COMPETITIONS —
Rockcastle Shooting Center Hosts Tenn. Winter Series Sporting Clays Shoot
Overcast skies, wind and chilly temperatures could not keep away the many registered shooters, from six states and as far away as Brazil from attending this past weekend’s Tennessee Winter Series Sporting Clays Shoot at Rockcastle Shooting Center, part of Kentucky’s Park Mammoth Resort. | For More…

Team Bertha Jr./McKenzie Take Opening IFA Redfish Event
Sam Bertha Jr., of Daytona Beach, and Gary McKenzie, of Bartow, Florida, weighed in a two-redfish limit that totaled 14.42 pounds to win the IFA Redfish Tour event at Jacksonville. | For More…

— ENVIRONMENT —
Watermen Collect Nearly 1,500 Abandoned Crab Pots
Maryland watermen have pulled nearly 1,500 abandoned crab pots from the West, Patuxent and Patapsco Rivers as a part of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Ghost Crab Pot Retrieval program. | For More…

— FACILITIES —
Alabama Forever Wild Opens New Horse Trail in WMA
The Alabama Forever Wild Land Trust has recently opened a new horse trail in the Freedom Hills Wildlife Management Area (WMA) located in Colbert County, 5 miles south of Highway 72 near Barton and Cherokee, Alabama. | For More..

— FIREARMS —
AWC Systems Introduces TurboDyne Suppressor for Compact, Effective .50 Caliber Suppression
When deploying a .50 BMG rifle in any trouble situation, silence is the key to keeping the operator safe and hidden. The TurboDyne suppressor from AWC Systems Technology was designed to be the most compact, effective and quiet .50 caliber suppressor on the market, designed to reduce the noise of a .50BMG to less than that produced by a .22LR. | For More…

— FISHING —
Bass Pro Shops Kicks Off Annual Anglers’ Legacy Promotion
To coincide with Bass Pro Shops’ 2010 Spring Fishing Classic, the sporting goods retailer kicked off an annual Anglers’ Legacy promotion designed to leverage their Spring Fishing Classic to introduce newcomers to the sport for a third consecutive year. | For More…

— HUNTING —
New York Deer Harvest Continues At High Rate
Hunters harvested approximately 222,800 deer in the 2009 season, virtually the same number as were harvested statewide the previous season. The annual deer hunting report also showed that nearly 16,000 14- and 15-year-olds signed up for the “Junior Big-Game License”. | For More…

— INDUSTRY —
Cabela’s Expands Management Team
Cabela’s Incorporated (NYSE: CAB) announces the addition of Doug Means to the executive team as Executive Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer. | For More…

Crosman Corporation Announces New European Distribution Center In Shannon, Ireland
Crosman Corporation announces the opening of a new warehouse and distribution facility in Shannon, Ireland. The state-of-the-art facility will serve as the company’s European distribution center (EDC) and warehouse. | For More…

Leupold Promotes Mundy
Leupold & Stevens, Inc. announces the promotion of Pat Mundy to communications manager. An avid hunter, shooter and handloader, Mundy oversees a staff of six in developing and implementing advertising, public relations, interactive and other marketing communications. | For More…

— MEDIA —
Outdoor Magazine Radio and Host Take Broadcast Excellence Awards
Veteran outdoor journalist Mike Avery has received a “Broadcast Excellence Award” from the Michigan Association of Broadcasters (MAB). | For More…

— NEW PRODUCTS —
Federal Premium Introduces New Black Cloud Snow Goose Offerings
Federal Premium® Black Cloud® ammunition announces new loads designed especially for snow goose hunters. The new 1-1/8 ounce, 3″ 12-gauge loads feature a muzzle velocity of 1635 fps for added effective range. Product now available. | For More…

— PARTNERSHIPS —
RMEF, ISE Partner for Stronger Expos, Elk Camps
For 35 years, no company has produced better consumer sportsman shows than International Sportsmen’s Expositions (ISE). Annual events in Denver, Phoenix, Sacramento, Salt Lake City and San Mateo, Calif., draw hundreds of thousands of hunters, anglers and conservationists. The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (RMEF) has announced an expanded partnership with ISE to promote RMEF’s annual national convention, called Elk Camp. | For More…

— PEOPLE —
Longest Serving Wildlife Council Member Retires
Howard L. Calhoun of Akron, Ohio has retired from his position on the Ohio Wildlife Council His forty-six year tenure included nineteen years as chairman. | For More…

— PRODUCTS —
“Go Green” With Vita-Rack Seed Mixes
Rodney Dyer, certified wildlife biologist and consultant to Hunter’s Specialties®, recently explained how consumers can save money and reduce the amount of chemical fertilizer needed to maintain healthy food plots. | For More…

— RECRUITMENT —
Elementary School for Fishing, Hunting & Shooting Opens Its Digital Doors
The “elementary school” for America’s sporting traditions has opened at www.learnoutdoorsports.org. The School of Outdoor Sports is designed to be an outreach and educational site to help recruit and retain the next generation of outdoors enthusiasts. | For More…

— REGULATIONS —
PSA Says Fish And Game Commission “Betrays Recreational Anglers”
As part of the South Coast region’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) process, yesterday the California Fish and Game Commission (FGC) voted to only keep in consideration the alternative created by the Blue Ribbon Task Force (BRTF). The Commission’s action effectively terminates consideration of the three proposals created by the citizens selected to participate in the process. | For More…

North Carolina Approves Changes in Hunting, Fishing Regulations
After a yearlong process of gathering input from stakeholders, the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission has approved changes to state hunting, fishing and trapping regulations. | For More…

— SPONSORSHIPS —
Mission Archery Official Bow Sponsor Generationwild.com
Field & Stream announces that Mission Archery as the official bow sponsor of GenerationWild.com, the magazine’s youth-oriented blog and online destination dedicated to providing comprehensive information to young hunters and anglers on a wide range of outdoor topics. Mission will outfit the site’s four Junior Pro Staffers with archery equipment and accessories. | For More…

Brazos Custom Gunworks, Montana Gold Bullet and Shooters Connection Sign On as Area 6 Sponsors
The list of stage sponsors for the 2010 USPSA Area 6 Championship sponsored by Glock continues to grow as three more companies, Brazos Custom Gunworks, Montana Gold Bullet and Shooters Connection, sign on to support the match. | For More…

Gemini Increases Support for Collegiate Anglers
Careco Multimedia announcs Gemini Sport Marketing’s return as a sponsor of the 2010 BoatU.S. Collegiate Bass Fishing Championship Series. | For More…

— TELEVISION —
Name Change For Timberline Wild Adventures
When GhostBlind’s Timberline Wild Adventures begins on Sportsman Channel in July, it will be a new name, reflecting the addition of sponsor GhostBlind to the show formerly known as Timberline Wild Adventures. | For More…

VERSUS Features Fishing Friday Night
VERSUS Country presents an entire night of the best fishing shows on television with premiere episodes of Hunt for Big Fish with Larry Dahlberg and City Limits Fishing with Mike Iaconelli on Friday, March 5, beginning at 7 p.m. ET. | For More…

— WILDLIFE —
FWC to Premiere “Living With Florida Black Bears”
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) will premiere its new, 15-minute, “Living with Florida Black Bears” video during a public workshop Saturday on Okaloosa Island. | For More…

— WORKSHOPS —
March 9 Workshop to Focus On Recovery Plan for North Bay Tidal Marshes
A sweeping but voluntary plan to restore the health of more than 17,000 acres of San Pablo and Suisun Bay tidal marshes will be the focus of a public workshop by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), on Tuesday, March 9 in the PRBO San Francisco Bay Center, Petaluma. | For More…

— YOUTH —
NRPA and Hershey’s Track & Field Games to Support More Active and Healthy Youth
The National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA) and The Hershey Company announce their 2010 partnership for the Hershey’s Track & Field Games program. Founded more than thirty years ago, Hershey’s Track & Field Games was created to promote physical fitness in a fun atmosphere for youth ages 9-14. It is the largest youth program of its kind, hosted by park and recreation agencies, schools, youth serving organizations and community groups in the United States and Canada. | For More…

FEATURE
McDonald v. Chicago: What constitutes a win?
Most of the conversational around the industry since Tuesday’s Supreme Court oral arguments in the McDonald v. Chicago case has been pretty optimistic. It seems a foregone conclusion that the Supreme Court will vacate both firearms restriction ordinances in Chicago and its suburb, Oak Park, lllinois.

But there’s been very little said about Otis McDonald, the 76-year old retired maintenance engineer who’s the primary name on a lawsuit that may become yet another fundamental rib in American jurisprudence.

McDonald and his wife live in the far South side of Chicago where they’ve watched their neighborhood deteriorate from familial to downright dangerous. Despite having his home wired with burglar alarms “wired right into the police station” and owning a legal firearm (a shotgun), McDonald said he felt he would be better protected if he also had a handgun. His rationale was simple: a handgun would be easier for an aging husband or wife to handle.

Despite the fact that Chicago police point out the fact that it’s mainly property crimes in his neighborhood, they can’t deny the fact they’ve gotten worse. Burglaries and thefts in McDonald’s area risen from 881 in 2006 to 1,215 in 2008 (the latest figures available). Murders have remained steady at 17 per year.

So, Otis McDonald joined the Illinois State Rifle Association, hoping to find an answer. What he found was attorney Alan Gura, looking for Chicago residents to bring a challenge to the city’s handgun ban – and a broader interpretation to the Heller decision.

For Gura, McDonald was a perfect case, an elderly black man seeking to protect himself and his neighbors in a neighborhood going downhill. McDonald, on the other hand, saw the situation as an answered prayer. Today, he still maintains his reason for wanting the ban overturned was a simple one, “I was doing this for me.”

As expected, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against McDonald and the other defendants, holding that the Supreme Court had ruled -more than 100 years ago – that the Second Amendment applied only to the federal government.

Chicago, like other cities with a liberal political philosophy, believes, unlike Otis McDonald, that allowing law-abiding citizens to possess handguns will create a wave of handgun violence, firearms accidents and suicides that trump any possible good a handgun could bring.

In a city where handguns were used in 410 of 412 murders in 2008, it would seem that the criminal element had empirically proven that handguns were more than present in the city. Overwhelmingly by the criminal element.

And as has been pointed out many times, the criminal element isn’t concerned with the law. They are unmoved by boundaries adhered to by law-abiding citizens.

Speaking with the NRA’s special counsel, former Solicitor General Paul Clement, following the oral arguments, he said the argument he presented to the court on behalf of the National Rifle Association (accorded a portion of Gura’s time) was pretty simple “Does,” Clement asked, “a citizen in Chicago have the same right as a citizen in Washington, D.C. We believe the only answer is ‘yes’”.

In presenting the only argument of the morning that wasn’t constantly interrupted by the sometimes sarcastic justices, it would seem Clement made a compelling case for a simple argument.

If the Supreme Court were to find that they didn’t, Clement said, it would be equivalent of the court saying “our decision on Heller really wasn’t all that big a deal.”

No one thinks that likely.

That unlikelihood is despite the fact that the three remaining justices who dissented on Heller still worked – energetically at times- to make the case for gun regulations. As Justice Stephen declared flatly during one of his more vocal points, “guns kill.”

That’s where the philosophical divide between gun owners and gun opponents seems irreconcilable.

To those who oppose firearms, it’s the tool that ultimately makes the decision to act, not the person using it.

To gun owners, that’s simply absurd.

Unfortunately, in situations where, as Chief Justice Roberts pointed out, “politics will still decide” emotional parades of weeping relatives will influence enough voters to keep the issue at a rolling boil.

Meanwhile, I have no way of knowing if the U.S. Supreme Court will take a look at a decision last week from the Supreme Court of the state of Washington regarding Second Amendment rights. But they should.
In that opinion, Justice Richard B. Sanders wrote a paragraph in his decision that could prove to be a critical point:

“Supreme Court application of the United States Constitution establishes a floor below which state courts cannot go to protect individual rights. But states of course can raise the ceiling to afford greater protections under their own constitutions.”

(pg 18. No. 82154-2, State of Washington v. Christopher William Sieyes. http://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf/821542.opn.pdf)

That simple bit of writing may go a long way toward establishing states’ recognition of the fact that a Supreme Court decision is not the far limit of a law; it’s the minimums for protection. This decision says the decisions from the high court establish a broad-brush national minimum – one designed to work in all jurisdictions.

It also says that while states may go further to guarantee rights. That recognizes -at least in Washington’s State Supreme Court – that it may be necessary to do more to protect individual rights.

That would seem to reinforce recent legislative measures passed by Tennessee and Montana that extend firearms rights. Their new laws say firearms made, sold and kept only in those respective states are exempt from all federal laws.

On Wednesday, the Wyoming legislature passed a similar measure that actually assigns fines and sentences for any state or federal official trying to any federal gun law on firearms and sold in Wyoming. Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal says he’ll sign the bill into law.

That extension of rights is admittedly, not much more than a symbolic push back at the federal government’s current tendency to try and regulate, well, everything, but it is a definite message that residents of these states will vigorously protect their constitutional rights.

Finally, the Washington State decision establishes an instance of twenty-first century law with a lower court recognizing the intent -and appropriateness – of the Supreme Court in most instances.

It is especially significant for the Heller ruling, recognizing a first step in guiding the states in creation of jurisprudence at all levels of the court systems that will provide a web of overall guidance on the Second Amendment and firearms rights.

It wouldn’t be accurate, however, to say that the individual interpretation of the Second Amendment is now written in stone.

Earlier this week, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg -one of the three remaining dissenting justices in Heller- comment that perhaps a “future court” would reverse the Heller decision.

For those who hold an individual right the founding fathers considered to be “granted by the Almighty” can’t be taken away by the stroke of a pen, we can only hope that the comment was Ginsberg’s wish and not a prophecy. Regardless, barring something sudden change in the makeup of the court, it seems unlikely she will serve long enough to vote on that reversal.

But there is only one rule regarding the Supreme Court that seems to always be quoted and believed: the court will do what the court will do.

That’s why it’s the Supreme Court. It’s also why we’ll be watching, and we’ll keep you posted.

–Jim Shepherd

Mar 4-7Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation Elk Camp & Hunting, Fishing and Outdoor Expo Reno/Sparks Convention Center, Reno Nevada
Mar 5Alabama State Championships Steel City Ranges, Hoover, AL
Mar 10-12Pairs Conventional Pistol Shooting Camp U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit’s Phillips Range, Fort Benning, Georgia
Mar 12-14World Ice Fishing Championships Boom Lake, Rhinelander, Wisconsin
Mar 19-21STI International Double Tap Championships Double Tap Ranch, Wichita Falls, Texas
Mar 26-2823rd annual California Association of Taxidermist’s, Western States Taxidermy competition and show Red Lion’s Sacramento Inn, 1401 Arden Way, Sacramento, CA