I "borrowed" a few bits from the beginning but this is what I sent to
[email protected]
Saying the NRA was responsible for Jim Zumbo's career ending is factually inaccurate. The NRA was the last organization to distance itself from Mr. Zumbo's statements in his blog where he equated veterans and recreational shooters who used AR-15 type rifles for sport as "terrorists". Mr. Zumbo's career crashed and burned after tens of thousands of people condemned Mr. Zumbo over a 5 day period for those statements made in his blog. The NRA itself was criticized for being slow issuing a statement condemning Mr. Zumbo and when it finally did it was the last organization associated with him that spoke.
The facts of this event that occurred over a 6 day span are easily checked as they occurred almost wholly on the internet where nothing is ever lost. From Mr. Zumbo's initial blog article on February 16 to his apology on the 18th to his resignation from Outdoor Life on the 22nd to NRA's Publications Editor issuing this statement in response to members wanting to know the NRA’s stance on Mr. Zumbo's statements were.
What IS accurate is the overwhelming response of the Pro-2A Community. This is not a group of citizens conditioned by the NRA it is a grassroots movement of Pro Second Amendment Rights Gun Owners that are sick and tired of people and politicians trying to stomp on the Constitution that they swore to protect. Elected officials should take notice if they have any hope of being re-elected....we are watching how they vote and they better not vote Anti-2A if they want a job next term. Increasingly Gun Owners are being forced to become single issue voters. In the next election I will vote 2A first, 2A second, 2A third...the rest is gravy. You can count on the fact that I am not alone.
All semi-automatic firearms are just that: semi-automatic. There can be no differentiation between them simply based on external appearance. Nonesense legislation like Assault Weapon Bans based solely on cosmetic features like pistol grips etc are garbage feel good legislation and ones that do nothing to reduce crime while criminalizing law abiding citizens and sportmen. Threaded Barrels and 30 round magazines don't make a gun more dangerous.
Please take the time to examine the facts and you will see that both the CDC and FBI both agree that additional Gun Control Legislation will do little if anything to crime rates as Criminals don't pay attention to gun laws...thats why they're CRIMINALS.
Look at DC and MD as examples....both have onerous gun control and for some reason both have the highest violent crime rates in the region....Va has more liberal gun laws and Concealed Carry laws enabling citizens to protect themselves and they have a fraction of the crime of DC and Md....an Armed Society is a Polite Society.....criminals don't fear jail time, they don't fear the Police...they fear an Armed Victim that is capable of defending themselves.
John Stossel of 20/20 did a piece on thas not long ago and you would be well advised to review it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR9RN_iSKtg
Here's a short summary of the 20/20 clip:
Myths About Gun Control
By John Stossel
Guns are dangerous. But myths are dangerous, too. Myths about guns are very dangerous, because they lead to bad laws. And bad laws kill people.
"Don't tell me this bill will not make a difference," said President Clinton, who signed the Brady Bill into law.
Sorry. Even the federal government can't say it has made a difference. The Centers for Disease Control did an extensive review of various types of gun control: waiting periods, registration and licensing, and bans on certain firearms. It found that the idea that gun control laws have reduced violent crime is simply a myth.
I wanted to know why the laws weren't working, so I asked the experts. "I'm not going in the store to buy no gun," said one maximum-security inmate in New Jersey. "So, I could care less if they had a background check or not."
"There's guns everywhere," said another inmate. "If you got money, you can get a gun."
Talking to prisoners about guns emphasizes a few key lessons. First, criminals don't obey the law. (That's why we call them "criminals.") Second, no law can repeal the law of supply and demand. If there's money to be made selling something, someone will sell it.
A study funded by the Department of Justice confirmed what the prisoners said. Criminals buy their guns illegally and easily. The study found that what felons fear most is not the police or the prison system, but their fellow citizens, who might be armed. One inmate told me, "When you gonna rob somebody you don't know, it makes it harder because you don't know what to expect out of them."
What if it were legal in America for adults to carry concealed weapons? I put that question to gun-control advocate Rev. Al Sharpton. His eyes opened wide, and he said, "We'd be living in a state of terror!"
In fact, it was a trick question. Most states now have "right to carry" laws. And their people are not living in a state of terror. Not one of those states reported an upsurge in crime.
Why? Because guns are used more than twice as often defensively as criminally. When armed men broke into Susan Gonzalez' house and shot her, she grabbed her husband's gun and started firing. "I figured if I could shoot one of them, even if we both died, someone would know who had been in my home." She killed one of the intruders. She lived. Studies on defensive use of guns find this kind of thing happens at least 700,000 times a year.
And there's another myth, with a special risk of its own. The myth has it that the Supreme Court, in a case called United States v. Miller, interpreted the Second Amendment -- "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" -- as conferring a special privilege on the National Guard, and not as affirming an individual right. In fact, what the court held is only that the right to bear arms doesn't mean Congress can't prohibit certain kinds of guns that aren't necessary for the common defense. Interestingly, federal law still says every able-bodied American man from 17 to 44 is a member of the United States militia.
What's the special risk? As Alex Kozinski, a federal appeals judge and an immigrant from Eastern Europe, warned in 2003, "the simple truth -- born of experience -- is that tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people."
"The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do," Judge Kozinski noted. "But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed -- where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once."
I've always enjoyed your newspaper but unless I see some sort of retraction/clarification on this issue I will have no other option but to cease buying your paper.
