IMAGE REMOVED AT THE REQUEST OF ITS ORIGINATOR
When your supporters are dwindling and even significant swaths of the media aren’t willing to do that auto-prostration thing every time your name’s mentioned any more, you have to shore up your constituencies. Any way that you can. Which explains yesterday’s outreach to the anti-gun community made by the administration in its decision to boot shooters off millions of square miles of public lands. Even usnews.com didn’t cover for the prez in their headline by trying to call it an Interior Department decision. No, Obama Pushing Shooters Off Public Lands tells it refreshingly honestly, does it not?
But even the administration’s minions don’t make much of an attempt to spray this punchbowl turd with the Lysol of false necessity. No, they can’t even manage to muster a decent lie about safety issues where this one’s concerned.
Officials say the administration is concerned about the potential clash between gun owners and encroaching urban populations who like to use same land for hiking and dog walking.
“It’s not so much a safety issue. It’s a social conflict issue,” said Frank Jenks, a natural resource specialist with Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, which oversees 245 million acres. He adds that urbanites “freak out” when they hear shooting on public lands.
Social conflict. They manage 245 million acres and can’t find a way to set aside and manage areas for shooters. As Dr. Evil would say, riiiiiiiight.
BLM actually invited the fight, seeking the council’s comments. But officials suggested to Whispers that no changes are being planned to the draft regulations.
Over five pages, the draft BLM regulations raise concerns about how shooting can cause a “public disturbance.” They also raise worries about how shooting and shooters can hurt plants and litter public lands.
Something called the Wildlife Hunting and Heritage Conservation Council (National Wildlife Foundation, Cabela’s and Ducks Unlimited, the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation – no, really) are holding their breath and stamping their feet, but they might as well occupy a park across from the White House for all the good it will do.
This isn’t about anything more than playing to the gun-grabbing community who want firearms removed from all aspects of public life. Sure, it pisses off gun owners, but come on, how many of them are going to be Obama voters anyway? This is an electoral win-win at virtually no cost as far as Obama’s concerned.