hunters
are an important part of the now approximately 100 million U.S. gun owners.
The vast majority of gun owners and hunters are of low to middle income
and extremely sensitive to government expense and red tape.
We start our protection with a view to how the most vulnerable hunters
might be affected.
A
much smaller group of hunters are those with a very intense interest or
passion for a particular type of game. Such hunters have played an important
role in the habitat and game side of the hunting equation.
Obviously if there is no habitat or no game there is no hunting.
Hunters with this intense special interest have a great tolerance for
more cost and red tape. Some
actually instigate new red tape and cost. A smaller but influential number,
take the position “if you don’t want to pay – take up bowling”.
We
do not oppose every rule, fee increase or area closing. Like other civil
rights organizations however, we set the bar very high.
The atmosphere for guns and hunting is different in one major respect
form other civil rights activity. That is – there are well-financed powerful
organizations and political figures working to totally ban both guns and
hunting. Because of the long term
CUMULATIVE damage of every years new crop of red tape, fee increases, area
closings and gun restrictions, we believe there must be an extremely urgent,
almost emergency justification for new rules containing criminal penalties.
It does not seem remotely possible that there could be justification
for the use of criminal penalties for post hunt statistical reporting
on most plentiful game types in Iowa.
We
can point to other nations like England, where cumulative increases in red
tape, cost, area closings and gun restrictions, drove out all the low and
middle income participants. The result is the political base- the large
numbers of support for guns and hunting vanished.
When those large numbers left the whole system collapsed. Nearly all
guns are banned and the majority party platform calls for a ban on all
hunting.
NRA
monitors administrative rules and legislation in all 50 states.
As Chairman of NRA’s Legislative Policy Committee,
I see these in rapid streaming succession.
The patterns are crystal clear. Anti-gun
and anti-hunting groups along with their allies in bureaucratic agencies and
among lawmakers, are universally behind a common strategy. Inflict red tape,
impose new cost, restrict access to shooting and hunting lands and demonize
vulnerable guns- they all sing in unison.
In some places bureaucrats follow this path outside the anti-gun
program. The cumulative destructive impact on gun owners and hunters is the
same.
Several
examples will serve to make my point. In
the 60’s, Federal Firearms Licensing was enacted to “to keep guns out of
the hands of criminals” and an agency was given jurisdiction (ATF). Gun
dealers, collectors, gun-smiths, followed the program. When Clinton was
elected, he turned an anti-gun program into a vicious anti-gun program. With
no change in law, only hostile reinterpretation of regulations, over 2/3 of
dealers were driven out and are gone forever.
During
the last eight years, millions of acres of land has been denied to hunters
(often lands purchased with Pittman-Robertson hunting tax dollars). This was
done through oblique application of administrative rules such as vehicle
restrictions, road closing, third party species “protection” (the ferret
eats the prairie dog – we “might” introduce the ferret in the future,
therefore ban shooting of prairie dogs), and monument or wilderness
designation. Every animal rights group speaks, at hearings, in favor of these
regulations.
In
Washington state, false samples of Lynx hair were planted in an attempt to
activate endangered species law restrictions.
The culprits were publicly identified, they were state and federal
“wildlife” employees.
In
Iowa a torrent of members called NRA about last years fee increases in habitat
stamps and out of state license fees (paid by their friends and relatives who
visit). The out of state fee to hunt deer is now over $300. Obviously that
damages hunting. Calls this year
are overwhelmingly against fee increases.
Several
years ago we were told that the Habitat Improvement Program (HIP) was
absolutely necessary. It required
every waterfowl hunter to call the (often busy) HIP telephone and get a
validation number to write on their license. After discussion with Iowa DNR,
against our better judgment, we let this one go without asking the Legislature
to void it. This was a big mistake. The problem was - thousands of hunters
were in inadvertent violation. The wording of the regulation produced the
legal result that your license was not valid without the HIP number. In other
words for an information gathering error, the hunter was transformed into a
poacher – subject to citation or arrest for hunting without a valid license!
After
all this – presto the HIP number system is no longer “required” and
adequate data is gathered at application time through the automated system.
Our problem was the extreme exposure (citation or arrest for hunting without a
license) for a minor information gathering objective that could be otherwise
satisfied.
All
over America public shooting areas and ranges purchased and built with hunter
dollars, are being closed by anti-gun bureaucrats. The hook is always safety-
but the death and injury caused by shooting at ranges is almost
non-existent. Here in Iowa many
ranges and public shooting areas under the care of DNR, have been chained shut
instead of fixed. That means for
instance that 500,000 people in metro Des Moines had no public place to
sight-in or practice for the fall hunting season except to shoot through a
small sewer pipe at Banner. That is by any measure anti-hunting.
In
2000 DNR produced a rule on deer and turkey kill reporting, that required the
hunter to go to a licensing station and get a second tag and attach it to
their deer or turkey. Many,
probably most, hunters from large metro areas tag their deer and leave it with
someone in the area of the hunt- often clear across the state. If a nearby
licensing station was not open when they finished hunting they would have to
return to their deer the next day or so, get a tag and attach it. Potentially,
a hundred dollars of errand running, cost and exposure to citation or arrest
for an information gathering omission.
The
question was not a matter of denying DNR the information.
The issue is the criminal penalties.
No business, manufacturer, university, medical or polling company
gathers information from more than 5 or 10% of a universe. All draw
scientifically accurate conclusions. The
Zogby polling company (Americas most reliable) polls less than 2000 people out
of 280 million and regularly comes within 90% accuracy.
Iowa Legislators regularly poll a small number of people in their
districts and get reliable information for a few hundred dollars.
None can impose penalties. The
idea that deer survey in Iowa requires every hunter to report every deer under
penalty of citation or arrest is beyond absurd.
Given that we know the name and address of every deer hunter and can
get most phone numbers, there are many ways to increase reporting by a
reasonable amount without criminal penalties. Incentives might help.
Criminal penalties, citation and arrest, should be reserved for
criminal acts-not data gathering.
The
deer and turkey rule also generated a torrent of calls to NRA, to ISF and to
legislators. The rule was so crazy and anti-hunter, that the Legislature
quickly and decisively voided it.
Our
mail, phone calls and other contacts have been overwhelmingly in opposition to
the DNR rules on HIP and deer-turkey reporting. Contacts with legislators have
been similar. The very few on the other side have come from specialty groups
many who have said they were asked to call by the group or by a DNR employee
afraid of loosing his job due to budget problems.
We have never tried to take any persons job at Iowa DNR or ATF, but the
internal management, budgeting and personnel policies at those agencies cannot
dictate whether we resist creeping red tape imposed on gun owners and hunters.
During
the 2002 session there was a DNR priority proposal to license hunters under 18
who drive motor boats. (They would have to pay a fee, take a course and get a
certificate that must be carried on the person- a license).
SF2250 & HF2447, masqueraded as regulation of jet-skis.
But embedded within the bills one finds the language “or
motorboat”. Anything that ads
unnecessary red tape to the practical actions
necessary to hunting attracts our intense interest- this boating rule
fits that bill. Waterfowl hunters use boats – the unnecessary red tape is
anti-hunter. We have asked the
Legislature to kill the motorboat parts of it.
In
the recent past we asked that Iowa join nearly every other state in allowing
handgun deer hunting. The only
material opposition came from DNR employees in an organized campaign to
contact legislators. That
campaign viciously attacked not only handgun deer hunting but NRA and ISF as
well. The legislature had to overrule the agency and order a handgun deer
season. There have been no
problems with handgun deer hunting in Iowa or any other state.
If
there were no opposition to laws, rulemaking and fee increases the hunting
rulebook would be a foot thick and only a few very wealthy fancy hunters would
be in the field.
NRA
and ISF have supported many habitat and wildlife programs including REAP
(Resource Enhancement and Protection), CRP (Conservation Reserve
Program-federal), TIP, Pittman-Robertson (federal), and many others that have
delivered habitat improvement and game protection in Iowa and other states.
We have been deeply involved in hunter safety education.
I
have noticed a split among employees of DNR.
Some believe no information is of much use without 100% reporting
backed with citation and arrest provisions.
Some believe hunters are armed people who pose a constant danger to
conservation law enforcement officers. Some
see the role of the agency as a parent, where hunters are neophytes who must
all be kept from destroying themselves and the game- through very strict
supervision. Some have no
reluctance to produce rules that force hunters to run errands or incur
expense. Some believe that a
small number of expert hunters with expensive equipment, willing to pay huge
fees set by the agency, would be the perfect world.
I have personally heard each of these examples from DNR employees.
On
the other hand many DNR employees are very sensitive to promoting both game
and hunters. They are concerned
that in-your-face rules, threatening citation or arrest, should be reserved
for very serious violations that harm game, life or property.
They pay attention to the affluent, the super motivated and the
specialized interest hunter. They
also respect the average hunter, the person of low or middle income,
who can’t leave work at the drop of a hat to run errands.
They value the hunter who works two jobs and has little tolerance or
time for a blizzard of rules and forms. Most
important they are concerned that mountains of rules and aggressive attitude
could drive away hunters and destroy our base.
I have been personally pleased to hear each of these examples from DNR
employees.
The
new Director of DNR has, I believe made a genuine effort to address these
problems and set a sound direction. On
the strength of his attitude and those representations we are in general
support of the fee increase. We
will see what the future brings.