Outdoordan, let me try to answer your question, "how do we get that message to the 70% majority? (non-hunters)."
Answer: WE DON"T!
We do it by using the same Model as other's use and use very successfully and it doesn't involve the 70%. You do your work long before the 70% ever have any say in the process.
Here are the rudimentary steps in the Model:
1. You don't need to get the message out to the 70% majority, you don't need the support of the majority. You need the support of the politicians that represent the majority. In most cases that means you only need the support of "one individual" so you focus your small group of your "activist sportsmen" at that one person.
You do this by studying the political election system and election process, to determine how an individual, from either the Democratic or Republican Parties, get's their name on the final election Ballet. Each State has a unique system and you need to learn it backwards and forwards. In every State, a small number of citizens actually decide who in their party gets on the election Ballet.
Once you know how your system works, you focus your small organization on determining the outcome of the "early" election process, that gets that one person (representing either the Repub. or the Demo Parties, you can ignore any third party or independent representatives, in nearly all elections). In most cases, 25 motivated sportsmen, their wives and 21 year old children, can act together and literally control, by your vote, the early election process, and determine who gets their name on the Ballet, for the 70% to vote for. (Some precincts may need more than 25 but most to do not.)
As you work through this process, the politician you're supporting will come to understand that "your involvement and early participation" in the election process is going to determine whether they are going to get on the Ballet or not. If they aren't on the Ballet, they can't be elected by the 70%. So you make it clear to that individual that you're going to make sure they get on the Ballet and someone else does not. You make it clear why you are supporting this individual and make it abundantly clear what your issues and what your expectations are, if the individual becomes elected. That is, after all, why your working to get the individual elected.
You begin understanding that this process doesn't happen over night, that your going to have to stay in the process for 10 years or longer before it starts to get easier. You begin in one precinct of the State and you help get one politician elected. then a second and a third, and so forth, one at a time, until eventually you have enough elected politicians to determine the outcome of regulation, department appropriations, bureaucratic administrator appointments, funding appropriations, etc. This will take a few years but it will happen, if your committed and stay united, and give your support to good sportsman leadership, even if you have to compromise on some deals, on the front end the process. Compromise because the whole is more important than any single part that you personally find distasteful.
2. You let other sportsmen know what your doing, how your doing it and what your goals and outcomes regarding hunting and fishing regulations are. As you begin to gain strength, others will want to help, because something good is happening, even if it's not always exactly what they each want, it's moving the political system in the right direction, rather then in wrong direction. You must ignore the haters, the 70% that don't know or care about hunting and fishing, You must also ignore the few sportsmen haters that have any of a hundred reasons for wanting your "activist group" to fail. You just stay focused on your goals and keep inviting more and more sportsmen to help take control of "their" political system (that is presently kicking their butt).
3. You organize fund raising activities that will start to generate the money's you need for your core leadership to travel and meet with the movers and the shakers in the political system. There are many legal ways to raise money, find one that works for your area. You fund positive public efforts to improve wildlife for fishing and hunting, you let people know what your doing and way. You invite them to help, then give them something specific to do so sportsmen get a return on their support and let them have a positive experience for been part of the effort.
4. As your numbers and your influence grow, you will be able to go directly to "non-supportive" politicians and politely explain to them what you are doing and why and ask them for there support. One of two things will happen, because by now the "non-supportive" politicians will know who you are and that your "activist group" has done in getting other politicians elected and they'll know how you have done it. (They all know how the system works.) They will beginning to see things your way or tell you right out to go to hell or they'll ask you how they can help. At which time you decide if you need to organize your sportsmen in that individual's political district and work to unseat them and put a more supportive person in the non-supportive politicians chair. One way your the other, if they decide to fight you, it costs them a ton of money or you save them a ton of money because it costs them limited campaign funds or it saves them much need campaign funds. to get on the Ballet before the real election campaign ever begins.
5. After you have unseated a politician or two (by changing who actually gets on the Ballet, not by trying to beat them during the general election) the rest of the politicians in the State begin to understand that they need to help or they'll be gone too.
6. Once all of the politicians learn that your group has the means to unseat them, liife will change in your State, regarding hunting and fishing regulations.
You can take the position that politics is a dirty business, control by special interest groups and you won't get in the mud with it, and continue to loose your hunting and fishing life-stye, or you can decide you've had enough and get busy implementing the Model. It's not brain science, it's the process that is kicking our asses right now and it can be stopped by using the same methods (Model) that is being used against us.
If we us the Model, the lifestyle will continue and even grow, without the 70% ever knowing or caring or we can continue the present course and continue to live with the results of the anti-hunters, who are controlling the system today.
This Model has nothing to do with sportsmen and everything to do with the political system and it's the political system that must be controlled. Once the political system is controlled, through political "propaganda" (for lack of a more palatable term) the 70% are taught what is moral and what is immoral.
Now, do I like this reality, nope, I don't but, it's how it's been done for 300 years and isn't not going to stop in our life times, so if you want to preserve the outdoor live-style, the Model is the only way your going to be able to do it.
DC
