Zumbo: Gun rag writer trashes "Assault Weapons"

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My responses on the Nuge board
Mr. Zumbo,
I have been on of your biggest critics on, first on the OL blog site then on The High Road Forum. I've also been very vocal saying we should hear you out after you've had a few days to get your head together. And give you a third chance to redeem yourself. It sounds to me though that you STILL only view legitimate private ownership of firearms within the context of hunting.

I think it's time to hang em up sir as far as representing shooters in public.

Happy hunting

Later somebody posted we should keep things in perspective and not be so harsh.
quote:
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Originally posted by Violator22:
Guys, lets put this into perspective... But he does need to get out and become a VER VOCAL member of the @nd Amendment Rights team. Les
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Yes lets do put this in perspective. I don't want Mr. Zumbo publicly representing American shooters in any kind of media any longer.

The NRA will no longer be accepting or publishing any of his articles. There's a good reason for that.

Everyone at NRA Publications is angered and confused by the thoughts expressed by Jim Zumbo. We all know him well; he has been a periodic contributor to our magazines and a staunch supporter of the NRA for many years. But we cannot understand what led him to believe or write such things. Of course he's entitled to his opinion, but his opinion is certainly not one shared by the NRA staff. All semi-automatic firearms are just that: semi-automatic. There can be no differentiation between them simply based on external appearance. Mr. Zumbo has never been an employee of the NRA, and we have no plans to publish any articles by him in the future. Contributions by him to NRA media are hereby suspended, effective immediately.

Please know that your support and interest in our publications are deeply appreciated.

Sincerely,

John Zent

Editorial Director

NRA Publications


And that's it for Ryoushi concerning Mr. Zumbo, it's warming up and I need to get to the range. I do hope Ted Nugent comes through this OK he was just trying to be a friend.
 
LOL... I'm willing to cut him some slack about not responding right away.

If my arse was in the sling his is in, I'd let it go a few pages and make sure I got an ear-full before I responded to anyone. If he started responding right away, he'd need to book the next 3 months just answering what would come at him immediately.

I'm really interested in seeing his next statement.

John
 
42 Years of solitude.

Zumbo had written for 42 years and didn't have a clue about National Match service rifle shooting? Camp Perry and the Nationals?

What the heck does he think those Junior Teams are shooting...Rugers?

He advocated the termination of most competitive NRA Highpower Rifle. Forced retirement is the best and gentlest option I can think of.

I'm still mad. Anyone else who writes for hunting magazines want to list rifles they want the government to ban?

The Outdoor Life Channel would be well served to follow a State Junior Team through the National Matches this August, but Zumbo can stay home.
 
It sounds like Ted is stick up for him as a friend but I don't see how he will become a positive force is all this.

He had a chance to redeem himself in his apology. But he forgot one thing, an apaology!

His, I'm a good guy speech cause I fly the flag doesn't mean anything. It's like the "I can't be a racist because I know some minority people" arguement. It has nothing to do with the attack he unleashed on fellow gun owners.

His I'm in the NRA for 40 years and go to the dinners and conventions speech shows that he hasn't paid attention when there were billboards bigger than him right in front of his face? NRA even sends a magazine that just happens to mention something about the subject now and then. He did happen to always find the portion that lists the dates and locations of the conventions and dinners though. His association with the NRA if anything should totally discredit anything he says on Nugent or anywhere else. If he didn't get the message talking to the heads of NRA, Remington and Ted Nugent Himself over the last 40 years, why should I believe that he changed his view now?

Now that he has been fired from multiple sponsors, all of a sudden he gets it. This sounds like every career criminal their first time in court. They all are a changed man right up until the next time they are caught. Jim Zumbo is not sorry for what he said, he's sorry that he got canned for it.

His Nuge post is a PR piece, not an honest apology.
 
Okay, now write on the blackboard . . .

. . . 500 times, "The Second Amendment is not about hunting."

Here's the chalk. Get started.

There will be a quiz tomorrow.

And the next day.

And the next day.

For the next 200 years.
 
. . . 500 times, "The Second Amendment is not about hunting."

I think we have a right to use firearms for numerous purposes, of which hunting is one. It also includes resistence to tyranny, self-defense, target shooting, etc. The right to KABA does not specify for what, nor should it. Zumbo made the mistake of thinking that exceptions could be carved out for certain purposes. They can't, nor should they ever be allowed to. We need to stand together.
 
Latest Zumbo update on Nugent's forum:

JimZumbo
Junior Member posted 02-22-2007 02:03 PM
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There are many, many questions here that I'll attempt to answer. Please be patient with me. Right now I'm reeling from the shock of what's happened and am trying to get my feet back under me.
But I want to share a phone call I just received from one of America's oldest and most prominent gun writers. He was absolutely amazed at all this, and had no clue of the misunderstandings on both sides. That leads up to the issue that some of you have brought up regarding "preaching to the choir." Let's think about that. I disagree that we are preaching to the choir. I believe that within America's gun owners, we can be classed into three groups: hunters, hunters/shooters, and shooters.

It's become obvious throughout all this that in order to strengthen our position to take on the Sarah Brady's and others, we must first be unified -- ALL of us. And the best way to unite is to first begin to understand our viewpoints as hunters and shooters. I believe that talking together will help enlighten us all.
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I've got to get back to work....nothing really meaningful or substantive since his first post.
 
I just don't have the time to read EVERY post on this thread, but one thing I haven't noticed here, on Ted Nugent's Board, or on the original Outdoor life board, or on 10mmtalk where I first learned about it, is this:

Where exactly is Zumbo's apology????????????

Perhaps I've missed it and someone can link me to it, but where in tarnation does he EVER say "I'm sorry"?

He lists the sponsors he's lost, states that a whole buncha his pals own AR's & AK's, states that he's fer sure gonna learn up on 'em and then learn others 'bout 'em, but has he actually, ANYWHERE, said "I'm sorry"?

Sam
 
Mr Zumbo still seems to have a huge disconnect between the RKBA and solely owning guns for hunting.
It's like he either can't grasp it, or intentionally won't acknowledge it.

Since he basically has only come out with "oh, I guess EBRs do have some legitimate purpose... for hunting", I'm led to believe it's the latter reason.
 
But the Ruger affair did nothing to prevent the Colt affair, and the Colt affair did nothing to prevent the S&W affair, and Jim Zumbo apparently didn't learn a damned thing from any of it. And the end result is that, while the gun community may have once again made its opinion crystal clear, the rest of the country is presented with an image of angry, paranoid lock-steppers eating their own.

Ah, but how many other "affairs" were prevented because of the extremely negative reactions those incidents engendered? We'll never know for sure, since there's no way of absolutely predicting what would have happened in their absence. My own intuitive assessment is that a lot of other "affairs" were prevented.

For example, when Smith & Wesson caved to the Clinton Administration it was expected to be just the first of a series of coerced agreements with gun manufacturers, intended to effectively enact massive new gun-control regulations without the need of passing actual legislation through a reluctant Congress. Instead, the uproar against S&W was so massive that no other gun manufacturer or dealer was willing to go near a deal with the Clinton Administration, because of the fear that they'd be driven out of business by customer boycotts.

So it's not a matter of "eating our own", it's a matter of establishing incentives and deterrents. Prominent companies and individuals with a following among gun owners need to know that if they make statements or take actions which endanger our Second Amendment rights, the consequences will be severe. That way, even if they don't share a deep philosophical conviction and understanding of gun-rights, they will be inhibited by financial considerations from harming those rights.

Nor am I particularly worried about the image that "the rest of the country is presented with". The Zumbo affair is mostly an in-group tempest. Nobody who is not concerned with guns (either for or against) is paying much attention. That's not 100% the case, and I do think that the profanity some have directed at Zumbo is over the top and harmful to the pro-RKBA image, just as the unhinged hatred exhibited by many leftists is over the top and acts to discredit them.

But I have no problem with strong and well-articulated criticism directed at Zumbo. He deserves it. And it seems to be having a positive effect. His latest apology/explanation is a significant improvement over his previous one, and I give him some credit for not trying to duck or run from the firestorm.

In sum, I think the Zumbo affair will have a salutary and chastising effect on those individuals and corporations who profess not to be anti-gun but who don't hold strong philosophical convictions and might be tempted to trim their sails or compromise on the issue.
 
The first company to condemn and deride the Snitch and Wussy incident was Taurus. Almost at once, and completely, swore they would never participate in such.

My next gun was a Taurus.

I've been wanting a modern bolt action for some time.

My next gun is a Remington 700.

In tac-black with bipod and rails and friction tape and bedding block and EEEEEEVul sniper scope:evil:

And EVERYONE should be buying anything they can afford from Ronnie Barrett, even if it's just a hat or T shirt.

I'll say it again: The way to beat any future AW bans, activism aside, is to buy so many @#%ing millions of the damned things that the concept is stupid.

I see that .223 Remington is the most popular cartridge in the country. 7.62 Russki needs to be added to that as a close second, and .308.

My brother in law counts his AKs in the double digits. He's a Microschlock exec (And lets be fair to Bill Gates, who personally dislikes firearms so much even his security guards don't carry them, which makes him morally consistent and honorable, but allows MS to have a gun club with merchandise bearing the logo ("Gunclub @ Microsoft, with point and click technology")). They even had a group buy of AR15s with that logo engraved on them.

I have an AR for everyone in the house, and I want spares.

Buy guns for friends if you can afford it. If not, help them buy receivers and build weapons from component kits. "Assault weapon owners are only a minority of firearm owners" is not relevant, increasingly less true, and every gunny who owns one HAS to be on our side at the end of the day.

If 5 million EBR owners can swing an election, what can 20 million do?
 
My position is, you can't defend the indefensible. We can do without Zumbo -- let him serve as an example to all the other elitists who want our attention and money while sneering at our values and our Constitution.
 
I've been following this entire incident with interest, because what has happened closely mirrors something that happened here. In the aftermath of the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, when there was intense debate about proposals for tightening gun laws, a spokesperson for a group called the Professional Hunters Association said words to the effect of "Anyone who needed a semi-automatic to kill animals was a 'City Boy', who shouldn't be out there with a gun in the first place!"

This was extremely damaging to arguments against wholesale bans on semi-automatic firearms, and was trumpeted loudly in the media: here were professional hunters, giving the lie to any legitimate reason or need to own these evil weapons, and it came up repeatedly in the media and in parliamentary debates on the proposed legislation. How could our position be maintained in light of this comment from within, from professionals?:banghead:

Rebecca Peters is still using this quote too, eleven years later, as she tries to sell the same story internationally. The huge irony is that in fact professional shooters always did use semi-automatic longarms, particularly in control shooting of ferals (pigs, buffalo etc) from choppers - and they ended up being one of the few groups who still can own them:rolleyes:

Personally I think the damage done by this sort of thing, from within the firearms community - in fact from people in the role of spokesmen - is incalculable. :mad:
 
Daniel (Oz)
Great post Daniel, I hadn't heard of that aspect of Aussie gun banning: Aussie Zumbos, being tools of the gun banners! That is worth a thread of its own.
 
Re: post 865 by dpwiener - One of the things I love about THR. Folks who know how to make a reasoned argument. And from a new guy, too! Welcome dpwiener.


Re: daniel (australia) - Thank you for that insight! You need to post this story on every RKBA web site you can find, ESPECIALLY on the HUNTING blogs. Will you give people here permission to copy it to some of our favorite sites?
 
The last to go shall see the first three go before her...

Well, the more sponsor-pull-out is prescient. A few remain, but give it till tomorrow. Here's a few tidbits.
Zumbo Sponsors

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Last updated 22 Feb 2007 @ 2106hrs, prior versions (i.e. http://www.thehighroad.org/showpost.php?p=3135947&postcount=775 )obsolete.

Sponsors (and individuals) who remain supportive (or have not yet commented) of Zumbo (i.e. who get ZERO future busine$$)
Bill McRae (another ‘hunter’s only’ anti-)
Thomas McIntyre (Another writer)
SWAROVSKI [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
STONEY POINT PRODUCTS [email protected],

Sponsors (and individuals in the industry) who left (and get MORE of my $$$)
Remington (http://www.remington.com/library/press/2007/2007-1.asp )
David M. Fortier
SWFA (Chris Farris, TEAM SWFA – Admin www.RifleScopes.com )
Hi-Mountain Seasonings www.himtnjerky.com/
Cabela’s
Tom Gresham (Host, Tom Gresham's Gun Talk radio show www.guntalk.com )
MOSSY OAK [email protected], [email protected],
Outdoor Life
the NRA
Gerber Gear

Sponsors who have commented but are fence-sitting as of yet
Safari Club: [email protected],
and [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected],

Plan to continually update, revise, correct, etc.
Just FYI,
C-

NRA pulls out:
Everyone at NRA Publications is angered and confused by the thoughts expressed by Jim Zumbo. ... we cannot understand what led him to believe or write such things. Of course he's entitled to his opinion, but his opinion is certainly not one shared by the NRA staff. ...we have no plans to publish any articles by him in the future. Contributions by him to NRA media are hereby suspended, effective immediately.
http://www.thehighroad.org/showpost.php?p=3137314&postcount=830

OL cuts the cord:
http://www.outdoorlife.com/outdoor/columnists/article/0,19912,1592623,00.html
In light of comments made by Jim Zumbo ... Mr. Zumbo has offered to terminate his association with Outdoor Life, and the magazine has accepted his offer. Accordingly, he will no longer be contributing to the magazine in print or online. ...Outdoor Life has always been, and will always be, a steadfast supporter of all aspects of the shooting sports and our Second Amendment rights, which do not make distinctions based on the appearance of the firearms we choose to own, shoot or hunt with.

Gerber jumps ship:
...Gerber Legendary Blades reacted to Jim
Zumbo's recent public statements moving to sever all sponsorship ties with
the long-time outdoor writer and hunter, effective immediately.
"After careful evaluation and consideration, we have made the decision to
discontinue our relationship with Jim Zumbo," said Brendon Weaver, Director
of Brand Management at Gerber. ... Mr. Zumbo's recent statements are not consistent with Gerber's culture and ideals as advocates of the hunting [email protected]



C-
 
Think that Zumbo united us in spite of himself.

I think that Ted's Nugent's free pass and arrogant claim that he's upgraded Zumbo for us and Zumbo's thread on the Nuge site is creating a potential divide.

If Zumbo did just screw up and he is TRULY sorry, he'll post his apologies and then shut up for a long while. Yes, he's being strung up and having his head put on a pike at the city gate--there's a reason why we do that.

This whole "he's upgraded" no consequence BS is why this whole country is in such a liberal, feel good, hippified mess.
 
Zumbo CAN redeem himself!

Ever think we needed an 'insider' to really mess up the gungrabber movement?

Well, regarding daniel's posts from down under in Australia (see http://www.thehighroad.org/showpost.php?p=3138649&postcount=867 ) I had an idea.

Let Zumbo wallow in it awhile.

Get the Brady Bunch to ask him to a well-publicised interview, expecting him to spout off some useful soundbites that are, as daniel puts it, " extremely damaging to arguments against wholesale bans on semi-automatic firearms, and ...trumpeted loudly in the media: here were professional hunters, giving the lie to any legitimate reason or need to own these evil weapons... "

Get him on TV, or a live blog, and then WHAM!! Have him say how wrong he was. How all rifles are good, and none should be discriminated againts no matter their appearance nor action, and hownone should be banned outright. Criminals use guns, and the guins of the law abiding are the fabric of society and the teeth of liberty!

He could be the bomb that goes off from within enemy territory.

In other words, he is in the PERFECT place to emerge a TOTAL HERO for the 2A!

Of course, he'd have to want to.

But if he did that, i would immediately and completely forgive him.

C-
 
But he ain't. It's still all about "legitimate hunting" purposes with him.

Thank God he mentioned AR-15s specifically, since those are in use by American soldiers and happen to be extremely accurate varmint guns. I shudder to think what would have been if he'd have just stuck it to the AK crowd.

Let's see him stand up for the right to buy full autos (newly manufactured ones, not that pre-86 garbage).

He should feel free to make his apology and fade away.
 
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