I think the issue of declining hunting numbers has a deeper cause, which is the general push that anything firearms related is evil.

Look back to the day when a high school parking lot was filled with pickups with rifle racks and even rifles and shotgun in the back window. Today, the mere mention of going shooting throws the entire school into lockdown and brings out the SWAT team in full tactical gear. I vividly remember being in 3rd grade in my Cub Scout uniform with a pocket knife prominently hanging off of a clip on my belt. Today, that would result in being expelled.

Kids are indoctrinated from an early age that guns = evil. Unless you grow up in a household that is active in the shooting sports by the time a kid reaches the age where they can actually go shooting they have already been brainwashed to view firearms as bad or evil things and that people who own firearms are dangerous people. I get where Handgun400 is coming from, however IMHO declining numbers of hunters are a symptom of the larger systemic problem. Until we as a firearms and 2A community can come together and start pushing back in unison, little will change with respect to declining numbers.

The shooting community is currently fighting a loosing battle against a slanted news media that continually beats the drum in the push to further restrict our rights. A great example is so called ?assault weapons?. Whether or not you own, like, or shoot, AR-15 or other evil black rifles is immaterial, we need to be defending the right to own them. I can?t even count the number of shooters I have met that have expressed the opinion that ?nobody needs a military weapon like that? but are perfectly comfortable with their Springfield 03 or M1 Garand. Red Flag Laws are another prime example. Any body that tells me RFLs are not just a tool to further disarm the population is lying to themselves or to me.

We as a hunting community need to do our part. Take a kid hunting, take a kid shooting, even if it is just backyard fun with a Nerf or BB gun, that is progress, and we can work with that. But in addition to that we as firearms owners need to be involved on the political front. Join a grassroots local political group and get involved. Getting one kid involved in shooting does little good if your representatives are unopposed in taking huge bites out of our rights on the legislative end. Today it is "assault rifles", tomorrow it will be semi-auto firearms, after that will be "high powered sniper rifles", then "ultra powerful magnum handguns", ad infinium until it becomes so onerous to own a firearm that even those who are interested decide it is not worth the trouble to do so.