PRESIDENT'S COLUMN
By Ronald L. Schmeits, President

NRA Supports Hunters' Rights

September is here, and along with it, hunting season.

In my home state of New Mexico, and from California to the Carolinas, each September 1 American sportsmen and women return to the fields, fencerows and watering holes of our nation to engage in the timeless tradition of dove hunting.

For many American families, it's an annual ritual and a much-anticipated kickoff for the entire hunting season. For me, the highlight each year is hunting pheasant and quail across the Midwest.

So if you're a hunter—as most NRA members are—here's a way you can help give our sport a new relevance, additional supporters and more informed, involved and active participants.

When you meet up with friends for an afternoon or weekend of hunting this fall, or when you see other hunters at your deer camp or gun club while sighting in your rifle, make it a point to tell them: All hunters belong in the NRA.

Here's some ammunition that can help you show them why.

Whether or not they know it, the fact is the NRA does much more for America's 18 million hunters than just defend the Second Amendment Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

For example, we all know that it was the NRA whose proven hunter safety training principles formed the basis for hunter safety courses from coast to coast.

But did you know that our NRA now underwrites and oversees the most advanced youth hunter safety and skills training in the country, through the Youth Hunter Education Challenge?

It works. Hunting and the shooting sports are among the safest of outdoor activities. And many states are now finding that their youngest hunters are their safest hunters.

We all know the NRA fights to protect the firearms you use to hunt. But did you know that our NRA also fights to keep public hunting lands and shooting facilities open, and to open up more land to hunting and shooting?

We've won shooting range protection laws in 47 states. And we're fighting for "no net loss" laws mandating that if a state closes a hunting or shooting facility, they must open another of equal size elsewhere in the state.

You've heard how "animal rights" radicals have tried to booby-trap deer stands, vandalize duck blinds, poison hunting dogs and drive game away from hunters.

But did you know that our NRA has helped win hunter protection laws in all 50 states?

So if some PETA protester tries to sabotage your hunt, it's possible that protester could be prosecuted!

That's just the beginning.

The NRA also underwrites many hunter safety, wildlife conservation, habitat improvement and hunter-access projects through grants awarded by The NRA Foundation.

In fact, since its inception, The NRA Foundation has awarded more than $126 million in grants to support such efforts across the United States.

We now have a website for hunters like you—NRAHuntersRights.org—where you can go to get all the news about our sport, including up-to-the-minute intelligence about new hunting legislation or regulation in your state or in Washington, D.C.

You'll find a section covering lead bullet bans and the disinformation that's used to advance them, as well as news about what the anti-gun and anti-hunting lobbies are doing to turn your pastime into a relic of the past.

NRAHuntersRights.org gives you links to every state's fish and game agency so you can plan your next hunt, as well as a searchable database of places to hunt and ranges where you can shoot in your area.

The website includes a forum where you can discuss all the hunting issues of the day and the Trophy Gallery, where you can post pictures from your latest hunt. So log on to NRAHuntersRights.org today and get your fellow hunters to do so as well.

Nobody defends hunters' rights like the NRA and nobody offers hunters more benefits for their membership buck than the NRA.

So when you go out into the woods and fields this fall and you meet hunters who aren't yet NRA members—or who have allowed their memberships to lapse—tell them the truth about our Association. Tell them a few of the things we do that benefit them, whether they're members or not. Then, ask them to do their fair share by joining or renewing their NRA membership.

If every American hunter joins forces with the NRA, we'll be unified to defend our sport, our firearms and our freedoms from every enemy!