The Second Amendment isn’t about hunting. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The only “hunting” it was intended for was the hunting of tyrants and invaders. That’s it.
But gun rights advocates and hunters should be natural allies. In fact, Cam even talked about this today on the Cam & Company podcast with Pete Rodgers, the host of Christian Outdoors podcast.
Hunting involves firearms, even if not exclusively, and that means one should fight to preserve gun rights because the people who will ignore the Second Amendment to go after AR-15s will use them to go after more traditional hunting rifles.
In many cases, that’s true, but it’s not universal.
Still, they should be natural allies, which is what came to mind when I found this piece about Rep. Derrick Van Orden.
Congressman Derrick Van Orden brought together hunting advocates and fellow lawmakers Saturday to discuss protecting gun rights and preserving Wisconsin’s outdoor traditions.
The event, which included time at the rifle and pistol range followed by a roundtable discussion, drew House Natural Resources Committee Chair Bruce Westerman from Arkansas, Hunter Nation’s Wisconsin State Director and local outdoor advocates.
Van Orden, who represents Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, stressed the importance of voter participation among the hunting community.
“Only about 30 to 50% of hunters around the nation, it’s about 50% here in Wisconsin, actually vote and if all of our hunters got out and voted we would not have an issue with worrying about losing the 2nd Amendment,” Van Orden said.
He’s not really wrong.
The problem is that many hunters are just concerned with themselves. They don’t realize that their hunting rifles are on the agenda for attack, but not until they’re called something like “sniper rifles” or something equally sinister. They’ll be called “weapons of war” and not without some precedent, since bolt-actions are still part of the military’s arsenal over a century after they were first introduced there.
It’s pretty simple, really. If you want to protect your rights, you need to protect the rights of people to do some things you might not approve of. You might not think I need an AR-15, but if you want to keep your hunting rifles, you’d damn well better fight against assault weapon bans or else you risk losing everything.
Just as free speech means I have to defend Nazis marching through Skokie, IL, gun rights means I have to defend some people doing things I might not like as a person.
Suck it up.
Van Orden is right about our numbers, too. If hunters turned out in good numbers and weren’t a bunch of Fudds, we’d never have to worry about our gun rights being taken away, and restoration of what has been taken will be much easier.
We should be natural allies, and terms like “Fudd” shouldn’t exist.
It exists, though, because some people are too damn selfish to recognize how their own neck will end up on the chopping block sooner or later. It’s like the useful idiots who helped communism come to power in various countries, only to find themselves up against the wall.
It might be more metaphorical than literal, but the comparison is apt.
So don’t give them a chance.
Editor’s Note: President Trump and Republicans across the country are doing everything they can to protect our Second Amendment rights and right to self-defense.
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