Monday, February 19, 2007

Can open. Worms everywhere.

Well, that didn't take long.

It's bad enough when a few blogs are talking about you, but when your worst faux pas ever gets linked on FreeRepublic, AR15.com, and Instapundit, you are slated to receive server-crashing amounts of disapproval. As cancelled subscriptions mounted, Outdoor Life editor John Snow attempted to both distance himself and stand by his man at the same time:
I’ve been friends with Jim for many years and have shared countless great times with him talking about both hunting and guns. While I totally support Jim’s right to express his point of view—this is his blog after all—I don’t happen to agree with him on this matter.
...
That said, I don’t expect every other hunter and sportsman out there to have a set of opinions that moves in lockstep with mine. So while I don’t share Jim’s view on this, I also know that he is still the same wonderfully talented and good-natured person he was before this post went up. For those of you who have followed him for all or part of his more than thirty years at Outdoor Life, I would ask you to bear that in mind before damning him with personal attacks.
Meanwhile, Tommy Millner, CEO of Remington, reacted like a man who'd just discovered a cobra in his sleeping bag. Distancing his company from Zumbo so far and so fast that physicists are examining the incident as proof of teleportation, Millner spammed the 'net with comments like this email to the site administrator of GlockTalk:
You may feel free to advise your people of the following.

Remington is shocked and dissappointed by the comments of Jim zumbo which have been widely circulated on the web. These comments do not reflect either my own feelings or those of my company!

Accordingly we are severing all business ties with Mr zumbo and any of his companies effective immediately and will make a formal release tomorrow to this effect.

We appreciate the passionate support of our right to bear arm arms by all in the shooting sports.

Sincerely

Tommy millner
CEO
Zumbo himself, with "Career Flameout" alarms blaring in his ears, issued a hand-wringing retraction:
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...
Unfortunately, the apology rang hollow on several notes:

1) The initial premise, which was that he'd had himself a rough day hunting, and therefore inexplicably and off the cuff called weapons used by millions of American gun owners, peace officers, and servicemen "terrorist rifles" because he was cold and tired. Sorry, Zumbo, but in whino veritas. You meant what you said when you typed it. If it hadn't already existed in your mind, it never would have come out your fingertips.

2) The lack of comprehension regarding the 2nd Amendment is still there. In effect, Zumbo says "Oh, hunters use these things? Maybe they're okay then." Jim, it wouldn't matter whether or not any hunter had ever hunted anything with an AR-15, because the Second Amendment has damn-all to do with hunting. It does not say "A nicely mounted buck trophy being necessary to the security of a free state..." you tool.

3) His attempts to buy his way out with name dropping and past associations are illuminating in ways he probably didn't intend for them to be. When he mentioned how much he loves the NRA, my first thought was "...and it's people like you who keep the NRA from being the uncompromising 800-lb gorilla the lefty media portrays it to be."

So, Jim, I remain unconvinced. You've exposed your true colors, saddened longtime fans, and empowered our enemies (to the extent of offering them a new shibboleth to use in the fight for H.R. 1022; "terrorist rifles", indeed.)

I hope you freeze in the dark.

15 comments:

  1. I need another 870 for the clays and bird fields. I've already emailed Mr. Millner with my thanks.

    Gotta go shopping.

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  2. "You meant what you said when you typed it. If it hadn't already existed in your mind, it never would have come out your fingertips."


    Preach it, Sister.

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  3. Gee, and Outdoor life is currently sponsoring a contest for one of our servicemen/women (who most likely carry one of these 'terrorist rifles' to work)to win a free hunting trip with... you guessed it: Mr. Zumbo himself! That should be very popular.
    In addition to notes to Remington (Thanks!) and OL (No Thanks!), don't forget to let the Outdoor Life Network know how you feel about watching Mr. Zumbo and his adventures.
    Gotta run... I feel the need to go buy some Remington products...

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  4. It's been a while since I've seen someone get flamed like him. It is sort of like a fruit fly wandering into the spray from a flamethrower.

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  5. Thank God that you all hung this guy out to dry.

    Reading his apology did it for me -- insincere and filled with lame excuses.

    "True Believers" in RTKBA can fall out of the back of a truck or get thrown off a horse and while you're slapping them back to consciousness they'll still be mumblin "RTKBA!"

    It's like that part of your computer's software, the bios, that is "burned on the chip" -- first to come up when you turn it on, before it loads all that other crap on your hard drive!

    {bios, n. computer firmware that directs many basic functions of the operating system, as booting and keyboard control}

    Don't trust those where it's not "burned on the chip"!

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  6. "in whino veritas"

    That's really funny.

    Top-notch snark like that is what compells me to come here on a regular basis.

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  7. Yeah, she's been on an eloquent tear (rhymes with "flair") with this one.

    "[The Second Amendment] does not say 'A nicely mounted buck trophy being necessary to the security of a free state...' you tool."

    Word.

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  8. Again, another great blog dealing with Zumbo. Kudos.

    -Razoreye

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  9. Everyone be sure and update their links to the google cached copy of Zumbo's little error....and brady campaign has it up now, even though Outdoor Life has nuked his blog..

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  10. I spent around 8 hrs yesterday reading the responses (can't believe i did that!), and there were only a few positive replies, maybe 5? By then, there were easily 3000+. Earlier, before the counter was removed, it was up to about 2400. A lot of them were personal attacks, but he fired the first shot with his terrorist label of anyone using or owning AR/AK/GENERIC "BLACK RIFLES".
    I should have copied some of the best replies, for future reference material.

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  11. Will said.... I should have copied some of the best replies, for future reference material.

    I've got some screen scrapes, all text. I suppose I could remove the copyrighted blog post part (already mirrored everywhere) and post the comments only at my site. It would be tough to argue that the commenters didn't want their opinions known.

    Let me know.

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  12. There's another interesting "Zumbo" thread at Free Republic, here:


    The Blog Heard 'Round The Industry

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  13. Long Distance Murder Rifles.. sometimes I amaze even myself. Thanks for the link, Tam. ;)

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  14. I don't normally read blogs and first heard of the Zumbo incident on the Colbert Report the other evening. But I grew up reading all the outdoor mags and still remember all the educational and crotchety things every outdoor scribbler ever wrote. What I want to know is, Who's gonna fill their shoes? Can we go back to the normative, prescriptive debate about fast and light bullets vs big and heavy? If Jack O'Connor or Warren Page had not had NYC editors they would have come up with some even wilder statements than they did. We used to take them in stride, recognizing the competition for entertaining readers in colorful ways, before political correctness set in like gangrene. But the nation used to be 80% farmers who felt guns were just tools. Are bloggers going to replace the media that defined hunting, or tried to, in the past? Can we revisit both the first and second amendments and the 'Hell, I was there' attitude even if we don't agree with it every time?

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