SPRINGFIELD, IL.—The Illinois Department of Natural Resources is misappropriating millions of dollars that should have been earmarked for the state’s sportsmen.

The Pittman-Robertson Act, an 11-percent federal tax on guns, ammunition, and fishing and archery equipment is about the only tax most sportsmen don’t mind paying, unless the funds are misused.

The funds collected annually by the Act are supposed to be returned to the states to increase fish and game populations, construct public shooting ranges, improve public hunting lands, and teach firearms safety to future hunters and shooters.

Since it was first signed in 1937 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Pittman-Robertson Act has saved elk herds, boosted white-tailed deer populations and re-introduced pheasants, wild turkeys and other animals to states that had dwindling populations, in addition to teaching basic firearms fundamentals to millions of people.

When there was talk of ending the Act, sportsmen argued against the move. Most considered it an excise tax—a user fee for outdoor sports—and supported keeping it in place, as long as the funds were disbursed by their state’s department of natural resources in a common-sense manner, in keeping with what the drafters of the legislation had in mind: public shooting ranges, public hunting lands, and fish and game conservation.

In Illinois, however, that hasn’t been the case.

Rather than using the money as intended, an investigation by the Illinois Policy Institute has revealed that the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) is pumping the state’s Pittman-Robertson Act funds into two state universities at Champaign and Carbondale.

Some of the university studies funded by sportsmen’s dollars, most of which fall far short of the intent of the legislation, include: developing information about the foraging and nesting behavior of mute swans, developing “practical and efficient” methods to count ground squirrels, and using radar to monitor waterfowl migration.

More troublesome, however, is that the IDNR is also using Pittman-Robertson money to maintain websites, convert paper and micro-fiche documents into CDs, and conduct public opinion polling about their policies and regulations.

Stacy Lischka is a “human dimensions program specialist” working for the University of Illinois in Champaign, although she lives in Canada.

According to the documents obtained by the Institute, Lischka, who is listed as “principal investigator” on two contracts, received more than $750,000 “to determine attitudes of hunters, trappers and other stakeholders likely to affect wildlife population.”

“We try to learn how sportsmen feel about potential changes to regulations or access programs, and programs the DNR is thinking about doing,” she told the Illinois Policy Institute. “Generally, we try to track people’s opinions and satisfaction with regulations, and with potential changes to the regulations.”

Asked why she needed more than $750,000 for the study, Lischka said most went for postage.

“Mailing costs are expensive,” she said. “The dollars and cents of it come down to doing the survey and receiving it back.”

The Illinois Policy Institute filed a request under the state Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, requesting copies of all contracts involving Pittman-Roberson Act funds dispersed over the past five years.

The IDNR did not comply with this request. Instead, they provided a partial list of contract numbers. The Institute made a subsequent FOIA request to the Illinois Comptroller’s Office, for all the contracts. The Comptroller’s Office provided what they had, 21 contracts, many covering multiple years, ranging from 2008 to 2011.

According to an audit conducted by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Office of the Inspector General, published July 2010, the IDNR received 73 grants totaling $38.9 million in Pittman-Robertson Act funds from July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2009.

The amount of federal money listed in the contracts obtained by the Institute through FOIA does not come close to totaling $38.9 million. Therefore, the whereabouts of much of the state’s Pittman-Robertson Act funds remains unknown.

Illinois Department of Natural Resources Director Marc Miller refused to comment for this story. Governor Pat Quinn appointed Miller as director in 2009. Prior to his appointment, Miller served as Quinn’s senior policy advisor.

Quinn likewise refused to comment for this story.

Local reaction
Word the IDNR was violating the spirit, if not the letter of the Pittman-Robertson Act comes as no surprise to Illinois sportsmen, who have long wondered and even filed suit to find out where their money was going.

“The crime for me is that they’ve done this for years,” said Dr. David Pike, immediate-past president of the Champaign County Rifle Association. “This is not something recent, just happening now. They have a history of this. Those with oversight of these funds have been irresponsible.”

Other groups have noticed the missing funds.

Richard Pearson is executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA), the state affiliate of the National Rifle Association.

Pearson said the ISRA filed suit in the late 1980s to see how the funds were being spent, until a judge decided they lacked standing and dismissed the case.

“We couldn’t figure out what was happening to our money,” Pearson said. “I think the government owes sportsmen of this state a couple million dollars.”

Pearson believes the funds were used for other, non-sanctioned purposes.

Using the funds to pay for research of non-game animals, he and other said, violates the Act.

“The money comes from people buying ammunition, much of which is hunting ammo. That was the purpose of the Pittman-Robertson Act—game animals,” he said. “They closed the Green River Hunting area under the Blagojevich administration because they were releasing pheasants, which Blagojevich said were not part of the Act. Well, neither is studying some worm somewhere.”

Jerry Martoglio is president of the Illinois BASS Federation, which is comprised of 52 bass-fishing clubs scattered throughout the state.

Martoglio said that while he and his members have positive working relationships with local IDNR staff, the agency’s senior officials remain ignorant of their needs.

“These strange studies—I’m not in favor of that at all,” Martoglio said. “In a perfect world, they should be looking at what the people of the State of Illinois really desire to see in way of studies of animals: deer, wild turkey, and those kinds of things. Studying the midnight reaction of a mole as it burrows through my yard is not relevant. They need to direct their attention to what the bulk of the populace wants.”

The Illinois BASS Federation, Martoglio said, stocks local waters with small-mouth bass purchased with club funds.

“If there’s any federal money given to the DNR, we haven’t seen it,” he said.

National reaction
Aaron Zelman is executive director of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, which describes itself as the country’s “most aggressive” defender of firearms ownership.

“Anyone who’s a hunter who doesn’t get incensed about this is either brain-dead or not thinking,” Zelman said.

The National Rifle Association believes vigilance is required.

“Sportsmen and women have funded conservation for generations through the Pittman-Robertson Act. This legislation has allowed numerous species to flourish, while providing protection for wild lands,” said Lacey Biles, hunting policy liaison for the NRA. “As we approach the 75th anniversary of the Act that has yielded large successes, much work remains to be done if we are to preserve America’s rich hunting heritage.”

Larry Pratt is executive director of Gun Owners of America.

He too questioned where the IDNR funneled Illinois sportsmen’s funds.

“These university people are probably more allied with PETA than with hunters,” he said. “This is money pulled out of our pockets by the feds. This is one more illustration of government out of control. They’ve forgotten who they work for. They do anything they want. This illustrates it. This is illustration number 1,001.”

Solutions
Pike believes the IDNR needs more transparency and accountability in the ways the agency disburses monies collected from the state’s sportsmen.

He and others have said the IDNR should place every contract funded by the Act on their Web site, for the public to scrutinize.

In addition, legislation is needed to create a commission that could oversee and direct how the money is spent.

“The majority of the people involved should be gun owners and sportsmen, not government employees,” Pike said. “Why run this from the top down. It really should come from the bottom up. There are a number of organizations in this state that could send staff.”

Martoglio would support a commission, but questions whether it would be effective.

“The problem in Illinois has always been that no commission or committee has been able to control the political footballs in this state,” he said. “The appointees may all be great guys, but they’re usually whoever rubs the governor’s back the hardest before the election.”

Download a formatted version of this report, complete with a table of the Pittman-Robertson Act contracts awarded by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, here.

Lee Williams is the investigative reporter at the Illinois Policy Institute and writer for the Last Honest Man. Contact him at 217-638-8054 or lee@illinoispolicy.org.

Our member, who is an avid antique Colt firearm collector, wanted to get an appraisal on a couple of his pieces that he had purchased a few years ago to check on any appreciation in value he might have enjoyed.

He took a Colt 3rd Model Dragoon, valued a few years ago at easily $7000 and a Model 1851 Navy valued at $3000 to the “Roadshow Experts” at the Antique Treasure Hunter’s Roadshow for that examination and appraisal.

I thought this was going to be just like the TV show ‘Antique Roadshow’. I just wanted someone to look at them and give me an appraisal,” our member said. He gave them the guns to evaluate without revealing his own knowledge of them, hoping to learn more about the very rare and collectible firearms.

Each of these guns was previously researched by Colt’s Historical Research Department and issued a letter detailing its date of manufacture and when and to whom it was initially sold. Colt’s website explains, “we have the unique ability to trace your firearm to its origins and not only to verify its authenticity but also to certify when and to whom it was originally sold.”

The man examining the guns, described in multiple full-page advertisements in the local paper as a “Roadshow Expert”, carefully looked over both handguns, each over 120 years old. He then took them to another man our member believed might have been the “head honcho”. When the “expert” returned, he explained that the two guns weren’t worth very much based upon their condition and “one he thought was a reproduction.”

We can give you $225 for the both of them,” the initial “expert” said.

Our member chuckled and said, “You’re not even close.”

Trademark infringement It seems like our member wasn’t the only one who thought “Antique Treasure Hunter’s Roadshow” sounded a lot like the TV show.

According to an article in the Springfield, IL State-Journal Register earlier this year, PBS’s representatives are suing Jeffrey Parsons and his company in U.S. District court in Springfield. They are claiming trademark infringement and seeking to bar Parsons’ Illinois-based company, THR & Associates, from using the word “Roadshow” in its name and trademarks related to its events.

The story also reported that, “The suit also calls Treasure Hunter’s Roadshow no more than ‘a scrap metal dealer’ and says Treasure Hunter’s pays its customers ‘pennies on the dollar’ for valuable antiques.”

The suit, filed by WGBH Educational Foundation, also says, “At these events, defendants’ employees purportedly appraise the customers’ valuables and will purchase them on the spot… Generally, the appraisal is based on nothing more than the weight of the metal.”

Further research reveals that this isn’t the first time the creators of the PBS program have sued Jeffrey Parsons. In 1999, they sued him and the International Toy Collectors Association for their “Roadshows” and reached a settlement which included ITCA agreeing to no longer use the term “Roadshow” in their course of business. ITCA was dissolved in 2007 and THR & Associates was then incorporated.

Gold buyers or gold diggers? THR representatives and their advertisements have bragged about paying “Grey Sheet Prices” on numismatic coins and are “paying top dollar” for coins, gold & silver, jewelry, watches, toys, military items and advertising items.

In Memphis, a THR representative bragged to local news media that they typically pay 30-50% higher than local jewelers and other buyers.

Action News 5 in Memphis put them to the test in their story, “The Investigators: Gold Diggers”. The result? THR offered 37% less than a local jeweler for scrap gold. Even a local pawn shop offered 10% more than THR.

The Examiner, a newspaper in Beaumont, Texas, looked into THR’s Treasure Hunter’s Roadshow as part of a 30-day investigation as THR traveled around that state. Their reporters found the company offered 50-72% less than the numismatic value in a series of offers for different batches of coins.

They aren’t even offering scrap value for some of these coins,” one legitimate local precious metals and coin dealer expert was quoted as saying.

Another article in the Ukiah (CA) Daily noted THR offered 80% under melt value for 1964 half-dollars.

So much for paying “top dollar”.

BBB Problems THR also ran afoul of the Better Business Bureau for using their Accredited” logo on their website without permission or license.

They were also criticized by the BBB for running faux-newspaper articles without noting they were “paid advertisements”.

Both issues have been resolved with the Better Business Bureau, according to the Beaumont Examiner. Bounced checks It also seems that predatory low-ball offers aren’t the only danger to consumers patronizing THR’s Antique Treasure Hunter’s Roadshow. Bounced checks seem to have sprouted in many cities where they’ve set up shop in the last couple of years.

The president of THR admitted that 45 checks from a Michigan show bounced in a story WREG in Memphis completed in September 2009, but that’s the only time it’s happened he says.

Not so, Mr. President. News reports in the twelve months prior to that, according to WREG, have shown lots of THR checks have bounced in seven cities. Company representatives have had a handful of excuses, usually claiming accounting mix-ups.

Good riddance, for now We’re happy to say that the Roadshow has departed our city, but their travelling circus undoubtedly continues to make the rounds throughout the nation and will return to our area later this year or next.

You now will better know their claims of paying “top dollar” are as faulty as their examinations to determine the value of your collectibles.

Questionable business practices, bad checks and trademark infringement seem to be but a few problems that follow THR’s Treasure Hunter’s Roadshow.

However, big advertisements masquerading as news reports, coupled with reporters eager to write gushing features on an itinerate merchant spending big dollars on advertising in these lean times keep a stream of consumers walking into their shows.

We provided a copy of this report to the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette’s publisher, John Foreman, and asked for a comment as to whether he considers the business practices of THR’s Treasure Hunter’s Roadshow of interest to his readers and he declined to respond.

If you are a savvy consumer, this is one “roadshow” you and your friends might well be advised to avoid.

GUNS SAVE LIFE.com

Is TONIGHT, March 9, 2010

Knights of Columbus Hall

1001 N Ohio

Rantoul, IL.

Take Rte 45 to north edge of Rantoul, turn west on Campbell Ave (Ott’s Restaurant corner) to Ohio, which is just west of the railroad tracks. Follow Ohio Avenue north out of town to the REAL north edge of town. Knights of Columbus is on the hill, and on your right.

Doors open at 5:00pm.

Dinner, conversation, exhibits starting at 5:30 p.m. Meeting at 7 p.m.

Come on out and join us!

The public is encouraged to attend!

Good food and good friends.

It’s fun too!

ALWAYS ON THE SECOND TUESDAY.

Tomorrow, March 10…

IGOLD! 

Illinois Gun Owners Lobby Day

Springfield

12 Noon

Prairie Capital Convention Center

Still room on some busses from around the state, including the Guns Save Life busses from Danville, Urbana, and Decatur.  Keep scrolling down to find out more. 

That’s the formula espoused by the esteemed Mayor for Life Daley of Chicago.  I heard him on the radio yesterday, yammering that we don’t have enough gun control laws.  Something to the effect of how horrible it is that we have to take off our shoes in airports, and people are STILL able to buy guns, and possess guns. 

In a week when his beloved Chicago handgun ban took a beating at the Supreme Court, Mayor Doofus started (again) pushing his one gun a month and other schemes. 

Nice week to start that push, Mayor – with thousands of gun owners showing up tomorrow on the steps of the Capitol. 

You see, Mayor, it’s OUR House, and OUR Senate.  They are, or are at least supposed to be, OUR representatives, not yours.  They are supposed to listen to OUR voices, not yours. 

We’ll be talking to them tomorrow.  Lots of us.  Men, women, children.  All professions, all ages.  Gun owners, who aren’t asking the government for ANY tax money.  They are simply asking the government to leave them ALONE. 

If you can get there, do so.  Go to IGOLD – Illinois Gun Owners Lobby Day.  Let’s remind those in state government who they work for.  If they value re-election, they just might go our way, instead of following the Mayor off the gun-control cliff. 

John Naese

Last year at the end of IGOLD, our busses ended up with a few hundred protest type signs from IGOLD.  I asked people on the busses then to step up and take a bundle with them when they went home, and store them until we needed them again. 

WE NEED THEM AGAIN! 

If you have some of the signs and are coming to IGOLD, bring them with you.  We have room on the bus to transport them in the cargo area.  If you have signs and are driving on your own, bring them with you anyway.  Look for the Guns Save Life table and we’ll store them there until the march to the Capitol begins. 

IF YOU HAVE SIGNS, but are not going to IGOLD this year, and you ARE coming to the Tuesday night Guns Save Life meeting in Rantoul, bring them with you then and we’ll take them. 

IF you have signs, and are not going to either the Tuesday meeting or the Wednesday IGOLD event, contact me at johnnaese@gunssavelife.com and I’ll see about getting them from you. 

ALSO for the TUESDAY NIGHT MEETING: 

One of our guest speakers will be championship trap shooter Mike Westjohn from Monticello, who will talk about the “mental management” of shooting.  In other words, the mind game that makes your shooting game better. 

ALSO for IGOLD - WEDNESDAY:  We have four busses going.  We have three filled, and we’re working on the fourth.  If you haven’t made the committment yet, come on out; we’ve got about 30 seats left.  Reserve one (or more!) by emailing johnnaese@gunssavelife.com, or calling him at 217-684-2602. 

If you’re coming from elsewhere in Illinois, see www.igold.isra.org. 

John N. 

Politics (unfortunately) is important.  As gun owners, we’ve found that we can not just sit by, live our lives, not get our hands dirty in politics, and hope for the best.  We HAVE to be involved.  Otherwise, we lose. 

Politics is important.  IGOLD is important.  Short of family emergencies or medical issues, I can’t think of anyplace more important for Illinois gun owners to be next Wednesday than in Springfield in large numbers, telling the politicians what we think. 

But there are other things that are important.  This weekend, for example, 45 or 50 shooters and about 20 instructors will gather at Aurora Sportsman’s Club in Waterman for an Appleseed shoot.  The shooters, experienced and new alike, will learn or review the fundamentals of rifle marksmanship, and will review the fundamentals of American Heritage.  The Heritage of the Rifleman.  The American Rifleman, who used to be able, with a regular rifle and conventional ball ammo, to control “the Rifleman’s Quarter Mile” by hitting any target he could see for 500 yards.  The Heritage of a Nation of Riflemen, which we once were. 

We can get there again.  That’s what Appleseed is all about.  We’ve got lots of Illinois Appleseeds this year; the Waterman shoot this weekend is the first, but it won’t be the last.  You can come to an Appleseed, cheaply and easily.  If you can’t afford to shoot 400 rounds of centerfire ammo, bring a .22 rifle and a brick of .22 ammo. 

Politics is important.  But so is learning marksmanship, learning Heritage, and most importantly, passing these things on to others, both of your generation and the younger generation. 

Go to an Appleseed.  Bring someone with you.  With pre-registration at www.appleseedinfo.org, the cost for men is only $45 for one day or $70 for two days.  The cost for women (of any age):  free.  The cost for those under 21 years old:  free. 

It’s too late to pre-register for the Waterman Appleseed this weekend, but it’s not too late to plan to go.  Walk-ons are welcome, up to the capacity of the firing line.  The firing line this weekend can accommodate up to 80 shooters.  The cost (for those who have to pay) for walk-ons is only $5 a day more than for pre-registered.  There’s room; if you can make it this weekend, come on out.  You’ll be welcomed, you’ll be educated, and you’ll have fun, being an American, practicing that most quintessential of American pastimes, shooting. 

Next Wednesday, I hope you attend IGOLD, because politics is important.  But I also hope you rediscover your Heritage, and help someone else discover or rediscover it too, by going to an Appleseed.  If not this weekend, then soon. 

John Naese

johnnaese@gunssavelife.com

Wait a minute – didn’t the Supreme Court decide the Heller case a year and a half ago, stating that the right to bear arms is an individual right?  Yes, they did. 

Which demonstrates yet again why we always have to be vigilant about our rights.  Mayor Daley of Chicago is spending millions of taxpayer dollars defending his city’s handgun ban, thumbing his nose at the Heller decision. 

When left to their own devices, politicians will do whatever they want to do, instead of following the Constitution. 

They need constant reminders. 

If Mayor For Life Daley loses the McDonald case, as I suspect he will, don’t think for a minute that Chicago will just repeal the ban and life will be great.  They will continue to be as restrictive as they can get away with. 

Senators and Representatives in Springfield need to be reminded that we demand that our rights be respected.  They work for us, not for Mayor For Life Daley. 

IGOLD.  Nine days from now.  If you believe in the second amendment to the Constitution; if you are tired of Illinois citizens being treated like criminals just for exercising their second amendment rights; if you want to send a LOUD and CLEAR message – plan now to come to Springfield on March 10. 

Illinois Gun Owners Lobby Day.  One day can make all the difference. 

John Naese