Dallas Jones, the chairman of the Southampton County Board of Supervisors, as well as the county attorney and numerous others have told me that if I feel so strongly about muzzleloader hunting, I need to work on public opinion and gain a majority vote.

As a hunt club member, likely you are also a gun owner. You may be a landowner, but you are most certainly a gun owner. As a gun owner, I should hope you are a National Rifle Association member.

The NRA has been fighting for gun-owner rights since the 1800s. As a gun owner, we are losing our majority standing in this country. We are soon to be the minority, who have managed to hold on to our rights because of organizations such as the NRA.

The NRA has been fighting gun control lobbyists, animal rights organizations and politicians at the federal and state level for our rights as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Many groups have stood opposed to gun-owner rights. We have a group in our own county who stands opposed to gun-owner rights. We have hunt clubs standing opposed to gun-owner rights.

What are you going to tell your children when they come to take away your beloved shotgun? “I’m sorry, but I have stood for the right to restrict gun-owner rights when my opinion was on the side of the majority?”

Deep down in your heart, if you are a hunter, you know what you’re doing is wrong.

If you continue to hold this position, why don’t you go ahead and turn in your NRA membership card, fill out the PETA registration, and go get on the side of the fence with the other gun-control activists who are coming to take away our guns and our rights; after all, they will soon be the majority.

For those of you who are not gun owners, or do not hunt, you have no idea of the passion involved with this. If you’re a landowner, it’s your rights as well, even if you’re not concerned with this particular issue.

It may take some time, but I know I am making ground because I know what’s in a gun owner’s heart and a landowner’s rights. It’s the same heart, with the same passion that I have.

Landowners have already begun to turn away the clubs standing opposed to landowner rights. I will begin my work on gaining additional support in this area. Trust me when I say, I am on your side of the fence as everyone now knows.

It may take time, but I still believe in our Second Amendment rights, and I believe I can gain the support I am told I need to reverse this unconstitutional, unsupported Southampton County code.

If I have made any sense to you, and you fear that if you should say anything that your hunt club membership would no longer exist, do not concern yourself. Now is not the time to stand up.

There will come a time when our numbers have reached an overwhelming majority in Southampton County. How do I know this? Because we are all hunters and we all feel the same passion in our hearts in regards to gun-owner rights.

When that time has come, the fear will be gone and together we can right this wrong that has been going on since 1976. Hopefully, that time will come before the majority takes away all of our guns.

I have started a Facebook page, “Southampton County VA Landowners.” In the event that I am silenced, and there are definitely efforts to do so, you will find me there.

ROBERT RUDZIK is a Newsoms resident and can be reached at brudzik@horizon-aviation.com.