The president of the National Rifle Association today (Monday) urged state lawmakers to continue to “shoot down” rules that he says are discouraging hunting in the state. N-R-A president Kayne Robinson, a retired Des Moines cop, says everyone “might want to take a lawyer hunting,” but sportsmen and women shouldn’t have to hire a lawyer to go hunting. “We should remember we’re hunting,” Robinson says. “We don’t need rules appropriate to flying an airliner on instruments or designing a heart/lung machine or running a bank with other people’s money in it. We’d better keep it easy and fun to do.” Robinson says oppressive, “nit-picky” hunting rules are driving people out of the sport, “We’re making it so red-tape laden that it’s a risk for a person (who) doesn’t almost hire a lawyer in many states to read the rules” before they go hunting, according to Robinson. He says rules are often written to make regulators’ lives more convenient, and the convenience and “civil rights” of hunters are forgotten. Robinson also complained that state regulators have cut his group out of any discussions about reducing the state’s deer herd. “We, the state’s largest hunting organization, have never been included in a single, serious meeting by the Department of Natural Resources where there was serious, two-way discussion, let alone decision-making, about any hunting issue,” Robinson says. Robinson testified earlier this afternoon before the House Natural Resources Committee. Robinson’s two-year term as president of the National Rifle Association is set to expire in early April. He will continue to serve on the N-R-A’s board of directors. Robinson was also chairman of the Iowa Republican Party during the 2000 election.