Ballot Initiatives, Loss of hunting, How can we lose?

[Coveyleader]

Serious question. When you see prices like this being paid at one event it means we have very smart, successful, outside of the box type people amongst the hunting community. So the question is, how and why do we continuously lose hunting seasons, etc. throughout the nation? We hear the excuses of anti's being well funded, organized, etc. yet a common theme in the hunting community is that place is "screwed" I'm moving to X state.

I don't know what to think of this when at one event, we drop 4 million in excess cash, yet in the next year or so, AZ, CO, etc will most likely face additional bans on species that can be hunted. It's clear to me we have very successful people amongst us yet we can't manage to even maintain what we have left, and most surely will loose.

 

[dirtytough]

Because a ban on lion hunting in AZ/CO/OR/etc doesn’t change anything for these hunters. They will still be able to buy a sheep tag next year and the year after. Same with deer and elk gov tags. Those tags won’t get cut when the population declines. Just tags for the average Joe will be cut.

 

[coloyooper]

^^ yep these guys have bigger things to worry about than a few game law changes. They’ll just buy another hunt somewhere else.

 

[Rob5589]

Because a bunch of wealthy folks have it different than the average guy. Put something on the ballot to end "to the highest bidder" tags and maybe, just a slim maybe, they would focus some energy and money that way.

 

[ODB]

Because it’s not about money or funding. Anti-hunters do not believe you should be allowed to kill animals - period. Even if they eat meat, they believe that deliberately making an effort to personally kill an animal is psychopathic.

They generally know less than nothing about the animals themselves, it’s the “idea” of killing animals they disagree with.

You are fighting an ideology, and not a reasoned one at that. I confronted a signature gatherer in Seattle once about the ban on ivory, etc. She admitted she knew nothing of the animals or issues, she was a paid signature gatherer. Told me it would protect tigers and other things she knew nothing about.

The issue often is the initiative process. Antagonists gather signatures from people who hear a single pitch line while walking in or out of a store, then the issue shows up on a ballot where equally ignorant people put the goddam thing into law.

This is the issue.

 

[Coveyleader]

The issue often is the initiative process. Antagonists gather signatures from people who hear a single pitch line while walking in or out of a store, then the issue shows up on a ballot where equally ignorant people put the goddam thing into law.

This is the issue.

Exactly, and successful people become successful because they learn and work the system, mingle with lawmakers, know the inside game on taxes etc. Are you telling me some of these CEO types couldn't form some sort of round table assembly to think of ways to get ballot based biology off the books? Many, not all influence law makers to push incentives so their business benefit. It's no different than what's going on. I find that hard to believe. That list from the "Sheep Show" is a drop in the bucket in terms of prices being paid across NA. It's like these big time orgs like P&Y, B&C, RMEF just don't get it. Without real thought, and energy put into these ballot based states, all your donations, online polls, surveys, "help support" are just fluff whether we like it or not.

 

[AZ8]

Those groups can’t rally engage politically. They’d lose their 501c(3) status.

We need 501c(4) organizations so we can enter the political arena and fight head on.

 

[Fatcamp]

Because "Idiocacy" was a documentary.