Interesting Take: "Use Disabilities Act (ADA) For Hunters Rights"
Crusading for muzzleloaders with scopes
Missouri man hopes to get Uncle Sam to sway wildlife managers in 15
states to accept optic sights during big-game, black-powder-only rifle hunts
By Mark Freeman
Medford Mail Tribune — Sept. 5, 2006
A muzzleloading rifle with a quality scope is thought to allow more precise shot placement, resulting in quicker, cleaner and more humane harvest of game. MEDFORD, Ore. — Toby Bridges insists that modern-day muzzleloaders — black-powder rifles fitted with high-powered optic scopes — are not primitive hunting's version of the married bachelor or military intelligence.
"It's no more an oxymoron than referring to an engine in terms of horsepower," said Bridges, a 57-year-old gun-product tester in Missouri.
"When you get past the appearance," he said, "there's nothing 20th century about this weapon."
This crusader for muzzleloaders with scopes now believes he's found a 21st century way to force Oregon and 14 other states to accept optic sights during big-game muzzleloader rifle hunts.
And he hopes to get Uncle Sam to poke Oregon's wildlife managers in the eye on his behalf.
After years of failing to convince Oregon and other states to embrace scopes as legal during controlled muzzleloader hunts, Bridges hopes a discrimination complaint at the Department of the Interior will give Oregon about 5 million reasons to follow suit.
The complaint taps into the federal agency's policy against providing federal financial assistance to state programs or activities that unlawfully discriminate against anyone based on everything from race to age and disability.
The agency further describes discrimination as denial of services, aids or benefits, segregation or "separate treatment."
The complaint claims the optics ban segregates and discriminates against aging muzzleloaders and others with poor eyesight who need scopes to shoot as well as able-eyed muzzleloaders can.
The complaint wants the federal agency to withhold all its assistance to fish and wildlife programs in Oregon, Washington, California, Alaska and other states until they welcome optics in black-powder hunts. That includes about $5 million to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife this fiscal year.
"When I read this policy, it dawned on me that I don't have to take on these individual states anymore," Bridges said. "The Department of the Interior has to."
"My goal is to make sure muzzleloaders from coast to coast get equal opportunity and equal rights," said Bridges, who runs the fledgling North American Muzzleloader Hunting Association in Missouri.
The Department of the Interior has accepted his complaint. The case has been referred to Doug Gentile, who handles discrimination claims at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's offices in Virginia.
Gentile was recently unavailable for comment.
Oregon has purposefully chosen to keep a tight reign on weaponry during its muzzleloader and archery hunts, two of the so-called "primitive" hunts.
Put a scope on top of any black-powder weapon and "it no longer becomes a primitive weapon," said Ron Anglin, the state's Wildlife Division administrator.
Anglin said Oregon's various muzzleloader hunts are designed based on success rates with primitive weaponry.
The rifle shown here is representative of the modern technology that much of today's muzzleloading hunters desire.
Add optics and success rates will increase, Anglin said. That means fewer available tags and, possibly, the withdrawal of some hunts, he explained.
"We've received requests for scopes in the past," Anglin said. "When we've explained it, people have backed off."
Not Bridges. He chides Anglin and others for hiding behind an argument that denies history and bends language.
An American innovation, the first scopes appeared in the 1840s and were designed specifically for black-powder rifles, Bridges said.
William Malcom launched the first, mass rifle-scope manufacturing in 1855 in Syracuse, N.Y., and those scopes were made specifically for black-powder rifles. Civil War black-powder snipers lived, and killed, by optics.
Scopes, Bridges said, are as traditional as the black-powder rifles themselves.
"These guys pick and choose what they wan't to be part of tradition," Bridges said. "If they're going to embrace tradition, they need to embrace it all. That includes telescopic rifle sights.
"The 1855 Malcom scope is pretty primitive."
While Bridges clearly is relying on a technicality of Department of the Interior rules to strong-arm Oregon into accepting modern-day muzzleloading, Oregon wildlife biologists are hoping a technicality keeps him at bay.
Oregon statutes don't outlaw scopes on muzzleloaders. They outlaw scopes exclusively during muzzleloader-only hunts.
"You can use a muzzleloader with a scope during general (rifle) seasons," said Larry Cooper, the state's deputy administrator of the wildlife divisions. "We're not actually prohibiting anyone from using it then."
When Bridges began stumping for modern-day muzzleloaders in 1988, only 17 states allowed them. That more than doubled to 35 by 1998, when the Bridges' crusade hit a wall.
"The holdouts seem to be in the Northwest," Bridges said. "Of all the states, Oregon has the most backward regulations in the nation, as far as modern-day muzzleloaders are concerned."
Bridges believes he's struck a chord among black-powder hunters for standing up for the little guy … in this case, the old and poor-eyed of Oregon's passionate black-powder ilk.
"Nobody else is standing up for the rights of modern-day muzzleloader hunters," he said.
Contact Mark Freeman at
mfreeman@mailtribune.com.
Was in gun store the other day picking up my 50 cal muzzle loader talking to gunsmith about scoping them. I made the statement: "In CA, for muzzleloader only tags (hunts) you cannot have a scope."