Outdoor Adventure USA

lrsrngr wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 7:52 am Shooting Shack

• Something to be proud of while remaining aware of continuing pressure (legislation) that oppresses those that chose to participate!

From the National Shooting Sports Foundation: https://www.nssf.org/wp-content/uploads ... tsheet.pdf

In the early 1900s, when many wildlife species were dwindling in numbers or disappearing, the firearms and ammunition industry stepped forward and asked Congress to impose an excise tax on the sale of firearms and ammunition products to help fund wildlife conservation in the United States. The Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act (also known as the Pittman-Robertson Act (PR)) became law in 1937. The revenue generated from the excise tax is apportioned to state wildlife agencies for conservation efforts, hunter’s education and shooting projects and programs.

Since the program’s inception, $12.5 billion has been collected from manufacturers and awarded to states through PR making the firearms and ammunition industry America’s largest contributor to conservation and access. Over the past 75 years, PR revenue has helped to rebuild the population of numerous species and extend their ranges farther than they were in the 1930s.

The excise tax is set at 11% of the wholesale price for long guns and ammunition and 10% of the wholesale price for handguns. The excise tax applies basically to all commercial sales and imports whether their purpose is for shooting, hunting or personal defense and is paid by manufacturers, producers and importers. The tax is currently administered by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) in the Department of the Treasury, match at least 25% of a project’s cost.

The remainder of the trust fund is then divided in half with 50% allocated in proportion to the area of the state and 50% in proportion to the number of paid hunting licenses in the state relative to paid hunting licenses in the entire country.

Nation Public Radio (NPR) did an expose in 2018 recognizing there are fewer sportsmen and with the lowering numbers of sportsmen's dollars the amount conservation dollars will also be reduced. https://www.npr.org/2018/03/20/59300180 ... nservation

A new survey by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows that today, only about 5 percent of Americans, 16 years old and older, actually hunt. That's half of what it was 50 years ago and the decline is expected to accelerate over the next decade.

"Who goes and sits in the woods all day except hunters?" Wipperfurth says. "If hunting didn't exist, who'd know that the squirrel population is down, that a windstorm knocked all these trees down - who'd know all of that stuff? Because we're the ones out here seeing all of it."

The latest numbers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service show that 86 million Americans participated in wildlife watching in 2016. That was a 20 percent increase from just five years previous. The number of people enjoying outdoor recreation is increasing as well.

"We need to find ways for the rest of those folks, who are canoeing and cross country skiing and biking and going to the park to contribute as well," Huston says.

There have been efforts to tax outdoor equipment like sleeping bags, tents and binoculars. Some in the wildlife management world joke about an "REI Tax," a reference to the chic outdoor retailer.

Those efforts have failed though, in large part because of opposition from the outdoor industry, which argues that it already pays billions of dollars in taxes through import tariffs. That revenue should be used to adequately fund conservation, says the Outdoor Industry Association, a trade group that represents retailers like Patagonia and The North Face.

Don't want to read the article, here's a video, but the article is better with more statistics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOvCpxjr0h0&t=1s