And The Beat Goes On And On

The calling Mark Udall anything but a moderate drumbeat that is. Usually we would only count a remark if it came from a msm or a liberal blog. This one comes from a blog that appears to be a non partisan hunter's blog. Udall is trying to buy hunter's votes with legislation as a part of David Sirota's "land politics" strategy, making this a legitimate blog to count, we believe.

This blog is located in Virginia and is terriermandotcom. He said:

Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA) has introduced the "Teddy Roosevelt Bring Back our Public Lands Act," which would limit the amount of money that states can charge non-residents who hunt big game exclusively on U.S. Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management land. Duncan Hunter seems unaware that this law is unconstitutional under the 10th Amendment but don't spend too many brain cells thinking about it, as this legislation is not going anywhere. There is not even a Senate version of this bill. Ben Nelson, chairman of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus (a bi-partisan group consisting of more than half the members of the Senate and House who support hunting and fishing), is dead-set against this bill, as are such diverse Members of Congress as reliably right-wing Rep. C.L. “Butch” Otter (R-ID) and reliably left-wing Rep. Mark Udall (D-CO). So why was this bill even introduced? Simple: Election-year pandering to hunters.

That makes the count:

Extremist 2
Reliably Left Wing 1
Liberal 6
Moderate 0
Conservative Not in this lifetime

Our last post on this subject was here.

Gun enthusiasts will laugh at the previous post on this blog. Actually, almost anyone who isn't a total hypocrite will laugh at it. The hypocrites will grit their teeth.

The Elk Hunting Sop

On the one hand, Mark Udall is promoting his efforts in Congress to allow hunters to cull National Park elk herds.

The herds need to be culled. According to the AP, Teddy Roosevelt National Park reintroduced elk in 1985. It has room for 400 elk, but has 1100.

The park service is opposed to hunting. It would rather spend millions building fences, rounding up the excess animals, and killing them in the organized way that cattle are sent to slaughter. When questioned about the issue of using hunters as "authorized agents" to cull the herds, one park service official pontificated:

[ Bill ] Whitworth said Monday that the Park Service already was aware it could use authorized agents, but that they cannot be used to circumvent the prohibition on hunting.

"If it looks like a hunt, it is a hunt, and that's the standard we're going to be held to," he said.

It is laudable that Mark Udall is trying to solve this problem in a very public way. Unfortunately, this policy, if implemented, benefits a few, or at most a few dozen hunters.

On the other hand, Mark Udall's Federal land roadless policy will put millions of acres of forests and streams effectively off limits to hunting and fishing. If a hunter or a fisherman cannot get close to the area he would like to hunt and fish in because the roads are off limits to the public, then the area is closed.

Mark Udall's dirty little secret is that he hates hunting, hates guns, and hates gun owners. He is just clever enough as a politician that he has found a public way to conceal that fact.

Hunter's Rights

Mark Udall is promoting the use of hunters to cull the elk herd in Rocky Mountain National Park. He is also using the false argument that drilling on the Roan Plateau will interfere with hunting.

Bill Ritter's campaign also courted gun owners, in part by promising to build shooting ranges around the state. The promise was so successful that I have written elsewhere about registered Republicans sporting Ritter bumper stickers because they thought he would protect their gun rights better than Bob Beauprez. Events have proven them wrong, as anyone who studied Ritter's record could have predicted. Ritter signed at least two anti-gun bills and couldn't find room in his budget for the promised ranges.

It turns out that both men are using a cynical strategy to woo away hunters from the Republican party.

Note the heavy use of the word "progressive" in the SquareState essay. Progressives, especially eastern progressives, have a history of turning on gun owners with a vengeance. Party discipline would require a Senator Udall to support gun control. Today's question for Mark Udall and Bill Ritter is: What good are hunting rights, hunting access, and phantom shooting ranges if no one has the right to own a gun?