The NRA HLF marches in step with one of the NRA’s five key purposes and objectives: “to promote hunter safety, and to promote and defend hunting as a shooting sport and as a viable and necessary method of fostering the propagation, growth, conservation and wise use of our renewable wildlife resources.”

About the NRA Hunters’ Leadership Forum (HLF)
As the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, the National Rifle Association fights nonstop for American freedom and its 5½ million members, gun owners, hunters and shooters. In response to the culture war on American hunters, in 2014 it launched the NRA Hunters’ Leadership Forum (HLF) to address the cultural, political, demographic and technological challenges to hunting’s future in the 21^st century. In working to enrich and grow the NRA’s efforts, the HLF marches in step with one of the NRA’s five key purposes and objectives: “to promote hunter safety, and to promote and defend hunting as a shooting sport and as a viable and necessary method of fostering the propagation, growth, conservation and wise use of our renewable wildlife resources.”

Visit NRAHLF.org for News on Hunting Issues.
The NRA HLF stands with the NRA and its lobbying arm, the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA), as it works to reclaim the narrative on hunters, hunting and animal welfare and expose the misinformation touted by well-organized and well-funded animal rights extremists.

In July 2016, NRA Publications launched the NRA HLF website—NRAHLF.org—to monitor news on the issues impacting the future of hunting and wildlife conservation on the state, national and international levels. In addition, material shares the stories of hunters and hunting and explains: how poaching is not hunting; how legal, regulated hunting benefits wildlife; and how hunters are ethical, compassionate mainstream Americans whose dollars aid game and non-game species alike. Without hunting and hunters’ dollars, there would be no wildlife conservation. Visit NRAHLF.org regularly for all of the above and please share the story links.

Receive the NRA HLF’s Bi-Monthly E-Newsletters.
Bi-monthly NRA HLF e-newsletters compile material from NRAHLF.org to share with the collective hunting community. please visit Sign Up for Updates or email NRA HLF Director of Communications Karen Mehall Phillips at [email protected] to add your email to the distribution list.

Tap into the NRA HLF Social Media Network.
In showcasing the truth about hunting and wildlife conservation and confronting increasing threats to our all-American hunting traditions, NRAHLF.org created the NRA HLF Social Media Network. The network consists of hunting and shooting sports industry companies, like-minded organizations, hunters and other members of the hunting community who partner with the NRA to share NRAHLF.org content on their respective social media platforms. To add your email to the NRA HLF Social Media Alert distribution list, please visit Sign Up for Updates or email the NRA's Karen Mehall Phillips at [email protected].

Follow us on Twitter.
In November 2018 NRA Publications launched the NRAHLF.org’s Twitter page to build the NRAHLF.org audience and better connect with like-minded individuals and organizations, state wildlife agencies, journalists and podcasters. Twitter was chosen specifically for its news focus. Follow us on Twitter @HuntersLead.

Strength in Numbers: Know What NRA Research on Public Attitudes Shows.
Funded by the NRA HLF, the NRA hired the research firm Responsive Management to conduct America’s first national survey and focus group study assessing public attitudes toward animal rights, animal welfare and hunting. With public attitudes controlling the debate, the NRA needed benchmark data to gauge public perceptions and begin crafting messages that resonate with the public. It found that promoting hunting is not a matter of changing Americans’ values but rather reaffirming them. The research reveals ground-breaking facts, including the following seven concepts:

• The American public overwhelming supports legal, regulated hunting;
• Only 2 percent of Americans do not consume meat or wear leather;
• Of the 14 percent of Americans who consider themselves supporters of animal rights, only 1 percent does not consume meat or wear leather;
• Animal rights extremist groups use an animal welfare platform to promote and fund an animal rights agenda;
• Many Americans confuse poaching with hunting;
• Messages that portray hunting as a mechanism for wildlife population control and wildlife conservation funding are well received by the American public, though many people have never considered these concepts.
• The majority of people who do not hunt believe that people should have the right to hunt.

Expose Extremists’ Efforts to Impact America’s Legal System.
Animal rights proponents increasingly target America’s legal system to advance their extremist agenda. Going beyond staging public protests and using celebrity spokespersons, they now work to ingrain their ideas in our courts and law schools to rewrite laws in their favor. Today groups like the Humane Society of the United States and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals fund the salaries of animal rights attorneys. They also work to recruit law students to their cause, who will go on to influence society. For example, Bob Barker, former host of “The Price is Right,” has donated $1 million each to a number of the nation’s top law schools to fund animal rights programs. According to the New York Times, Barker’s goal is to “train a generation of lawyers, judges and legislators in animal rights.”

The NRA is addressing this movement with a logical, impassioned defense of the principles of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation (NAMWC). It is conducting scholarly, legal research highlighting hunting’s benefits to counter claims presented by the other side. This has produced legal memoranda on: standing in animal and wildlife litigation; animals as parties to lawsuits; legal personhood status for animals; animals receiving rights based on cognitive abilities; and the NAMWC.

About the NRA: Fighting for Hunters for 148 Years
The NRA is the largest organization of hunters with an estimated 3.5-million hunters in its five-million-plus membership ranks. The NRA’s strength and political firepower comes from its membership as NRA members stand united on the issues impacting hunting’s future. In December 2014, on a motion put forth by now NRA 1^st Vice President Richard Childress during the presidency of then-NRA President Jim Porter, the NRA Board adopted the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation as official NRA policy.