Yesterday, the National Shooting Sports Foundation announced that Oregon’s IP28, better known as the PEACE Act, failed to qualify for the ballot after supporters fell short of the required number of signatures.
First things first: the failure of Oregon’s anti-hunting ballot initiative deserves to be celebrated.
Hunters, anglers, ranchers, conservationists, and countless citizens came together to stop one of the most aggressive anti-hunting proposals our nation has seen in recent memory. The defeat of the PEACE Act was a victory for science-based wildlife management, rural communities, and the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. It was proof that when the outdoor community stands together with a unified voice, it can still shape the outcome of issues that matter.
But celebration should never become complacency.
Victories have a way of making us comfortable. They can leave us believing the threat has passed when, in reality, it has only paused. Oregon should absolutely be celebrated, but it should also serve as a warning. The organizations behind this initiative aren’t likely to disappear because they failed to gather enough signatures. They’ll regroup, refine their messaging, study what resonated with voters, and return with another proposal because they understand they’re playing the long game.
The hunting community must do the same.
If that sounds like an overreaction, consider what happened in my home state of Virginia. For years, proposals to ban so-called assault weapons were introduced in Richmond. Many gun owners dismissed them as political theater because the bills repeatedly failed, stalled in committee, or faced a governor’s veto. It became easy to believe they would never become law. Then the political landscape changed. After years of persistent advocacy, Virginia enacted restrictions on the future sale, transfer, manufacture, and importation of many semiautomatic firearms in 2026.
Whether you supported those laws or opposed them isn’t my point. The lesson is that ideas once considered politically impossible can become legislative reality when advocates are willing to spend years changing public opinion instead of simply winning the next vote. Culture moves first. Policy almost always follows. Anti-hunting organizations understand this reality. Like the anti-gun movement, they’re playing chess, not checkers, and hunters need to begin thinking with the same long-term mindset.
That lesson should resonate with every hunter because, unlike the right to keep and bear arms, hunting is not explicitly protected by the United States Constitution. While many states, including Virginia, have constitutional amendments recognizing the right to hunt and fish, those protections exist only at the state level. Their future ultimately depends upon whether citizens continue to value hunting enough to preserve them.
In other words, the future of hunting has always depended on more than hunters.
It depends on the millions of Americans who don’t hunt but vote. It depends on parents deciding whether to introduce their children to the outdoors. It depends on suburban families whose only exposure to hunting comes from a headline, a social media post, or a conversation with someone they trust. If they understand what hunting truly represents, they’ll be far more likely to support it. If they don’t, someone else will define us for them.
Perhaps that’s where we’ve fallen short.
We’re exceptionally good at talking to people who already agree with us. We write for hunters. We produce television for hunters. We market products to hunters. We attend the same conventions, support the same organizations, and celebrate the same successes. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the future of hunting won’t be decided by hunters alone. It will be decided by millions of Americans who may never purchase a hunting license but who will ultimately shape the political and cultural environment in which hunting either thrives or struggles.
Those are the people we need to reach.
For too long, we’ve become experts at defending hunting instead of explaining it. We mobilize when legislation is introduced. We rally when a ballot initiative appears. We fight passionately when our traditions are attacked. Meanwhile, those seeking to eliminate hunting never stop telling their story because they understand that changing laws begins by changing minds.
Our response cannot simply be louder opposition. It has to be better leadership—leadership that is inclusive, community-minded, and outward focused. We should continue telling the story of what hunting has done for wildlife through the Pittman-Robertson Act, license dollars, habitat restoration, and science-based wildlife management. Those facts matter because they’re true.
But I believe there’s another story we’ve overlooked.
We need to tell people what hunters do for people who cant, don't, or won't hunt too.
We need to tell the story of the hunting club that raises money for a child battling cancer. The sportsmen who rebuild wheelchair ramps for disabled veterans. The volunteers who donate venison to local food pantries. The conservation organization that restores streams and habitat because healthier land benefits the entire community. The hunters who mentor young people, sponsor scholarships, coach youth shooting sports, support first responders, and quietly show up whenever their neighbors need them.
Those stories matter because they reveal something deeper than whether someone hunts.
They reveal who hunters are.
One of the greatest challenges facing our community is that many Americans who don’t hunt have never actually met a hunter, or at least they don’t realize they have. Their understanding of hunting is often shaped by headlines, social media, or organizations whose objective isn’t simply to end hunting but to redefine hunters themselves. Before someone can convince the public to oppose hunting, they first have to convince them that hunters are somehow different, less compassionate, less ethical, less worthy of being heard.
In short, they have to dehumanize us.
Our greatest response isn’t outrage, it’s humanity.
Every act of service, every conservation project, every scholarship, every veteran we help, every child we mentor, every meal we donate, and every neighbor we serve reminds the public that hunters are exactly what we’ve always been, ordinary Americans who care deeply about wildlife, our communities, and leaving both better than we found them. The future of hunting may depend less on convincing people to become hunters than it does on convincing them that hunters make their communities stronger.
That’s the story we should be telling every day.
Because hunting has never simply been about harvesting an animal. It’s about stewardship. It’s about responsibility. It’s about family, food, faith, conservation, and service. Those are values that resonate whether someone hunts or not.
Oregon bought us something incredibly valuable: time. The question isn’t whether another challenge is coming, because it is. The question is whether we’ll use the time we’ve been given to mentor new hunters, welcome non-hunters into our camps, serve our communities, and tell our story so well that when the next challenge arrives, the public already understands why hunting matters.
The people behind Oregon’s initiative aren’t taking a break because they lost, and neither should we.
Victories deserve to be celebrated. But legacies are built by what we do after the celebration ends.
Oregon wasn’t the end of the story. It was a reminder that stories shape culture, culture shapes policy, and policy shapes the future. If we want hunting to endure, then our greatest responsibility isn’t simply to defend it. It’s to live it in such a way that our neighbors, whether they hunt or not, are grateful hunters are part of their community.
That’s how we preserve hunting, and build a legacy that will outlast every ballot initiative still to come.
After all, the best way to win any war is by never having to fight it in the first place.
If we can win the hearts and minds of all of the Americans who don't hunt, we may do just that.