Political Quotes

“I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, last year, the Bureau of Land Management decided that it would close a lot of the land it manages to shooting sports. The agency never explained why it wanted to do this, but one BLM official was quoted in a news article as stating, ``It's not a safety issue; it's a social conflict issue.'' He elaborated by saying that urbanites ``freak out'' when they hear shooting. Now, after a public outcry on this, the Interior Secretary had to send out an order telling BLM to stand down on this regulation, but the question is really: For how long? There is nothing that prevents the Obama administration from changing its mind--say, immediately after the November election--and again seeking to arbitrarily limit shooting sports. That's why this bill is necessary, to prevent such an arbitrary action by bureaucrats to limit recreational shooting, fishing, and hunting without justification. The amendment by the ranking member of the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands is even more arbitrary. While the amendment is drafted to appear reasonable, it is most certainly not. The devil is in the clever details. It appears to permit fishing, hunting, and recreational shooting, but in reality the amendment nullifies the actual purpose of the underlying bill to protect these activities. First, one needs to understand that you could fit a lot of eastern States in a small fraction of our land that is BLM land.…”