Free Republic

On May 30th, in a 1400+ word essay, an unnamed NRA-ILA writer ignited a firestorm against Second Amendment supporters in the opposition media.  In a few badly chosen words near the end of the essay, the unnamed staffer gave the opposition priceless ammunition to smear open carriers.    This should be a lesson to everyone to choose their words carefully.   I do not know if editorial control was exercised.   It is clear that the word choices were emotionally loaded and welcomed by those who desire a disarmed population. In other words, the unnamed writer pulled a Zumbo. Here are the...

If you’re following the ongoing debacle that is Recoil, you’ll love this next bit: the recent statement from Joe Galloway is now officially not the official Recoil stance. If you’re unaware, Mr. Galloway sent out a message that basically said, “We’re sticking to the editor’s apology. If you don’t like it, piss off. Other people will buy our magazine.” It was, in fact, so condescending and arrogant that I called his office -and that of Jerry Tsai – to confirm it wasn’t bogus. I couldn’t believe his message reflected their official response. Maybe it’s an internet troll trying to make...

In February, hunter and outdoorsman Jim Zumbo enraged shooters across the United States with comments appearing his now-discontinued blog on Outdoor Life. Since that fateful blog, Zumbo's professional life has changed - profoundly. A marquee career in hunting has effectively been reduced to nothingness. Television sponsors bolted, contracts were cancelled and a former front-man for hunting found himself the object of hatred and ridicule by shooters who felt betrayed by his comments. Zumbo hasn't tried to shift the blame to anyone else. In fact, he pledged to go on the offensive to fight HR 1022, the newly introduced and significantly...

The big bad wolf does not come to your front door and yell let me in, he sneaks into the garage where the neighbors can't see and jimmies the house door with a butter knife.

A massive and seemingly mobilized online community has sprung among gun rights advocates readying for any possible action by the Democratic-led Congress to limit an individual's right to bear arms. While activity on gun issues has been light in recent years ? no Million Mom march or action to renew the assault weapons ban that expired two years ago ? an explosion of activity among Web loggers shows Second Amendment purists are anything but complacent with the new majority. "Blogging is sort of like a gun store, you get a whole bunch of guys around the store, really just to...

Tipping Point -- Suicide on the Web Something fascinating just happened. I suspect it will be studied by those who do such things, but at this point, it is clear that last weekend we saw a sea change in the way gun owners react to threats. If you heard Gun Talk last Sunday, Feb. 18, you heard Jim Zumbo, longtime hunting writer for Outdoor Life, addressing a blog (online comment piece) he wrote. If you didn't hear it, you can download the archive file here: http://guntalk.libsyn.com. It's the February 18 show, "part C." Jim basically committed career suicide. In short,...

As the first, and for a great while the only, journalist to talk on the record with Jim Zumbo following his disastrous blog entry about semiautomatic rifles in mid-February, I was disappointed, but hardly surprised that Ray Schoenke would use the opportunity to attack the National Rifle Association and blame it for Zumbo's troubles ["Real hunters and shooters need to stand up to the NRA," Times guest commentary, March 20]. The NRA did not, as Schoenke asserted, start the Internet frenzy against Zumbo. The NRA had very little to do with Zumbo's troubles, and Schoenke knows it.

ASSAULT WEAPONS Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the National Rifle Association leadership has stated repeatedly that a ban on assault weapons is ineffective and unnecessary. They assert that guns labeled as assault weapons are rarely used in violent crimes and that most people use them for hunting. However, despite these repeated assertions, the list of people speaking out against assault weapons continues to grow. Jim Zumbo, an outdoors entrepreneur who lives in a log cabin near Yellowstone National Park, has spent much of his life writing for prominent outdoor magazines, delivering lectures across the country and who starred in a highly...

BEFORE today's presidential candidates go courting the National Rifle Association for support (witness Mitt Romney's sudden enrollment), they should be aware of the case of Jim Zumbo. One of nation's most famous and respected hunting and outdoors journalists, Zumbo was professionally assassinated by NRA hysteria for simply uttering a single and — many hunters would say — reasonable point of view. Returning from a weekend hunting trip in which he witnessed people using semiautomatic, military-style weapons to hunt varmints, Zumbo dashed off a column for his blog on Outdoor Life in which he played devil's advocate, suggesting these weapons are...

Mr. Alan Gottlieb, Chairman Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms 12500 N.E. Tenth Place Bellevue, WA 98005 Dear Alan: They say that hindsight is always 20-20. In my case, hindsight has been a hard teacher, like the father teaching the son a lesson about life in the wood shed. I was wrong when I recently suggested that wildlife agencies should ban semiautomatic firearms I erroneously called “assault rifles” for hunting. I insulted legions of my fellow gun owners in the process by calling them “terrorist rifles.” I can never apologize enough for having worn blinders when...

On Saturday, the editorial page of the New York Times announced its having taken note of what is now being called "the Zumbo event." The editorial writer wasted little time in establishing that Mr. Zumbo had only written about the unacceptability of using assault rifles to kill prairie dogs. Prairie dogs, "everyone knows" are "chubby North American rodents that live in a communal burrow and grows to be about a foot long." From that Bambi-esque description of the prairie dog, the editorial quickly establishes the identity of the Wicked Witch in this firearms fairy tale: the assault rifle. After all,...

For eight years, California hunters have been unnerved by the sudden appearance of George Sullivan in the field. There is nothing peculiar about Sullivan himself when he's out hunting. It is just his weapons that prompt a fast double-take. Most guns just don't have light, silvery barrels, bright red breech actions, and Kelly green stocks. But Sullivan's guns are a little unusual in more ways than color. They are the advance guard of a major airplane company's entry into the gun-making field.

A famous hunter and outdoorsman recently voiced misgivings about people who use assault rifles to kill prairie dogs. “Assault rifle” is a much touchier term. It is generally understood to be the kind of gun that soldiers use in wars and terrorists use on the evening news. But the gun lobby despises “assault rifle,” considering it a false, scary label tacked onto perfectly legitimate weapons by people who want to take away others’ rights. That is a debate for another day. “Excuse me, maybe I’m a traditionalist,” he wrote, “but I see no place for these weapons among our hunting...

The nation's police chiefs have a serious problem. Their troops are being out-gunned, and to correct the situation taxpayers must increase law-enforcement budgets substantially or find some way to ban the circulation of weapons and ammunition meant for the battlefield _ mainly, semiautomatic assault rifles and armor-piercing bullets. Because the latter alternative is not politically practical, the cost of law enforcement can be expected to rise considerably. And where citizens are unwilling to spend the money to equip their guardians with weapons and armor now readily available to criminals, the threat to themselves and those they hire to protect them...

March 01, 2007, 0:00 a.m. Mind You Don’t Get ZumboedConservative candidates beware of angering gun enthusiasts. By John Derbyshire My town’s outdoor shooting range closed at the end of December. This wasn’t particularly political, except in the negative sense — the sense, I mean, that there was not enough political noise from local shooting-sports enthusiasts to keep the thing open. The town had been leasing the land from a local sand’n’gravel firm, and the firm decided they now wanted the land for their own use. End of shooting range. I now have the choice of driving twenty miles to...

This should be a warning to NRA members. The organization turns on loyal members if they dare question NRA policy or speak their minds. By the Editorial Board of the Union-Bullein The leaders of the National Rifle Association are so obsessed with the perceived threat to the Second Amendment's right to keep and bear arms that they won't tolerate anyone who strays from NRA doctrine - even if it's one of the NRA's most famous and loyal members. Jim Zumbo, a 40-year NRA member, has made a name for himself as host of a TV show about big game hunting...

Remington to Sever Sponsorship Ties with Jim Zumbo Madison, North Carolina – As a result of comments made by Mr. Jim Zumbo in recent postings on his blog site, Remington Arms Company, Inc., has severed all sponsorship ties with Mr. Zumbo effective immediately. While Mr. Zumbo is entitled to his opinions and has the constitutional right to freely express those opinions, these comments are solely his, and do not reflect the views of Remington. “Remington has spent tens of millions of dollars defending our Second Amendment rights to privately own and possess firearms and we will continue to vigorously fight...

In light of comments made by Jim Zumbo in his February 16, 2007 blog posting on the magazine’s website, Mr. Zumbo has offered to terminate his association with Outdoor Life, and the magazine has accepted his offer.

SEATTLE - Modern hunters rarely become more famous than Jim Zumbo. A mustachioed, barrel-chested outdoors entrepreneur who lives in a log cabin near Yellowstone National Park, he has spent much of his life writing for prominent outdoors magazines, delivering lectures across the country and starring in cable TV shows about big-game hunting in the West. Zumbo's fame, however, has turned to black-bordered infamy within America's gun culture -- and his multimedia success has come undone. It all happened in the past week, after he publicly criticized the use of military-style assault rifles by hunters, especially those gunning for prairie dogs.

Poor Jim Zumbo. I honestly feel sorry for him. He doesn't deserve the beating that he's been getting. Certainly not this bad of a beating. Not for just 255 written words on the Internet. Zumbo is the hunting editor for Outdoor Life magazine and a resident of the Cody, Wyo., country. He has been at the center of a firestorm in recent days that has burned him personally and professionally. It all began with a post on the "Hunting With Zumbo" blog on the Outdoor Life Web site last Friday. In his post, Zumbo said he was coyote hunting in...