There’s More to a No-Brainer Than a Lot of Gunnies Believe
August 1, 2004

by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor

Dave Workman’s thorough report about the recent flap between the Outdoor Writers Association of America (OWAA) and the National Rifle Association (NRA) which begins on Page 1 of this issue may be only the tip of the iceberg. Let’s take a look at what many gun rights activists, especially long-term Republicans, may think is a “no-brainer” type of presidential election.

The gun issue and the so-called hunter vote is a lot more complex than many imagine, and the people who make up that voting block are also more complex. Their approach to voting may not be as simple as some suspect.

The OWAA-NRA flap is about several ideologies and political priorities. It’s also about personal agendas and peer pressure. Clearly the old, familiar “hook and bullet” school of outdoor writers has been thinned by many factors: changes in social priorities; lifestyles; less access to huntable acreage and fishable streams; less media space devoted to consumptive sports, and politically correct peer pressure.

Nowadays, outdoor writers for major urban newspapers are required by editorial policy to give as much attention to the non-consumptive outdoor pursuits while reflecting their newspaper’s concerns for the environment. Nowadays, being a sportsman conservationist isn’t enough to satisfy the demands of editors and urban/suburban readers. One has to focus on the right side of preservation of flora and fauna, whether or not some of those endangered creatures ever actually existed in the first place. Finally, the outdoor journalist of today must also subscribe to some degree to fault-free school of crime, which means they have to place some, if not all, blame for the culture of violence on guns rather than the young psychopaths who commit the crimes.

Newsroom Makeup
Don’t forget to throw in an editorial climate that is decidedly liberal and Democrat-leaning, that finds great value in the entire splintered platform of that party. Of course, there are Republicans in the newsroom, but many of them are as liberal as the Democrats.

The OWAA-NRA flap is not so much about organizations as it is about philosophies and political strategies. It is very much like the current attempt of Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards, the 2004 Democratic Presidential ticket, trying to finesse the gun vote by getting themselves pictured as hunters with shotguns in their hands.

What the Kerry-Edwards team and the greener outdoor writers are saying is that some limitations on gun rights are okay as long as a citizen has some access to guns for hunting, especially “good” citizens like them.

Of course, most readers who are still reading this column will see this as an elitist “gun control light” approach. However, it is both a prevalent social attitude and a political strategy.

The Kerry-Edwards and the Bush-Cheney campaigns both know that the gun issue can be a costly one. The Republicans bank on the gun vote almost as much as the Democrats bank on the Black vote. Both minorities are taken for granted by the major parties, but both are hoping to get some of the other party’s base.

That is why in April I devoted a column to the pro-Kerry unions trying to win back some valuable hunter votes by selling an environmentalist approach to guns rather than a self-defense, or survival, approach. The unions and the gun rights organizations battled it out in several key battleground states in the 2000 election. That kind of struggle is at hand again in 2004.

In Pennsylvania in 2000, the unions managed to sell hunter-gunowner voters on Gore. In Arkansas, Tennessee and West Virginia, the NRA and pro-gun activists managed to sell hunter-gunowner voters on Bush.

What will happen this year remains to be seen, but there is a definite strategy by the Kerry-Edwards campaign and their union supporters to promote the greener approach to winning some of the critical gun vote by selling hunting rights and hunting lands access rather than strictly gun ownership as a right.

Ban Renewal
Now some readers will wonder about the Bush-Cheney statements accepting renewal of the so-called assault weapon ban. But I might suggest that the White House approach is the opposite of the Democrats’ strategy. They are trying to appeal to the suburban soccer moms by saying they would endorse some continued controls—but only after somebody else is willing to fight it out in Congress without the White House pushing like the Clinton Administration did.

Of course, most of our readers know that the Second Amendment isn’t about duck hunting—or deer hunting, or hunting anything else. Yes, when a hunter goes afield he or she is exercising his or her Second Amendment rights, but so is the person who carries a firearm for defense whether openly or concealed. And so is the person who has a firearm at home for any lawful purpose. Hunting is part of the equation of rights, but not the whole ball of wax.

And hunting issues are complex as well. The results of a recent survey by the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) provide instruction, and so do the surveys that anti-gunners tout which claim that gunowners, and NRA members, support a renewal of the “assault weapons” ban.

When you look at these surveys, it is easy to see why the vote is far more complex than some would imagine.

The June NWF surveys conducted by Bellwether Research involved 752 telephone interviews involving 500 respondents selected from fishing license sales and 252 selected from hunting license sales. Needless to say, many of the fishers also proved to be hunters.

But in those surveys, a majority of respondents favored the Bush Administration on three of six conservation issues, and disagreed with the White House on the other three.

Then, in their efforts to press for renewal of the gun ban, the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) and the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence (EFSGV) on July 13 released 10 new state polls measuring attitudes of likely voters—specifically gunowners, union members, and NASCAR fans—toward the “assault weapons” ban.

The surveys, compiled in a report titled “Unconventional Wisdom,” show that strong majorities of Americans support banning military-style guns such as Uzis and AK-47s, regardless of geographic area, gun ownership, union membership, and even NRA support. The findings are in line with previous national polling conducted by the CFA, as well as the National Annenberg Election Survey. The April 2004 Annenberg study found that 64% of gunowner households and half of NRA-member households support banning “assault weapons.”

Battleground States
The surveys examined likely voter attitudes in 10 key states, including: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, almost all of them considered battleground states in the November elections.

According to those polls:

— Majorities of gunowners in all but two states favor renewing the ban. Even in those states (MO and OH), only slightly less than 50% of gunowners and NRA supporters favor renewing the ban.

— In nine of 10 states surveyed, union households support renewing the ban by at least 60%; similarly, more than 60% of NASCAR fans support renewing the ban in four out of the five states in which this demographic question was asked.

— Voters in Midwestern states support renewing the “assault weapons” ban only slightly more than in Southwestern states. Midwestern states (OH, WI, MI, and MO) averaged 72% support for renewing the ban. Southwestern states (AZ and NM) averaged 67% support.

— Voters in rural states, traditionally seen as very conservative on “gun control,” strongly favor renewing the ban; 68% of both South Dakota and West Virginia voters support renewing the ban.

You or I might be single issue voters, but there are millions of voters for whom the Nov. 2 decision will be a difficult one—and that’s not counting Iraq, the economy, health care and other issues.