NRA: The leadership and spending priorities of these ostensible sportsmen’s groups also tell a different tale, one of politics and ideology.
February 11th, 2014 – The Hill – Will Coggin
Image Courtesy of the NRA
In nature, camouflage is often a defensive strategy. It allows prey to escape detection. But in politics, camouflage can be used by the predators just as well. And it appears many traditionally left-leaning foundations have now found their own camouflage among a traditionally right-leaning community: Sportsmen’s groups.
Many of these organizations started out furthering an agenda that ensured hunters and anglers could continue their favorite pastime for generations to come. But more recently, many of these groups have been co-opted by wealthy grant-making bodies notorious for their support of anti-gun, radical environmentalist agendas, all the while purporting to represent the hunting and fishing community.
The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP), for example, has been described in the media as “Republican-leaning.” It claims to support the Second Amendment. Yet TRCP received $1.2 million to form a group that benefits labor unions and seeks to draw members away from the National Rifle Association. That group, the Union Sportsmen’s Alliance, also happened to be chaired at one time by none other than current AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.
There’s also the Isaac Walton League of America (IWLA). The IWLA has local chapters across the country that promote sport shooting. Yet IWLA’s national office has received substantial funding over the years from the anti-gun Joyce Foundation, on whose board Barack Obama sat from 1994-2002. IWLA has also funded scholarships claiming the Second Amendment doesn’t protect individual gun rights.