Oldtimr

You and I know the danger is more imaginary than real, the noise is the noise and to those who would like at least one day without hearing it when they are outside their homes, it matters. In politics perception is reality and it steers what politicians do, if people think something is dangerous or bad, it is bad or dangerous! I can't even begin to tell you how many times a legislator, both Senators and Representatives gave me the perception is reality line when I had to deal with them.

I will leave it with this: every time a hunter does something stupid, dangerous or illegal and they are seen by someone, the story is magnified every time it passes from one person to the other until it is completely blown out of proportion. These kind of things have a large effect on why people oppose certain things that affect hunters and hunting, real or imaginary, see above paragraph. Hunters need to clean up their act because one bad one can do damage to all of us. We need to tell people when they are doing something stupid or dangerous whether or not they are in our hunting party and illegal acts need to be reported to a WCO each and every time we see them. By being serious about doing that we can have an affect on most other hunters and when they know their odds of being caught are getting higher each year, many will either quit hunting or quit violating. Many hunters do not believe there are that many violations, they are wrong. I stopped saying only one hunter out of a hundred violates, as we used to tell people, a long time ago because I know it is worse than that. Hunters can choose to be their worst enemies or be part of a solution that gives us all a better image. I assure you, our legislators can and will reduce hunting if they think it is their best interest come election time, we will never outnumber non hunters. OK, off the pulpit.