June 11, 2013 08:10 AM UTC

"Hunter Boycott" Appears To Have Fizzled

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• by: Colorado Pols

AP reports via 7NEWS:

Colorado wildlife officials say despite threats that hunters planned to boycott Colorado because of new gun control laws, big game applications are up.

So far this year, big game applications have increased by 18,000 over the number in 2012. Colorado Parks and Wildlife processed 469,000 applications this spring, compared with 451,000 applications submitted in 2012.

The two most consequential gun-safety laws passed in Colorado this year, House Bill 1229 closing the so-called "background check loophole" on most transfers of guns, and House Bill 1224 restricting ammunition magazine capacity to 15 rounds, certainly received wide publicity among gun owners including hunters–as did the threats to boycott the state of Colorado in the wake of their passage. To be honest, based on the fever pitch of irrational outrage stoked over these bills, and misinformation spread around the country, we wouldn't have been at all surprised to have seen at least some drop in hunting license applications for the 2013 season.

So what happened? Why did the state in fact receive almost 20,000 more hunting license applications?

Well, when you get past the endless shrieking from the gun lobby, which was intended to irrationalize the entire debate and disseminate alarmist misinformation, these bills don't impact hunting. Hunters are already subject to strict limits on loaded ammunition, and the innumerable far-fetched scenarios pushed by opponents to the background check law simply don't apply to most people in the real world. The fact is, most hunters own their guns, and those who might borrow one are in most cases covered by the bill's exemptions.

And if they're not, they just need to get a background check, and that's okay by most people too.

You might remember during the budget debate this year when GOP Rep. Bob Rankin unsuccessfully proposed spending $1 million on an "outreach campaign" to hunters, to correct "not a problem based on reality," but a problem of "perception and misunderstanding" about the new gun laws. What Rankin couldn't say, of course, is that this problem of "perception" was created by his fellow Republicans, who pushed increasingly ridiculous and desperate falsehoods about these bills as the session progressed.

Fortunately, it does appear the average hunter is smarter than that stuff.