Right now, our public lands—where 72 percent of us hunt in the West and where almost all of the best D.I.Y. elk hunting on this planet takes place—are in the crosshairs of some misguided and truly shortsighted politicians. The first ruse is a demand to transfer public lands to control of the states, which have neither the budgets nor the incentives to keep or manage them, and which have already sold the majority of such lands granted to them at statehood. These politicians are counting on the anti–­federal government fury that we all sometimes feel, to blind us to their real plans: the transfer and sell-off of the lands that belong to us all. If they succeed, we won’t just lose our ­public-​land elk hunting. Federal water rights and grazing leases that underpin entire Western economies will be in play. We will face a radical remaking of our nation, bringing us in line with the landless citizens of China, Mexico, India, and most of Europe, where only the wealthiest hunt or fish or have access to wild country and clean rivers. It is not too late to stop this effort. Learn all you can, while we still have a chance to decide our own fate, and prepare for a battle.