The NRA’s two-year-old nemesis competitor, the American Hunters and Shooters Association (ASHA) just won’t go away.
“I’m here to tell you we’re alive and well and plan to continue being a viable alternative to the NRA,” announced AHSA President Ray Schoenke at a news conference at the annual conference of the Outdoor Writers Association of America currently being held in Bismarck, North Dakota.
Ninety percent of new nonprofit organizations fail in the first two years, Schoenke noted, but AHSA just celebrated its second anniversary. “I wish I could tell you we had hundreds of thousands of members, but I can tell you our message is resonating with hundreds of thousands of hunters and shooters.”
The main purpose of the news conference was to tell outdoor writers that AHSA has endorsed Barack Obama for President and plans to raise millions of dollars to aggressively work to help him win several key states, including some western states. “We think hunters and shooters could make the difference in some of these states,” he said.
AHSA has sided with the NRA in opposing the Washington, D.C ban on handguns, which is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.
