Brian Donnelly writes to the Buffalo News:
As the 2013 big game season ends, I wonder how many hunters boycotted it. I did. I didn’t buy the licenses, the ammo, another game camera or anything else.
I did too. But then I do that every year as I don’t hunt.
The big game hunters of New York State are the only successful and dependable tool Albany has to manage the deer and bear populations. The National Rifle Association, the Shooters Committee on Political Education and the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association are the loudest voices in the face of the SAFE Act. Yet they didn’t call for a boycott of our big game season. Why?
Because there was no way it was going to accomplish anything even if it worked, which it wasn’t going to in the first place. It doesn’t address the issue.
The passing of the SAFE Act created a windfall of profits for firearm and ammunition manufacturers and retailers. It increased memberships in every Second Amendment rights organization nationally and statewide. SCOPE membership is said to have doubled.
The 637,176 big game licenses sold in 2011 generated $30.2 million! That is just the “big game” segment of sales. The solidarity of small game hunters, trappers and fishermen standing together in total non-participation of this current season would have sent a shockwave of opposition to Albany – license revenue, sales tax revenue, retailers screaming bloody murder.
These “sportsmen” are already standing together in near total non-participation in the political process. Has a single “sportsmen’s” group taken issue with Governor Cuomo trying to portray himself as their best bud? No. Not a single member of the state legislature or statewide candidate for public office has been elected or un-elected because of the actions of “sportsmen” and they all know it. That is the issue.
Total deer take for 2012 was 242,957, based on a statewide hunter reporting rate of 44.3 percent. Think about a quarter million deer still walking around the state now. And 100,000 or more fawns next spring. The statewide 2012 black bear harvest was 1,337 animals.
This means nothing in Albany.
That’s a protest, raising awareness in non-hunters and the anti-gun public. Clear-thinking New Yorkers know there are fat cats at the top of most organizations. The NRA has them; SCOPE and NYSRPA are growing them, too. The loudest voices really don’t want to solve the problem. It’s a simple dog-and-pony show to grow membership, increasing their revenue.
Fat cats? I don’t get paid anything. Where’s my wheelbarrow full of cash?
As an animal lover, I don’t hunt. I help stray cats and once spent 5K on vet bills for one of the ones that I took in. I understand hunting has to happen – not trying to stop anybody (please get sighted in close as possible to moa) – I’m just not the guy who’s gonna drop the hammer. But the point I want to make is this. “Progressives” (Marxist scumbags) have always tried to sell themselves as the great bleeding hearts who love everybody and everything. They will create a perfect utopian world for all with only love and compassion – everything will be perfect. Wouldn’t you expect them to hate any hunting or hurting of animals or anything? But from the getgo, Cumhole, Billary, et al. have attributed 2A to the right to hunt. This a disingenuous fucking idiotic interpretation of 2A from a governer of a state (the left went to this stunt along with “gun safety” after Heller), a fraud on its face, and an insult to everyone’s intelligence. But it also reveals the sociopathic, ruthless, despot menace that they really are!