Vigilance for hunters' rights brings attention to Kenton man

The Lima News has published an excellent story about how one man can make a difference when it comes to grassroots political activism.

From the story:

His first political battle taught Kenton’s Gary Oates an important lesson about the struggle for hunters’ rights.

In 1977, he helped raise money for a campaign to maintain trapping rights in Ohio. He went door to door to convince people how important the issue would be. Even 63 percent of voters favoring it, when preliminary polls showed only 20 percent of Ohioans favoring it, couldn’t dissuade him from remaining ever vigilant.

“I even knew in 1977 when we had that trapping issue that the harder we can beat them, the longer it’ll be before they come back,” the 60-year-old Oates said about the first statewide ballot initiative in the country to restrict hunting or trapping. “If we barely won, they’ll come back at us. And they certainly came back at us.”

For the past 30 years, Oates continued his defense of sportsmen’s rights in Ohio. The 950,000-circulation Outdoor Life magazine recognized him in the December/January 2006 issue in Doug Howlett’s article titled “5 People Who Are Making a Difference.”

Outdoor Life is one of the country’s largest outdoor-themed magazines. The article also recognized four other men for their contributions to protecting wildlife habitat, fighting anti-hunting groups and introducing children to the sport.

Click on the "Read More..." link below for more.

Again, from the story in the Lima News:

Oates, an avid hunter, bagged a deer Thursday night that he shot but grazed a year before. He spent Friday morning filling out a scoring sheet for the odd-racked deer, which had a scar on its shoulder.

He said he realized some people might not understand how he and others could act as an environmental advocate and still hunt. It’s a simple enough explanation, as he talked about the animals’ own comfort.

“There’s only so much habitat to go around, and man’s taking up more than his fair share right now,” said the good-natured hunter with a quick wit. “We need to control that population. We need to take that surplus population down. ...

“We’re helping keep the population healthy. If they’re left on their own, they’ll get too old and die, or they’ll overpopulate and starve. … It’s a whole lot easier to die by a hunter’s slug than to starve to death.”

There have been other fights along the way. He raised money in Hardin County for the 1998 vote against a ban on hunting mourning doves, and voters followed suit. He spoke before the state legislature in favor of Sunday hunting.

He remains active in the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance, which grew out of the 1977 campaign. He said that group and the National Rifle Association are “two groups that every hunter in America should back.” He said he belongs to “20-some” wildlife organizations.

Oates said hunters find themselves constantly under fire from the “antis,” slang for the anti-hunting and anti-gun advocates in the country. He remains convinced of the value of nature and the importance of hunting. Oates, who adamantly claims he’s 29 despite his birth in 1945, said he’ll keep fighting as long as necessary.

“It’s only going to get worse, not better,” he said. “There are too many deer, and they get to eating suburbia’s shrubbery, that gets some people to thinking, ‘Oh, we do need hunting.’”

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If every Ohio CHL-holder and hunter takes a page from Gary Oates, the Second Amendment will be here in all its glory for generations to come.