Nice of F&S to follow up on the discussion, but my opinion remains unchanged.

Sounds like the same political crap to me, and what's the deal with his AK statement?

Q. How can you tell when John Edwards is lying?
A. His lips are moving.

I don't NEED an ak-47, but I do want one. I love to shoot them. I love shooting coke bottles full of water, other rifles would probably do a better job, but the ak is just plain fun! I don't want someone else telling me what I do or don't need. No one needs a corvette or ferrari but people sure do enjoy them. We don't need a lot of the things that we enjoy, but that doesn't mean we should be prevented from having them. John Edwards doesn't need the huge house on lots of land that he lives on but I'm sure he enjoys it.

It's the same old line of crap from the politcal elite, those that have everything they want try and tell everyone else what they should be allowed to have.

I expect we will be seeing Breck Girl out of the race fairly soon if we are still a year out and he already has to try and plant his lips on the hunting and fishing crowds ass. take a hike you phoney!

Just because I don't need an AK, doesn't mean he's allowed to ban them. What's next, .30-.30s?

How can he say he believes in the Second Ammendment and that people don't need AKs?

Sounds credible to me. Whether or not he'd follow through is something only a decent election outcome could determine. He's certainly far more worthy of trust that the p.o.s. presently stinking up the West Wing.

I think some people here need to be reminded who has been leading the polls among Republican candidates: Rudy!
I'd trust Edwards with our guns way before I'd trust him--and I think a Democrat could do us a mountain of good with the environment--which has been systematically raped by the Bush administration.

You Republican loving idiots. You think anyone who'd ruin your environment, spy on you illegally, etc, would let you keep your guns?

LOL. Guillible much? Maybe Romney and his rabbit-huntin charade is your cup of tea.

If there has ever been a time to forget our old allegiences, this is it. Yes, Democrats have historically hurt us on guns, but no more so than the Republicans have assaulted the environment--particularly in the recent mad rush to extract energy from some of the country's best hunting areas. It's time to forget the letter in front of the candidate's name, as Josh suggests above, and vote for the man who seems to have the best ideas. Will there be some lies mixed in with the promises? Yes. No doubt. But that will be true of every candidate.
You'll have to decide for yourself if you trust Edwards, but you can't deny that he is taking the trouble to speak to us and our interests specifically.

Would you rather a candidate pay no attention to the camo crowd? Whenever anyone of either party tries to pay us any attention, his or her detractors call it "sucking up." It's a meaningless charge.
I want a candidate that sucks up to us; it means that he or she recongizes our collective influence, which is a very good thing.

I have to comment on this question from Field and Stream:

"F&S: How do you plan to balance the Roadless Rule with maintaining access to land?"

There never was an issue with maintaining access with the Roadless Rule. What the Roadless Rule did was protect the nations last, rare roadless areas from development. Roadless national forest lands and official wilderness are open to hunting and fishing.

How could you lose access to a place that never had a road, and that which was open to hunting, fishing, hiking, wildlife watching, canoing, and all other sorts of non-motorized recreation?

I think the real question should be:

"How do you plan to implement the Roadless Rule to maintain our hunting and fishing heritage, and to preserve the incredibly important habitat"?

That's the proper wording of the question.

Without Roadless areas, we would have nothing but deer and rabbit hunting in tree farms.

That might be the current administrations view of the outdoors, (who like to hunt on some of their buddies largest private ranches in the nation, just like the feudal system over in Europe) but it certainly isn't mine, and it certainly isn't John Edwards view.

John Edwards is taking the view of the modern sportsman, speaking in terms of habitat conservation as priority #1.

I have no idea who I will vote for as next president, but I can tell you that John Edwards comments in this section are already a gigantic improvement over the current administration's attitude towards public lands.

Don;t beleive me? They tried to sell hundred sof thousands of acres of national forest land recently.

Talk about "maintaining access" Where was that question when this happened?

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070301/NEWS/703010416/1036

"The administration maintained that its plan, which involved the sale of almost 300,000 acres of public property within the national forests in 35 states, could generate $800 million."

Do you want a person in office keen on protecting the last great herds of elk, bighorn, moose, mountain goat on our wild, huntable national forest lands, or do you want someone in office who wants to *sell* those lands?

Tough choice.

I am not planning on voting for edwards. However he never said that he would ban AKs, he said that he didnt know of anyone who needed to hunt with one. You can read into it all you want but that is what he said.

Now for all you Bushies out there what do you have to say about Bush saying that he would sign the assault weapons ban if it got to his desk just a couple of years ago.

I agree Mike, but,

The political process in this country has turned into nothing more than a crap shoot with no prizes. Just put your money on black and hope for the best of the worst.

And the ideas, votes and rhetoric mean nothing until you guys realize; it doesn't matter if there is a donkey or an elephant by the guy's name, all that matters is what he does once he fools everyone to get into office.