Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT) told Todd Starnes that the Biden Administration has defunded safety classes on hunting and archery for young people.
“It’s nothing more than the Biden administration’s attempt to curb our Second Amendment rights,” the congressman told Starnes.
Following is a transcript of Todd’s interview on his radio program.
TODD: [01:19:51] Congressman, we appreciate you spending a few minutes with us. I do want to bring to everyone’s attention this crazy story about the Department of Education, defunding, hunting safety and archery at Montana schools. So, first of all, give us some background. What were they teaching the kids at Montana schools up until recently?
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REP. ROSENDALE: [01:20:19] It’s safety, it’s hunter safety. It’s how to handle a firearm safely. It’s how to be able to take a bow and arrow and utilize it to hit a target. It’s getting kids away from televisions and from video games and into the great outdoors. And our superintendent of schools was able to award 25 different school districts, $4.8 billion, which is nominal. It did by today’s standards, to make sure that these kids were getting exposed to this. And I’ll tell you, it doesn’t matter whether you have a firearm in your home or not. If you can have youths exposed to hunter safety, to firearm safety programs, then they are better for it. And then if they so decide and they would like to pursue hunting activities or just shooting sports activities, great. All the more, all the more wonderful. But certainly in the great state of Montana, we have a large segment of our population that that utilizes these sports and enjoys these sports. And for the federal government to come in under the guise of the through the Department of Education, under the guise of the Safer Communities Act, to remove the ability for our schools to use that funding. It’s wrong. Just the superintendent of schools has already awarded the funds and they’re supposed to be directed at safe and healthy students. Well, by golly. Learning to shoot a bow arrow and learning how to handle a firearm safely. It certainly falls under the heading of safe and healthy students.
TODD: [01:22:07] And again, I didn’t want to jump the gun just a bit. But but the reason you’re here is because the Department of Education has now defunded those those programs. Did they give you a reason why any are you getting any word on why that happened?
REP. ROSENDALE: [01:22:22] I just sent the letter off with my colleagues, Lauren Boebert from Colorado, Mary Miller from Illinois, to ask them and to get this turned around and let them know that this is it’s an intentional mis interpretation of the legislation and it’s nothing more than the Biden administration’s attempt to curb our Second Amendment rights. And we’re trying to find out if we can’t get this turned around.
TODD: [01:22:46] I remember growing up, I grew up in the South. And of course, deer hunting is a big deal here. And it was actually a school holiday. You know, the start of deer season. You were not in class. You were out you were out in the fields.
REP. ROSENDALE: [01:23:03] This is what happens when the federal government starts making decisions about how states should be functioning. It’s a big problem, as I often say. Dwight Eisenhower and I paraphrase used to say that farming was also easy. When you live a thousand miles away from a cornfield and used a pencil for a plow. And and we’ve got too many people that use pencils for plows, okay? They’re making decisions about how everybody should should operate. But I will also tell you that it should be a warning flags to everyone. When you start accepting funds from the federal government, there are always strings attached and no different than when Michelle Obama started trying to tell everybody what they needed to have on their menu for lunch. This this is the kind of repercussions that you have to be ready to endure when you accept those those federal dollars.