In a historic day at the White House on September 17, President Donald Trump (R) signed an executive order to protect and enhance hunters’ part in the North American Wildlife Conservation Model.
At a coinciding Rose Garden event, attended by representatives of the NRA and many other groups, President Trump singled out Doug Hamlin, executive vice president & CEO of the NRA, by saying, “Doug, thank you very much Doug. Good job. We’re keeping the Second Amendment going, you know that don’t you?”
The president’s executive order is designed to expand access to America’s public lands and waterways, foster and recruit the next generation of hunters, and promote robust and healthy wildlife populations.
- The Order directs the Secretary of the Interior to expand hunting opportunities in select federal lands that would not put objects of historic and scientific interest at risk.
- The Order directs the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of War, and the Secretary of Commerce to propose changes to polices that prevent access of public lands for recreation, infrastructure repair, and wildlife management, as well as to encourage volunteers to manage wildlife populations and invasive species, allow the use assistive technology on access trails and hunting locations for people with disabilities, and allow the use of traditional lead ammo and tackle.
- The Order directs the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of War, and the Secretary of Commerce to unlock checkerboarded and landlocked parcels through voluntary access easements, land exchanges, and cooperative agreements that respect private property rights.
- The Order directs the Secretary of Agriculture to review and reform high-demand Forest Service-administered river access lotteries to prioritize United States citizens and prior applicants who haven’t previously received access via lottery, and to prohibit automatic computer entries.
- The Order directs the Secretary of the Interior to streamline regulations for authorizing seasonal migratory game bird hunting and to encourage States to promote and expand Sunday hunting on State and Federal lands.
- The Order directs the Secretary of Labor, the Secretary of Education, the Secretary of the Interior, and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to identify, clarify, and prioritize opportunities and incentives to cultivate the hunting tradition in young Americans and veterans using existing Federal funding and authorities.
- The Order directs the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Interior, and the Secretary of Agriculture to coordinate with States to align management practices and conservation plans in order to promote the growth of critical game species populations.
- The Order directs the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of the Interior to support and encourage States to increase wild game donations for consumption in schools, food banks, and the Emergency Food Assistance Program.
President Trump also said, “Just a short time ago, I signed two executive orders that deliver something that everybody at this event was fighting for for years and its historic victories for the American sportsman. With the first order, we’re opening up millions of acres of federal land for our hunters and fishers. And Doug and his group really worked hard on it. This builds on our actions in August that opened up another 92 million acres of federal land across 32 states … . We believe that public lands belong to the American people and to the public and hunters, fishers, and outdoorsmen should be able to access them and they weren’t able to.”
President Trump also talked about lead ammunition for hunters by saying, “And this order also protects the use of affordable, traditional … lead ammunition. Is ammunition—lead ammunition was a problem, huh? Is it better than other ammunition, I assume, huh? That’s pretty good.”
As for the Second Amendment, President Trump repeatedly affirmed he is all for defending this critical civil right.
Trump said, “As president, I will always protect your Second Amendment. On day one, I ended Joe Biden’s war on gun owners. It was a war. National Rifle Association, we work together but we all work together. Everybody worked together. It was terrible. But it was an absolute war. I abolished Biden’s so-called zero tolerance policy that put law-abiding gun dealers out of business. They were out of business. And I eliminated the $200 federal tax on suppressors. I restored gun rights to more than 70,000 American veterans and I terminated America’s involvement in the United Nations Globalist Register of Conventional Arms which was an absolute disgrace and the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed on at all and we have orders in that are so strong that even somebody someday following me is going to have a hard time breaking it. So, congratulations everybody.”
And there is more to come. President Trump said, “America’s outdoorsmen have not had a better friend in the office for many many years are probably the late great President Theodore Roosevelt who’s very good. In my first term, I was proud to sign the Great American Outdoors Act, the single largest investment in a nation’s national parks and public lands in American history. That’s the biggest investment in American history and I look forward to signing. Thank you. And I look forward to signing the great American Outdoors Act, too. So that’s 2.0 at some point in the very near future. We’re working out the final details. It’s going to be something that’s going to make you very happy. But I’m not doing it to make you happy. I’m doing it to do what’s right.”
