The leadership of AHSA is formed from a mix of DLC people and veteran anti-gunners. The old mailing address was the same as the DLC and their website was run by DCS Congressional.

It seems pretty obvious that the AHSA was formed because most nationally ambitious democrats (ie- those that want to become president) have extremely anti-gun histories, and in anything but a landslide, this causes them serious problems with getting elected. The initial theory was that by separating hunters from other gun owners they could neutralize this problem by preventing the NRA from mobilizing hunters.

They failed because the notion that most US gun owners are sportsmen is false. However, they are pretty much grasping at straws now- most of these ambitious democrats have decades of anti-gun history and the Democrats only recently caught on to the fact that being anti-gun is politically risky. In 2000, Gore was still proudly talking in Tennessee about how he would register handguns the week before the election. The Dems finally caught on that this is foolish but they can’t go back in time and undo everything that current Democrat power brokers and presidential hopefuls said during the 80s and 90s. So they try anything they can to blunt the impact of what they expect the NRA to do as November rolls around.

Do you think that we are aware of Obama’s history and the NRA isn’t? I am guessing they are very aware of nearly everything Obama and Hillary have been doing for the past 20 years and will be very active this year. They will have an especially easy time motivating gun owners due to the Heller v DC case that is coming up.