I thought it was just high school students who were allowed to write anything they wanted, without official supervision or consequences. But apparently there is no middle ground for some free-speech zealots. Anybody has the right to say anything, anywhere, with no consequences, or else you can just kiss the First Amendment goodbye. How dare an outdoor magazine fire its hunting editor just because he wrote an anti-gun screed on his blog that outraged thousands of gun enthusiasts?
Jim Zumbo is now counted against them. An accomplished big-game hunter, a 40-year member of the National Rifle Association and a writer for Outdoor Life magazine for almost 30 years, Zumbo touched off a firestorm when he dared to suggest on his online blog that hunters should reject “terrorist” rifles
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Zumbo needed to go. I'm a Life Member of the NRA precisely because of people like Zumbo, who think (despite the Bill of Rights) that nobody "needs" the guns they personally have no use for. It's sad when hunters try to divorce themselves from the rest of us who enjoy guns for other reasons, because unity is what keeps the NRA strong. I can only support the hunters, though I don't hunt, so long as they support my constitutional right to enjoy practical / tactical firearms. Many gun enthusiasts are NOT hunters; they are collectors or shooters of firearms especially suited to self defense, or weapons with a military pedigree. This is nothing new; it is an accepted pursuit since at least the 19th century.
What's more, the Bill of Rights does not require any good American to explain or justify his or her ownership or possession of any firearm. Read that again. There is no requirement whatsoever to explain or justify possession or carry or collection of your personal favorite firearms, nor ANY constitutional limit upon the number you are "allowed" to collect.
News stories which attempt to shock by talking about numbers of guns owned by someone, and numbers of rounds stored in someone's closet, have no merit. Many of us have collected many weapons and corresponding cases of surplus ammo containing hundreds of rounds at a volume discount which would easily seem sensational to the ignorant.
It makes no more sense to hate rifles because they are black than people because they are black. And the AR-15 is a rifle which has served Americans as well in the last 40 years as the M-1 Garand served our grandfathers in World War II.
Garands and M-1 Carbines and Springfield 1903s are collectibles for thousands of good Americans. The AR-15 is only the latest addition to that distinguished lineage.
It makes no more sense to ban the AR-15, which many older members of our families carried in Viet Nam and Iraq, just because the rifles are semi-automatic than it would make sense to ban the ubiquitous Ruger 10/22 or Marlin Camp Carbine for the exact same reason.
A black plastic stock, replacing the less durable traditional wooden stock, does not demonize a rifle any more than a semi-automatic action or a larger magazine makes the steel mechanism of a firearm "evil."
My explanation to those who seek understanding of the non-issue is that the folks who have become ignorant of firearms over the decades are now superstitious about them. They fear what they don't understand.
I urge the reader not to disagree. There is far more enlightenment in figuring out how and why a very Salem-like superstition is now an uncannily accurate assessment of the alarmists who seek to overthrow our Second Amendment.
"Foolish liberals who are trying to read the 2nd Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a public safety hazard don't see the danger in the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like." -- Alan Dershowitz (certainly no right-win gun nut)
Someone once said that a wise man will make sure his brain is engaged before putting his mouth in gear. Jim Zumbo didn't and he paid the price. While the first amendment protects his right to free speech, he should have remembered that (1) He works for a magazine that sells it's product to the shooting fraternity (2) He is sponsored by companies that sell their products to the shooting fraternity (3) that the 2nd amendment has absolutely nothing to do with hunting, and everything to do with the right of the people to own whatever firearm they choose, and for whatever legal purpose they choose to use it.
Jims Feb 16 column, posted on Outdoor Life Magazines web site (which has since been taken down, along with the rest of Jims articles-and an apology posted in its place) contained the following quote regarding AR-15s being used for hunting...which is what ignited the firestorm.
"As hunters, we don't need to be lumped into the group of people who terrorize the world with them. . . . I'll go so far as to call them 'terrorist' rifles."
Does it really come as a surprise to anyone that his employer and sponsors would not want to be associated with or represented by a person who (on his employers web site, giving the impression that Outdoor Life agreed with him) basically said that citizens who own semi-automatic firearms are domestic terrorists?
All actions have consequences, even stupidity. Jim Zumbo should have thought about that before he opened his mouth to insert both feet. If he had, he wouldn't be in forced retirement today.
Additionally, Jim should have remembered the article he wrote back in 94 regarding Smith & Wessons sellout to the Clinton Administration and what happened to S&W.
"Those that refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it"
Good luck in your retirement Jim. Don't let the door hit you in your brains on the way out.
Lee McGee quoted:
>"Foolish liberals who are
>trying to read the 2nd
>Amendment out of the
>Constitution by claiming it's
>not an individual right or that
> it's too much of a public
>safety hazard don't see the
>danger in the big picture.
>They're courting disaster by
>encouraging others to use the
>same means to eliminate
>portions of the Constitution
>they don't like." -- Alan
Dershowitz
The quote is an accurate assessment -- with which those foolish liberals would no doubt disagree in knee-jerk lockstep.
But since the 2nd Amendment rubs shoulders with the 1st in the Bill of Rights, you can't chip away at one without creating precedent making its peers equally vulnerable to assault.
Besides, if we were to hold another constitutional convention and toss out the freedoms that the current generation of liberals doesn't like, some generation of our descendants are sure to curse liberals for fools when they find themselves in different, even more dangerous social circumstances.
Liberals howl that "nobody needs" this or that modern firearm, but they are merely suiting themselves "in the now" and ignoring the Constitution's centuries-long mission to serve America in all eventualities -- even in times when our descendants may acutely need both this AND that modern firearm even more keenly.