Politicians are led by the public and sometime no matter the science or anything logical, a few screaming can get the public perception based on emotion. Then the politicians are led into a, we are doing this, you can talk all you like, but it is coming. This is not the fault of the orgs, rather the knee jerk reactions of the politicians. Think motorcycle helmet laws, dangerous dogs act. Rightly or wrongly, they were forced in and you could waste your time fighting or move on to something else.
Now, and this is just my opinion of course, where the orgs Fail, is in not having people who are great orators who can counter the negative antis.
Unfortunately, antis, use emotion, “do you want to die slowly from lead poisoning, or should we ban shooting?. Well most people are going to choose the alternative. I have seen the counter arguments from the org. One of which is tradition. Never mention tradition. Tradition is not a valid argument. You have to counter with a valid science argument, with emotion. The emotion is probably more important.
The problem is, to be an orator, you need a high degree of skill, ( Think of someone like Peter Ustinov who was a delight to listen to) It is a skill, you have to have it, and of course, you need to believe in the cause and be able to put it back to the politician.
Whilst the shooting community has many passionate people, I think we have less people trained in the ways of media, sales and marketing. Those are the skills, (again in my opinion) that would help promote shooting as a positive benefit. I don’t think we market ourselves very well. Letters from certain organisations that say, “we wrote a strong letter”, or, the others who never say anything at all on social media.
I sell venison locally, I promote it as wild meat, with low miles, low carbon footprint, ethically sourced, etc etc. even the vegetarians are, whilst not delighted with what I do, understanding of what I am saying. Of course, these are not the, scream in you face types. But your average, just want to live life and are happy to understand what you do.
Until the orgs get such people, I think we will always struggle, this is not me having a go at the orgs.
But, professional organisations, who employ professional people, (who mentioned the RSPB?) manage to get people to donate houses and land to them when they die and then buy up lots of land and do the well documented “great job” managing the land (cough) and making more money. That is sales and marketing, you do not get that by taking on volunteers. You get that by employing specialists in their field and you have to pay them the going rate for their skill.
The SD is like the chat down the pub, we all have great ideas, arguments, have a beer, then, move on, problem sorted. Few of us, me included, rarely go forth and go back to an organisation and make the changes. Organisations like anything, need a leader, the idea has to be sold to the leader, who then cascades down to the business, org, whatever, the policy.
The SD collective opinion is like herding cats and basically, usually/often breaks down into a slagging match. Hence, why we (the shooting community) tend to fail.
Of course, you might think completely different.
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