(CNSNews.com) - The U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance accuses an animal rights group of using “distasteful tactics” to push its anti-hunting agenda.
On November 11, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, urging her to support legislation that would ban hunting by anyone younger than 18.
The U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance says PETA is attempting to exploit recent news coverage of an eight-year-old Arizona boy who allegedly shot and killed his father, Vincent Romero, and another man with a .22 caliber rifle.
“Mr. Romero taught his son how to kill animals with a rifle much like the one his son reportedly used to kill him,” Tracy Reiman, PETA’s executive vice president, wrote to the governor.
“Teaching children to see others as nothing more than living targets has deadly consequences that can extend into the human population. We urge you to support legislation to ban children under the age of 18 from hunting.”
Tradition
“There is no reason to believe that banning hunting for youth would have prevented this act,” said U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance Executive Vice President Rick Story. “A ban on hunting for those under 18 will prohibit thousands of law abiding, responsible sportsmen and their children from engaging in a time honored tradition,” he said.
PETA argues that hunting is a “blood sport” – a “cruel and unnecessary” recreation -- that is no longer necessary to put food on the table.
“Hunting fosters insensitivity to the suffering of others, disturbs animal populations, and damages ecosystems. We should be teaching our children kindness and respect, not that it is fine to harm and kill others simply because they are different,” PETA wrote to Napolitano.
In its letter to Gov. Napolitano, PETA also equates hunters with animal abusers and violent killers: “Cruelty to animals is common in the violent histories of our nation's serial killers and school shooters,” Reiman wrote.
Hunting instills traditional values, a connection with nature and a healthy, outdoor lifestyle, says Families Afield, a project of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a group that, among other things, promotes ethical and responsible hunting.
The National Rifle Association notes that hunters are the foremost conservationists in America. “Through license fees, hunters pay for 75% of the budget of state wildlife agencies. Without hunters there would be no agencies, and without the agencies wildlife would be unprotected,” the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action wrote in 2007.
The group also noted that taxes collected from hunters provide half a billion dollars annually to the preservation and expansion of wildlife habitat; and it calculates that hunters contribute $67 billion to the economy each year.
The U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance is a national association of sportsmen and sportsmen’s organizations that protect the rights of hunters, anglers and trappers in the courts, legislatures, at the ballot, in Congress and through public education programs.