Claiming to support the Second Amendment by playing up hunters and sportsmen is a time-honored tradition among anti-gun Democrats. Who can forget John Kerry's goofy attempt to court gun owners by pretending to hunt geese on an Ohio farm in 2004, for instance, or Sportsmen for Obama in 2008? 

Actually, now that I think about it, Sportsmen for Obama was pretty forgettable. Still, camo hats featuring campaign logos in blaze orange have become pretty standard for Democrats, and the Harris/Walz campaign is no exception. The media is determined to make a big deal out of the campaign's offering, including a (mostly) puff piece from the Washington Post claiming the hats will soon be almost as ubiquitous as MAGA caps. 

“I thought it was a great campaign move to cash in on what Walz brings to the campaign, which is this Midwestern sensibility,” said Emily L. Newman, a professor of art history and liberal studies at Texas A&M University at Commerce.

“He’s talked about being a hunter, but then he’s such a staunch advocate for gun control that it’s a great thing to play up for the Democrats.”

I think Newman's wrong in her assessment, for a couple of reasons. 

First, the vast majority of gun owners in the United States are exercising their Second Amendment rights for self-defense, not hunting. According to a recent survey from the Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention at the University of Michigan, almost 80% of gun owners who took part in the poll said personal protection was their primary reason for owning a gun, with more than half of respondents telling surveyors they've also carried a firearm outside the home for self-defense at least once in the past year. 

No matter how much time and money Democrats expend on highlighting Walz's bird-hunting, the fact remains that both he and Harris have been incredibly hostile to the idea of keeping and bearing arms for self-defense. Walz has tried to raise the age to purchase any so-called assault weapons in Minnesota from 18 to 21, while also backing a complete ban on their sale ot adults of any age. He's even opposed national right-to-carry reciprocity laws, and he stood silently as Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has tried to keep the state's ban on concealed carry for under-21s intact. 

You can't disguise the anti-2A record of Harris and Walz with a camouflage hat... especially when the hat maker in question comes out in opposition to their campaign. 

Realtree DOES NOT support the Harris/Walz campaign.

This hat they bought through a third party that we license to.

Just want to be clear here because I’ve seen comments that say we’re supporting them. Simply not true. https://t.co/ecxxuFwGDA

— Tyler Jordan (@TylerJordan) August 7, 2024

Harris and Walz are clearly leaning into gun control as a campaign issue, but making a play for the hunter/sportsman vote at the same time just draws more attention to the damage that their policies would do (and have done) to the exercise of a fundamental civil right. 

Of course, it would also help if hunters and sportsmen start speaking up about the dangers that Harris and Walz pose to the right to keep and bear arms. 

Swatting away a political campaign with our camo on their hat? Wasn’t on my bingo card for 2024.

I just want to hunt. Politics sucks.

— Tyler Jordan (@TylerJordan) August 7, 2024

Yeah, it does, but that doesn't mean that we can afford to just keep our head in a tree stand until Election Day has come and gone. I hope that Jordan will use his sizeable reach on social media to inform his followers about the threat to our Second Amendment rights under a Harris/Walz regime, just as he informed them that Realtree had nothing to do with making the campaign's camo hats. His audience isn't going to hear about their anti-gun zealotry from the legacy media. It's up to all of us to spread the word, no matter how much we might hate the current state of our political system.