Gun Rights and Hunting Access at Center of Montana AG Race

By Robert Struckman, 10-19-08

Montana Republican attorney general candidate Tim Fox has made gun rights the key to his campaign, but Democratic opponent Steve Bullock, who also supports gun rights, says a place to hunt is just as important—and more endangered, writes Jennifer McKee of Lee Newspapers State Bureau in Lee’s five Montana newspapers today.

Since July, Fox has pushed gun rights as a cornerstone of his campaign and targeted Bullock for being, in his campaign’s estimation, weak on the issue. The National Rifle Association and the Montana Shooting Sports Association have endorsed Fox.

It might not be to Fox’s advantage to take Bullock on with the gun issue, because it’s impossible to discuss Bullock and guns without getting into his heart-wrenching personal story. In 1994, his 11-year-old nephew was shot and killed on an elementary school playground in Butte by another boy. The incident actually strengthened Bullock’s commitment to gun rights.

Not every Democratic candidate has Bullock’s personal story, but his stance on access to public lands has become a wedge to pry hunters out of the one-issue gun-rights corner.

After decades of land development on former recreation lands and no real change in gun laws, this has become the territory where Democrats and Republicans will play for the hunter demographic. Sure, a growing number of Democrats have been talking about access for years, but the issue has finally become a viable counter-argument. That’s because Republican big money interests, who want federal agencies to sell public land and don’t care to enforce access laws, have finally begun to endanger the public land recreation of regular sportsmen.

For one things, attorneys general have only a minor role in Second Amendment issues, McKee reports, while their role on access is much more significant.

Bullock said hunter access to public lands and public game are an important part of the discussion on gun rights.

The last time Republicans controlled the state Land Board, on which the attorney general sits, Bullock said, they tried to make it more difficult for people to access public lands.

Bullock said he opposes programs that could give large landowners guaranteed hunting tags, a program that he said has already failed in various states.

In some states, including New Mexico and Texas, landowners are guaranteed a certain number of hunting tags to be used on their own land, which they often sell. Bullock said such programs promote the commercialization of public wildlife and can lead to “ranching for wildlife.”

Bullock said he opposed expanding Montana’s current system of giving outfitters guaranteed hunting licenses. While outfitting provides good jobs for Montana, expanding the program will only exacerbate the problem of hunter access to public wildlife, he said.

Finally, Bullock said, the attorney general has an important role to play when new residents try to close public roads that access public lands.

Fox said he, too, believes in hunter access. As attorney general, he said, he would push for Montana to have a greater decision-making role when federal agencies try to close roads. Sometimes roads, often used for hunting, are closed with little public involvement.

Republican-led programs to guarantee tags to some landowners are present in states like Colorado, where the practice erodes public hunting. Private land in some places in Colorado completely cuts off access to National Forest other federal land. Montana could go down that road, too, and then it wouldn’t matter how many guns each hunter owns. It would be increasingly difficult to use them to put meat on the table or trophies on the wall.

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