U.S.A. -(AmmoLand.com)- There was a time in America when universities taught young adults how to think, not what to think. Take an idea floated by two university professors who want to upend the funding firearm manufacturers and importers pay for wildlife restoration and conservation. They want America to think because criminals misuse guns that the industry making them shouldn’t have a hand in wildlife conservation.
Two professors, John Cassellas Connors, Assistant Professor of Geography, Texas A&M University, and Christopher Rhea, Assistant Professor of Public Affairs, The Ohio State University, propose this idea is essential because hunters are in decline and gun ownership is somehow immoral.
They propose that since criminals misuse firearms, the taxes generated by manufacturers, and supported by those who lawfully use firearms, should have no part in wildlife conservation. In a wild twist of logic, they claim, “This means that protecting public lands and wildlife is irrevocably linked to social violence.”
This idea is a recipe for disaster for wildlife. Worse, it is an idea that attempts to divorce hunters from their role as conservationists.
Hard Data
Here are the up-to-date figures the two professors chose to ignore. Firearm and ammunition manufacturers have contributed over $14.7 billion since 1937 to the Wildlife Restoration Trust Fund, through the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act, commonly known as the Pittman-Robertson Act. Contributions were so great in recent years that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced $1.5 billion was apportioned to the states for the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration (WSFR) Program, of which the Wildlife Restoration Fund is part. Of that $1.5 billion, firearm and ammunition excise taxes contributed $1.1 billion.
Those funds paid for the recovery of animal species including whitetail deer, Rocky Mountain elk, pronghorn antelope, wild turkeys, and migratory waterfowl. It has also aided in the recovery of animals that sportsmen and women don’t hunt, including the American bald eagle.
The professors were also wrong in their assessment of how the NSSF-led Target Practice and Marksmanship Training Support Act works and what it will do for wildlife restoration. The two claimed that the law, also called the “Range Bill,” would siphon off money meant for wildlife conservation. In fact, money has always been available for states to construct new or improve existing public access gun ranges. The law, signed by President Donald Trump in 2019, made it more efficient for states to access those funds. Instead of a 25 percent match, states need only a 10 percent match to access 90 percent matching funds from USFWS’s WSFR funds.
That enables more gun owners to safely practice firearm safety, to attend hunter safety classes to obtain hunting licenses, and, in turn, generate more funds to support wildfire conservation.
The professors were correct in one aspect. The overwhelming majority, as high as 80 percent of Pittman-Robertson excise taxes paid by manufacturing, is tied to recreational target shooting. They’re wrong again, though, that hunting participation is down. The authors showed that there were 11.5 million licensed hunters in 2016, but data showed that hunting numbers by 2018 were already topping 15.6 million. That still didn’t include the bump in hunting participation brought on by COVID-19 restrictions. Nearly every state saw increases in hunting licenses sales, but full-year data for 2020 won’t be available until later this year. They also discounted the total of 38,854,259 hunting licenses, tags, permits, and stamps sold in 2020. That generated another $902,356,898 for wildlife conservation within the states.
Law-Abiding
Here are a few more figures for the professor to crunch. In 2020, there were 21 million background checks for the sale of firearms. That included over 8.4 million people who purchased a firearm for the first time. In 2021, there were 18.5 million background checks for a gun sale, with over 5.4 million of them going to first-timers. Pew Research estimated at over 100 million Americans live in a household with a firearm, though that figure is likely low as many gun owners would self-select out of polling indicating their personal firearm ownership for privacy reasons. There are over 439 million lawfully-owned firearms in America today.
Each one of those gun buyers was required to undergo an FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) verification to ensure they weren’t a person prohibited from possessing a firearm. That means they haven’t committed a felony that would preclude them from firearm ownership. That means they’re not criminals.
The professors need to do more studying. The firearm industry doesn’t sell firearms to criminals. Criminal misuse of firearms doesn’t represent today’s law-abiding gun owner. Conservation is in good hands because of excise taxes paid by firearm and ammunition manufacturers. Higher education, though, is suspect with professors like these.
About The National Shooting Sports Foundation
NSSF is the trade association for the firearm industry. Its mission is to promote, protect and preserve hunting and shooting sports. Formed in 1961, NSSF has a membership of thousands of manufacturers, distributors, firearm retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen’s organizations, and publishers nationwide. For more information, visit nssf.org
The fact that in the 60s you could mail order a hunting rifle from Sears and Roebuck that had no serial numbers must keep these people awake at night knowing all those ghost guns are out there in the hands of law biding hunters . LMFAO
60s try from the 1800s both sears ond Montgomery ward , so the numbers that are still sitting in barns were they were set down must be staggering I have one I found in the back of a model a ford in a pa junkyard in the early seventies, when i showed the guy at the counter he showed me a room with twenty or thirty more took home the rifle and a 16 guage shotgun ,spring shackles a horn early and the windshield pre vacuum wiper , my uncle collected and restored cars and trucks ,he had an 1898… Read more »
Some should not be teaching or influencing, some should not have children and some should be euthanized for wasting oxygen
Face it. The vast majority of those teaching in public schools would be public wards were it not for their public teaching jobs. We see the net result every day.
John Cassellas Connors, Assistant Professor of Geography, Texas A&M University
It breaks my heart to see that this leftist professor teaches at A&M. How in the world did they let him into that august school? College Station and A&M are about as conservative as you can get, but now they have a professor who hasn’t a clue about the Pittman-Robertson Act and what it does for wildlife conservation.
Come on Aggies, purge the leftist…
Educated well beyond their intelligence.
Zero wisdom. There is a huge difference between ‘intelligence’ and wisdom. Intelligence is very hard to measure. Very hard. Wisdom is obvious to those who can discern the true from the less than true.
wisdom is knowing when not to say something, and when to speak up hummmm we seam to have some HERE short on this, let alone in general population
difference between smart and intelligent, they can repeat what they are told and remember it , smart know what it means intelligent a parrot is smart
The “Target Practice and Marksmanship Training Support Act” did not stop the Missouri Department of Conservation, who used these funds for a shooting range upgrade, from telling my club that we could no longer rent the range before public hours for PPC competition or NRA Service Rifle matches. Both disciplines require shooting with less than 3 seconds between shots (Oh my!), PPC uses silhouette targets (Oh no!) and shooting prone may expose us to lead.
Which bureaucrat in the Missouri Department of Conservation decided that? I’m thinking … find his boss or a legislator that will cause that one to “review” the decision. I hope that your group will fight this, and good luck.
or move the offender to a meaningful job like emptying trash cans
Yes, that comes later after a couple of bad OERs.
This is one of the most graphic examples of the difference between knowledge and wisdom I can find to date. A lot of people have great memories and can intake and parrot massive amounts of knowledge without ever being touched by wisdom. This is exactly why our universities are such hot beds of Progressive New Left magical thinking such as this. We have all known people who have great memories but who completely lack analytical skills. Our modern education system rewards whose who can spew knowledge but does not reward those who can actually exercise what is called Critical Thinking… Read more »
Educated fools is what my grandfather would have called these two meatheads.
Wisdom is absent at the modern university. Your Grandfather was a wise man.
think about it most hunting guns that were not military made before 1968 ARE ghost guns by their definition, I own at least six that I did not make that have no serial number, these people are beyond stupid
It seems these “professors “ object to conservation money going to fund public shooting ranges because ranges have nothing to do with hunting or conservation. So hunters don’t go to ranges to break in, sight in or practice with their hunting arms? Having access to ranges also benefits conservation because shooters are less likely to use public land that may be negatively impacted by shooting.
Of course I realize that these points require one to use logic and common sense, which don’t seem to be prerequisites for university professors.
I can’t believe it!!! PROFESSORS WRONG!!! How can anyone think that??? FACETIOUS
An Assistant Professor of Geography, Texas A&M University, and an Assistant Professor of Public Affairs, The Ohio State University… Obviously, firearm “experts”…
Yeah, crime experts, too!
Can we cancel the prof from A&M? Assistant professors do not have tenure, and he is engaged with anti-Texan advocacy. Guess it is time to write to the regents and suggest he be shown the door.
Very much agree with the article’s statement! There will always be someone that will be against the common public. They will do it for their interests instead of thinking from the common interest perspective. Just read a few employment law essay examples, and you will see that happening in other fields, https://studyhippo.com/essay-examples/employment-law/. “The professors need to do more studying. The firearm industry doesn’t sell firearms to criminals.” Over a hundred years, the U.S developed good and optimized laws in the gun industry and will even improve. But the “banning” approach of the professors is just a joke.