This past week was the week of this annual thing called “The Shot Show” in Vegas. It’s a yearly convention of everything gun including lots of hunting. You can be excused for not knowing that, it’s not real newsworthy. To tell you the truth, I pretty much don’t pay attention to it as I don’t buy things gun or hunting related, I’m not a consumer. That said Donald Trump and his son gave a sit down interview to Field and Stream the iconic hook and bullet magazine, who by the way also interviewed the then senator Obama when he was running for president.
You might have heard of Trump’s son who is a hunter, went to Africa, and was noticed by the types who get all a flutter over that kind of thing.
Trump made the correct noises even if he did end most sentences with the words second amendment. I wasn’t totally sure Mr. Trump understood that 2A issues are not the same as hunting issues.
Field and Stream: I’d like to talk about public land. Seventy percent of hunters in the West hunt on public lands managed by the federal government. Right now, there’s a lot of discussion about the federal government transferring those lands to states and the divesting of that land. Is that something you would support as President?
Trump: I don’t like the idea because I want to keep the lands great, and you don’t know what the state is going to do. I mean, are they going to sell if they get into a little bit of trouble? And I don’t think it’s something that should be sold. We have to be great stewards … blah blah blah anti Hillary stuff.
Trump also spoke at the shot show itself and someone who was there said,
“He and his sons were given the mike at the Outdoor TV awards show tonight. They didn't talk for too long and of the few points they mentioned, they did say, "If Donald Trump is President, under no circumstance will your public lands be transferred to the states, nor will you have to worry about any other effort that would result in those lands being sold."
The fact that he took the time to make that topic one of his few comments in this setting caught my attention.”
I also saw this post on Facebook from the Teddy Roosevelt Conservation Partnership a leftward hunting org mostly funded by a union pac $s if memory serves me right. The fact that Trump is saying the right things is being noticed. A facebook post of an interview with the smaller Trump by the more leftward Backcountry Hunters and Anglers generated angry comments. People hating on Trump in general and not wishing to listen to his son.
Of course this is this past week, two weeks before in the Reno paper he sang a different tune, railing against the BLM and heavy handed DC bureaucrats managing western lands. Frankly from the sound of it Trump has no idea of how public lands or hunters figure into Western politics. Trump’s son might well be a hunter but I don’t think Trump has ever stepped far off the pavement. I’d be unsurprised if ten days after being elected he bought Yosemite and Yellowstone to make another Trump Tower.
Here is Trump’s son in a long interview for the web site called appropriately enough, bow site. Bowsite Interview with Trump's son (Long)
In reading postings to hunting forums I’m fairly surprised at some of the comments. Public land privatization is a burning issue with Western hunters, it is the one single make or break issue and Republicans have pretty much aligned themselves with the “privatize it” bunch. There’s a saying that Democrats want to take your guns and Republicans want to take your land. For now the possibility of land privatization is a whole lot scarier than gun confiscation.
Most people don’t live and breath politics or political issues. They have a general feel for someone and maybe one issue that can’t be overlooked. For at least some conservative Republican hunters, Trump earned himself second place (after the hippy socialist), and to others he became a way for them to stay in the Republican camp.
It’s doubtful that either Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton would make gestures at all towards hunting until after the primaries are over. Too much chance of alienating one segment or another of the Democratic Party.