president’s
column
Introduce Someone To Hunting This Season
As a lifelong hunter, this is the most enjoyable time of the year for me and if you are a hunter, too, you probably feel the same way.
No matter where you live or what you hunt—deer or ducks, quail or
cottontails, grouse or geese, elk, moose or squirrels—hunting season is probably in full swing in your neck of the woods right now, just as it is in mine.
I hope you will be able to get out there, enjoy Mother Nature and have some fun. And, please, share the fun with someone new to the sport.
Hunting occupies a very important position in our culture and our country.It has been a proud American tradition since the beginning. And that’s a good thing, because hunting exercises and edifies many of the best values and virtues that make America unique in the world.
Hunting teaches and exemplifies basic American values—self-sufficiency, independence, personal ethics and individual responsibility—all of which are necessary for a person to be a safe and responsible hunter.
Likewise, providing food for your family while being a responsible steward of our shared natural resources, and supporting healthy, sustainable wildlife populations, both philosophically and financially, are also part of being a responsible American hunter.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, hunting means exercising and taking a personal stake in your fundamental Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
Every time you go out to the woods, fields, marshes and mountains to hunt, every one of these vital ideals is strengthened and sustained. And by giving just one other person just one chance to participate in our hunting heritage, you could double the size of your personal contribution to freedom from one dedicated defender of freedom to two.
Imagine the impact if 14 or 15 million hunters followed your lead, swelling our ranks to 28 or 30 million!
Hunting has attracted millions of Americans to the NRA and to a broader understanding and more passionate belief in the Second Amendment as the ultimate guarantee of our freedom and personal safety.
When it comes to hunter safety training, NRA wrote the book back in 1949.
Today, NRA programs bring American hunters like you the best safety and skills training available anywhere.
For example, NRA’s Youth Hunter Education Challenge (YHEC) trains young men and women not just in shotgun, rifle, muzzleloading and archery, but also in orienteering, wildlife identification and advanced hunter-safety drills that have helped make America's youngest hunters the safest hunters in the field. To date, more than 1 million youngsters have met the YHEC challenge, and each now has a much deeper appreciation of the need to conserve and protect America’s wildlife and the habitat in which it lives and thrives.
If you're an established hunter and you want to hone your own skills while helping others do the same, you can do so through NRA's Hunter Clinic Instructor Program with courses on wild turkey, whitetail deer, Western big game hunting and much more.
Today, 2 million American women hunt and 4 million more enjoy target shooting. And every year more women get their start through NRA's Women on Target hunting excursions and instructional shooting clinics.
The NRA Great American Hunters Tour, and its 40-head collection of North America’s highest-scoring whitetail mounts, including Boone & Crockett’s all-time No. 1 “typical,” brings hunters the latest tips and techniques at sportsmen's shows nationwide.
For more information on how NRA's many hunting programs can help you reach out to first-time hunters, please visit www.nrahunterrights.org, www.nra.org or call NRA's Hunter Services Department at (703) 267-1500.
Your NRA is America's foremost defender of hunting and hunters’ rights, and hunters are among America's most important stakeholders in the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
So I ask you to do your part to keep this precious American heritage alive and thriving by introducing someone new to our hunting traditions this year.
There are many men and women, young and old, who would enjoy hunting and cherish Second Amendment freedom much more if only a parent or grand-parent, spouse, aunt or uncle, neighbor or friend would offer them the opportunity to try hunting just once.
I say “just once” because just one trip to the field; just one morning in a duck blind, goose pit or tree stand; just one day in the woods or watching a good dog work is all it takes to turn just one great hunting experience into a lifetime as a responsible American hunter enjoying the exercise of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
And once they have enjoyed “the exercise of the right,” those new hunters will surely become brand-new defenders of our precious Right to Keep and Bear Arms, as well.
Yes, take a youngster hunting, but don’t forget his mom and dad will enjoy becoming a part of America’s great
hunting heritage, too.
