Originally Posted by Clem
Originally Posted by Irishguy
it is kind of a dichotomy that the Republican party who is all about gun rights has taken a stance that it wants to give as much land back to the State's control as possible when the States have a poor track record of keeping that land for the Public's use. if we're going to keep our guns, then we need a place to go hunt with them.


Let's just say, for example, that Alabama DCNR suddenly was given all the national forest lands here. Bankhead, Talladega (both units), Tuskeegee, Conecuh. Bankhead and T'dega alone comprise almost 600K acres.

DCNR currently is underfunded and understaffed. Suddenly you'd have myriad groups wanting nothing to be done, protections for this bird or that lizard, timber cutting, sale of the land for development - "Hey, you can fund the department for X-years!" - marginal-mild development for outdoors use, and then even more specific things like mountain bikers wanting this or hikers wanting a set-aside or deer hunters wanting trophy bow only buck restrictions.

"Here's your 600K acres. Enjoy." sounds good in theory, sort of. The can of worms that would open, not to mention the rush for development-use at a time when cities are growing and people clearly want more outdoors recreational opporuntiies, would be immense.



I honestly would hate to think if the federal Government gave all the National Forests to the States. On the other hand what ever the Federal Government gives us it can just as easily take away. And what I mean by that is that that States have enough trouble administering the state forest and state parks with the money that they have. And secondly just because the Federal Government allows us to use the National Forests for hunting they could just as easily take that away.

The only thing that is certain: If all the public lands were suddenly in private hands we sure as hell couldn't hunt, fish, hike, canoe or camp there.

"When I say ever thing I mean ever thing." - Frankie