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June 17, 2025
NSSF PROFILE Q&A: U.S. Rep. Addison McDowell (R-N.C.)
Editor’s Note: We are pleased to post the latest of our occasional Q&A features with an elected official who supports hunting and the shooting sports. NSSF thanks U.S. Rep. Addison McDowell (R-N.C.) for speaking with us about his staunch support for the Second Amendment and the importance of the firearm and ammunition industry to his constituents in the Tar Heel State.
Rep. McDowell is in his first term representing the Sixth U.S. Congressional District in North Carolina and currently serves on the House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee; the Natural Resources Committee; and the Budget Committee. We thank Rep. McDowell for speaking with us.
The following is transcribed from an audio interview.
1) Who introduced you to hunting and shooting sports, and why are hunting and the shooting sports important to you in your job representing North Carolina?
I was introduced to hunting and the shooting sports by a good friend of mine in high school. My dad doesn’t hunt, so it wasn’t the typical “my grandpa or my dad taught me to hunt and fish.” I had to go do it on my own and I kind of felt like that was something I wanted to try. I was 18 and I asked a friend of mine named Ryan who was really big into it. I asked him if I could go deer hunting with him and did and I just fell in love with it. I’ve been hooked ever since.
It’s important to me and my job representing North Carolinians because for so many of the people I represent it’s as much a passion to them as it is to me. The North Carolina Constitution guarantees us the right to hunt and fish so making sure the federal government doesn’t get in the way of our right to hunt and fish is a big deal to me. This is something in the Sixth District that so many people love and enjoy and it’s a great thing for people to take advantage of.
2) What was your most recent shooting sports/hunting experience? Was there any one recent trip or event that you cherished over others?
The most recent was a duck hunt to the Eastern coast of North Carolina. But my most cherished hunt is, you know I’ve had really great hunts and I’ve had poor ones, but the most fun hunts I’ve been on are when we take my niece and nephew dove hunting. Just being able to pass on that love of the outdoors to a different generation and seeing how excited they get when the doves start flying in the morning, to see them excited to wake up at four in the morning, it’s just really special to see how much they enjoy it. So, it may not be the most efficient way to hunt when you’re also making sure that kids under five are also safe but just being in that environment with them is a lot of fun and is something I can’t wait to take my own kids to do. Whether it’s hunting trophy whitetail or hunting ducks or turkeys, it’s just so much more special when you’re teaching a newer generation to do it.
3) Describe your favorite shooting sports or hunting activity.
All of the above. One of my first dates with my wife, we went to a pistol shooting range. Any time I can get practice in behind a shotgun over sporting clays or trap or skeet, I want to do it. There’s nothing like getting out and blowing up some Tannerite to make you feel like an American. I really, really love – my favorite hunt is a duck hunt. It doesn’t matter if you’re hunting with someone you’ve known for a long time or somebody that you’ve just met – there’s something special about a duck hunt because it requires some work. You’ve got to put out some decoys, set up a spread that looks inviting to ducks. You’ve got to do the work but the thing about duck hunting is that the habitat that you’re in, no matter what you’re going to see a beautiful sunrise. Even if you’re watching ducks flying in that are not landing close, it’s just spectacular to watch the sun coming up and watching ducks how they buzz by you and how they react to the calls. Seeing what does and doesn’t work. It’s a chess match that you’re playing with a bird. There’s just nothing better to me than sitting in a blind with good friends and watching ducks fly, watching dogs work – it’s the most special place I can think of.
4) Which piece of pending legislation in Washington, D.C., related to the conservation, hunting and the firearm industry is particularly important to you and why?
I’ve got a few. From a more shooting sports lane, the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act (H.R. 38) is about the most commonsense thing we can do right now. It needs to happen – there’s no excuse. If I’m taking a trip and driving from North Carolina to New York, I have to think of the 10 different state laws that I have to make sure I’m following, when the Constitution guarantees me the right to keep and bear arms. That’s long overdue. Obviously, that’s a tough one because we’re going to have to get 60 votes in the U.S. Senate and I don’t know if there are seven Democrats that will have the courage to get this common-sense legislation done. That one’s a huge one.
Another one that’s common sense is the Hearing Protection Act (H.R. 404), making sure that suppressors are something that’s available, particularly with rifles. Hunting bigger game, I’ve definitely made friends hunting that can’t hear anymore… if we can give that freedom for people to use those things, it creates a lot less noise. But it still creates a loud boom, which is something anti-Second Amendment people just don’t understand. That it’s not like it is in the movies. It’s still a loud bang – it’s just not loud enough to damage your hearing. It just common sense. So those are two things we need to do.
Also on the hunting side, I think it’s really important that we make sure the Endangered Species Act is not “Hotel California.” It’s not this big thing that is taken advantage of by bureaucrats that get things like the grizzly or the different species that get on that list and then never come off, even though they have a huntable population. Anything we can do to claw back these burdensome regulations on things like that, those are super important to making sure we have huntable populations of these animals that we can still hunt. So those are three very important pieces of legislation and are really important to me.
5) What do you see as the challenges and opportunities for hunters and shooting sports enthusiasts?
It’s two things. First of all, it’s the constant barrage of attacks on the Second Amendment by folks who hate guns and don’t want us to have them. I will fight that with everything I’ve got. That is a huge one and that’s a battle that we’re always going to be fighting legislatively.
Another one, and I’ve talked with the Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum about this, and just made sure that we have his commitment that when his department… under the last four years of Joe Biden, hunters and fisherman were not, their voices were not heard in the rule-making and decision-making process with the Department of the Interior. It led to a lot of decisions being made that completely ignored good science that conservation groups… that they came up with. Good science was just ignored by these people that hate hunting and hate the Second Amendment. And so I want to make sure that Secretary Burgum, that we have his commitment that anything that his department does will take into account our right to hunt and fish. And he’s agreed whole-heartedly that it would.
Any of these bureaucratic agencies that don’t care to listen to sportsmen and women and don’t understand that this is a way of life for us, they’re always going to be dangerous to our ability to hunt and fish. We need to make sure we’re fighting them constantly. This is our right – hunting and fishing are way older than bureaucrat in this country and as long as we still want to do it, we need to make sure that we are active and advocating for the rights that we want to maintain. That’s just super important.
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