Assault Rifles for Hunters? (Zumbo goes mad)

Remington Country website ^ | 16 FEB 2007 | Jim Zumbo

[xsrdx]

As I write this, I'm hunting coyotes in southeastern Wyoming with Eddie Stevenson, PR Manager for Remington Arms, Greg Dennison, who is senior research engineer for Remington, and several writers. We're testing Remington's brand new .17 cal Spitfire bullet on coyotes.

I must be living in a vacuum. The guides on our hunt tell me that the use of AR and AK rifles have a rapidly growing following among hunters, especially prairie dog hunters. I had no clue. Only once in my life have I ever seen anyone using one of these firearms.

I call them "assault" rifles, which may upset some people. Excuse me, maybe I'm a traditionalist, but I see no place for these weapons among our hunting fraternity. I'll go so far as to call them "terrorist" rifles. They tell me that some companies are producing assault rifles that are "tackdrivers."

Sorry, folks, in my humble opinion, these things have no place in hunting. We don't need to be lumped into the group of people who terrorize the world with them, which is an obvious concern. I've always been comfortable with the statement that hunters don't use assault rifles. We've always been proud of our "sporting firearms."

This really has me concerned. As hunters, we don't need the image of walking around the woods carrying one of these weapons. To most of the public, an assault rifle is a terrifying thing. Let's divorce ourselves from them. I say game departments should ban them from the praries and woods.

[philetus]

What makes me sick is how quickly people on the Internet have called to boycott Remington."

and why noy? Didn't Remington market this AUTOMATIC rifle for kids, years ago?

Oh ya, thats a semi. I forgot, these days, any "gun" you don't have to manually set to fire is classified my the MSM as a automatic.

[MarkL]

What do they do? Stand over the hole and blast the buggers out with sustained automatic fire?

I've got a friend who's got a National Match AR-15 that's more accurate at 100 and 300 yards than his Remington Model 700, and both are chambered in .223 Remington.

Mark

[JustaDumbBlonde]

Jim Zumbo lost his mind (but tried to recover) ping!

[philetus]

And our military carries 'terrorist weapons. I guess that makes them 'look like terrorists' too to him."

I wonder if he's afraid to go to the grocery store. The box boys carry box cutters, which are also terrorist weapons.

[xsrdx]

That's actually a pretty decent retraction. The 'Nuge will set him straight.

Concur he's still off base, but I doubt we'll be hearing much about "terrorist weapons" from him again.

[MarkL]

Well, with all the carnage on the roads, we also need to outlaw racing stripes and spoilers, airdams and wings from all street legal cars too!

Mark

[Vision]

Famous hunter stirring the pot ping.

[philetus]

Not only is Zumbo stupid, but he's a liar too.

[FreedomCalls]

http://outdoorlife.blogs.com/zumbo/2007/02/i_was_wrong_big.html

I was wrong, BIG TIME

Someone once said that to err is human. I just erred, and made without question, the biggest blunder in my 42 years of writing hunting articles.

My blog inflamed legions of people I love most..... hunters and shooters. Obviously, when I wrote that blog, I activated my mouth before engaging my brain.

Let me explain the circumstances surrounding that blog. I was hunting coyotes, and after the hunt was over and being beat up by 60 mph winds all day, I was discussing hunting with one of the young guides. I was tired and exhausted, and I should have gone to bed early. When the guide told me that there was a "huge" following of hunters who use AR 15's and similar weapons to hunt prairies dogs, I was amazed. At that point I wrote the blog, and never thought it through.

Now then, you might not believe what I have to say, but I hope you do. How is it that Zumbo, who has been hunting for more than 50 years, is totally ignorant about these types of guns. I don't know. I shot one once at a target last year, and thought it was cool, but I never considered using one for hunting. I had absolutely no idea how vast the numbers of folks are who use them.

I never intended to be devisive, and I certainly believe in United we Stand, Divided we Fall. I've been an NRA member for 40 years, have attended 8 national NRA conventions in the last 10 years, and I'm an advisory board member for the United States Sportsmen's Alliance which actively fights anti-hunters and animal rights groups for hunter's rights.

What really bothers me are some of the unpatriotic comments leveled at me. I fly the flag 365 days a year in my front yard. Last year, through an essay contest, I hosted a soldier wounded in Iraq to a free hunt in Botswana. This year, through another essay contest, I'm taking two more soldiers on a free moose and elk hunt.

When I started blogging, I was told to write my thoughts, expressing my own opinion. The offensive blog I wrote was MY opinion, and no one else's. None of the companies that I deal with share that opinion, nor were they aware of what I had written until this firestorm started.

Believe it or not, I'm your best friend if you're a hunter or shooter, though it might not seem that way. I simply screwed up. And, to show that I'm sincere about this, I just talked to Ted Nugent, who everyone knows, and is a Board member of the NRA. Ted is extremely active with charities concerning our wounded military, and though he's known as a bowhunter, Ted has no problem with AR 15's and similar firearms. My sincerity stems from the fact that Ted and I are planning a hunt using AR 15's. I intend to learn all I can about them, and again, I'm sorry for inserting my foot in my mouth.

Jim Zumbo

[philetus]

Stand over the hole and blast the buggers out with sustained automatic fire?"

I was being humorous.

[Fee]

What a jerk. So if I showed up with a Valmet rifle which has a checkered stock but an AK-47 reciever/barrel assembly it no longer is an assault rifle despite the same performance but different look?????

[Charlespg]

I was wrong, BIG TIME Someone once said that to err is human. I just erred, and made without question, the biggest blunder in my 42 years of writing hunting articles. My blog inflamed legions of people I love most..... hunters and shooters. Obviously, when I wrote that blog, I activated my mouth before engaging my brain.

I will take a wait and see approach to this

[WVNight]

No matter how much he backpeddles or how "tired" he was when he wrote the blog article, he still called for doing away with a class of firearms. No, there are a lot of jackasses out there that think this way and Zumbos feet need held to the fire forever. Never trust anyone who says to get rid of any guns EVER!!!!!

[Oztrich Boy]

I never intended to be devisive,

He never intented to make a Will? How is that relevant?

[SampleMan]

To compare bag limits with gun limits is irrational. They are to different issues.

Not as you defined it. You said the state was being a "nanny" in defining what you could hunt with. I agreed. They are also being a nanny when they define what and when you can hunt. The fact that you agree with the requirement for the latter nannying doesn't change what it is.

So. If someone says that AR's shouldn't be allowed because of the magazine size, I say restructure the argument and ask them if they are arguing for a magazine limit on all rifles to hunt, what that limit should be, and why? Very quickly you will force them to rationalize their position, which most of the time they haven't bothered to even think about, and that you appear to be ready to meet with rational cross points of your own. Is it rational for your fellow hunters to expect you to look for a blood trail on an animal before you start shooting at another that would put you over the limit? I think not. As that requirement is impossible to enforce, magazine limits thus become rational.

Last fall I shot three deer inside of 6 seconds with a bolt action and expended four rounds doing so. I had failed to put down a deer with one of the rounds and had one round left in the magazine to deal with what I surmised might be a wounded deer if it popped out of the immediate cover. As it went, I found no blood trail on that deer.

My point is that in such a situation it becomes rational to want a greater magazine capacity.

As hunting laws are principally a matter of preventing the tragedy of the commons, restrictions will apply. However, the restrictions should be at the very least rational. Many states now allow black powder (single-shot) hunting seasons. You can say these aren't rational, yet it works because far fewer people will hunt these seasons than would with modern rifles. Thus it allows an additional management tool on the population of deer.

[Anti-Bubba182]

See post 109. Zumbo is trying to back out of it.

[Tarpon]

Most go under 400 pounds. We hunted out of Steinhatchee and Gulf Hammock, we found the occasional 300 pounder. Been run off more than once by a big hog. You are right, they will try and run you down, and get quite mean when you stumble on them. You get between the mother and the little ones and there is going to be trouble. But quite a few hogs we shot were under 150 or so. Never caught up to me ... We hunted mostly out of tree stands along the trails. I used to have an old .30 Ruger that I used. One heck of a bang LOL. But ammo was cheap.

When we hunted deer out in the everglades off the half track, the deer were quite small, 100-120 pounds.

That was the good old days. Most of the areas I used to hunt are closed now, overrun with houses or way overbooked. So now I fish off the seawall out back.

[SampleMan]

In any case, hunting and 2nd amendment are not related in anything except that we can use the same tool for each activity.

Precisely. My point is that by making them rationalize their arguments for magazine size, you trivialize their argument against AR's, because AR's aren't functionally different than any semi-auto firearm.

At least make them argue against all semi-auto weapons and all large magazined weapons, which is their real point. In this manner, more hunters will at least have their eyes opened to the fact that they are under attack as well. Even if their only concern is a selfish one, it is tactically important to defending the 2A.

[SampleMan]

I managed to garbel up my last post to you somehow, putting sentences out of place. Sorry for the mess up. Had to run help the wife in the middle of typing. But if you read all the way through, I think you'll understand where I was headed with it.

[bobby.223]

4 rounds inside of 6 seconds with a bolt? that is some fast shooting!