Jim Zumbo screws up

[mvpel]

I think that's a put-on. There's no entry remotely like that at the http://www.BradyCampaign.org/blog/ page.

[Jart]

I thought the Brady myspace presence looked like something a pro-gun activist would put up to torture the real Brady.

A put-on, a parody, something from the Onion. I posted as much on another forum.

I have never before been more delighted to have been proven wrong. Get a load of this:
TheRealBrady

I'm afraid they may have sufficient layers of insulation and deniability between themselves and the myspace dude (employee? representative?) but I'm going to have great fun until they pull it down.

I'm printing out the Brady Site's admission of ownership and the "ban everything" myspace drivel and sprinking it around my gun club like a deranged Johnny Appleseed.

Feel free to join in.

[Musketeer]

Go Here:

http://www.bradycampaign.org/bradyre...dex.php#story2

Then click the myspace link to here:

http://www.myspace.com/bradycampaign

and from there click the srticle on Sniper Rifles here:

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu...7-6c738fa5dafd

So where is that eternal defender of the 2A, Mr. Jim Zumbo, now that they are after his rifle?

[ATW525]

Well, it seems I was too slow... lol Anyways, yes it's true... the Brady Campaign has come out said they want to ban hunting rifles. They might have topped Dumbo for making the biggest mistake of '07.

[Ian2005]

If you read most of the responces under that "article", you'll find how most people don't not allow the wool to be pulled in a downward fashion either.

[hksigwalther]

He is already one of their mouthpieces, apparently.

But not willingly...yet.

[FirstFreedom]

Watch out, Dumbo... they want your sniper rifle, too! I'm loving this. Who else is going out and buying a Remington?

Looks like that BradyCampaign MySpace page has got some real winners for its friends there....lol.

[ATW525]

Who else is going out and buying a Remington?

I've been on the fence about picking up an LTR, but I'll definitely be talking to me dealer about getting one the next time I see him.

[Oldphart]

"Should our elected officials live under the threat of reprisal on their lives from disgruntled constituents?"

Well, they don't seem to be too worried about getting voted out of office. Maybe that could be a logical next step.

[Musketeer]

"Should our elected officials live under the threat of reprisal on their lives from disgruntled constituents?"

I believe it was Theodore Roosevelt sho said he accepted the possiblity of being shot as the accepted risk of being a politician. From many people that would sound hollow. Teddy Roosevelt though gave a full speech with a bullet lodged in his chest from a would be assasin before he allowed himself to be taken to the hospital. (And if he couldn't win as a third party candidate then NOBODY can!).

[Al Norris]

A sampling from around the blogsphere. I've linked to the complete article, and have only captured a small amount from a couple of selected sites. Click on the links to read them...

From Jim Braaten's Sportsmans Blog:

February 20, 2007
Zumbo's Blog - Proof There Is Little Room For Error

Remember growing up and watching TV or the movies where the characters would sometimes get devoured by quicksand. Just one false step and the substance would suck the living victim down into an inescapable, perhaps bottomless pit with very little opportunity for self-rescue. It made for good movie plots…and when the victim disappeared from sight and would never be heard from again…about the only evidence of their unfortunate plight was usually a cowboy hat floating on the surface of the mysterious sand.

I can’t help but think that the once popular Jim Zumbo, Outdoor Life’s long-time hunting editor, has stepped into the proverbial “quicksand.” Comments made on his blog post from last Friday have stirred such a raw passion (perhaps call it an obsession) in cyberspace among many gun owners the likes of which have never been seen by this group in the modern age of internet communication. In a nutshell, Zumbo posted on his blog that he saw no legitimate purpose [my words] for the “assault” style rifles in the hunting community. In fact, he went on to refer to them as “terrorist weapons.” In a matter of hours after making this faux pas, Zumbo was the topic of a fire storm of folks looking to hang his storied outdoor writing career and his personal reputation at the stake.

Then there is this, from Clair Wolfes blog:

02/20/2007 Entry: "Jim Zumbo: Companies doing the right thing"

DOING THE RIGHT THING. If you're a gun person, you probably know all about this weekend's Jim Zumbo flap.

Mr. Famous Outdoorsman, who's been writing about guns and hunting for 42 years, spewed forth an ignorant blurt about "terrorist assault rifles" that put him straight into the Brady camp. After several thousand howls of protest, he followed up with an alleged apology that made matters even worse. Said apology never actually apologized for calling millions of us "terrorists." It simply said (I paraphrase): a) I was having a bad day, b) Ted Nugent's still willing to hunt with me, c) how can you hate me when I'm a member of the NRA?, d) how can you question my patriotism when I fly my American flag every day?, e) I help disabled veterans, and f) if you hunt or shoot, I'm the very best friend you could possibly have.

Seriously. Our Very Best Friend. Never mind that he still believes we're all "terrorists." Never mind that the Brady campaign had already picked up his words and was busily battering us with them. (The link above will take you to all parts of the Zumbro fumble. The original blog entries and the thousands of comments they generated are gone -- more below on that -- but Google still has them in cache. Here's the cached version of Zumbo's original screed. Here's the cache of his self-serving non-apology.)

The Bill Quick of the Daily Pundit compares Zumbo to Mitt Romney, here.

Our own Tamara has a thing or two to say here.

Of course, there's the ever irrepressible LawDog here.

The Countertop Chronicles says this:

Lo and behold, my subscription expires with next months issue. I received a renewal notice this weekend and was all set to send it in today but then saw this after reading my favorite blogs yesterday (thanks for the Heads Up Tam!).

"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.”

Not surprisingly, he received a ton of feedback. Where his blog usually gets 10 or so comments, this post (at this time) already has over 3329 posts (90% of which calling for Zumbo to be unemployedbo). It was enough to prompt Mark Snow the executive editor of outdoor life to add a note at the end distancing the magazine from Zumbo’s opinion as well as prompting Zumbo to draft an equally offensive apology (which itself has garned 1800+ comments, 85% of which are calling for Zumbos head).

This, from The Michael Bane Blog, with links to his other thoughts on this fiasco.

This weekend we "tipped." The on-going tensions between the hunting and the shooting sides of the overall firearms market, which I have been reporting on since I started this blog three years ago, boiled over, and for the very first time, the shooting side of the market flexed its muscles.

And suddenly the whole industry now understands what we have known for years — we are the tail wagging the dog.

After this, don't let anyone tell you that blogs, forums and the internet is just for fun - They don't mean anything in the real world. We have done something serious this past weekend. The Media is simply stunned! Nothing like this has ever happened before. This is Real Time, Real Life.

And it's far from being over.

[Anon]

*****************************************************
I will come back to this post and update it, as I hear from the sponsors.
*****************************************************
If you hear any VERIFIABLE information, please post it, and I will add it to this post.

I know there are A BUNCH of Zumbo threads out there. If you want to rant about him, go there.

This thread is a place to consolidate the responses from his sponsors.


REFRESH YOUR PAGE

Here is a list of his original sponsors:

(dumped Zumbo)
REMINGTON
MOSSY OAK
HI MOUNTAIN SEASONINGS
THE OUTDOOR CHANNEL
OUTDOOR LIFE
GERBER KNIVES

(Distancing themselves)
CABELA'S


(Unknown stance)
SAFARI CLUB INTERNATIONAL http://www.safariclub.org/
STONEY POINT PRODUCTS http://www.stoneypoint.com
SWAROVSKI http://www.swarovskioptik.at/?l=en

(Keeping him)
None





Remington - dumped him
http://www.remington.com/library/press/2007/2007-1.asp

Mossy Oak - dumped him
http://www.mossyoak.com/content.asp?id=1460&catID=153

Hi Mountain Seasonings - dumped him
http://himtnjerky.com (bottom of page)

Outdoor Life / The Outdoor Channel- dumped him
http://www.outdoorlife.com/outdoor/c...592623,00.html


Gerber - dumped him

For Immediate Release Contact: Jason Kintzler

Phone: 307.857.4700
[email protected]
Gerber Cuts Ties with Jim Zumbo

Portland, OR, February 21, 2007: Gerber Legendary Blades reacted to Jim
Zumbo's recent public statements moving to sever all sponsorship ties with
the long-time outdoor writer and hunter, effective immediately.

"After careful evaluation and consideration, we have made the decision to
discontinue our relationship with Jim Zumbo," said Brendon Weaver, Director
of Brand Management at Gerber. "At Gerber, we value the hunting heritage
and cherish our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms."

While we respect the opinions of sponsored professionals, customers and
end users of our products, Mr. Zumbo's recent statements are not consistent
with Gerber's culture and ideals as advocates of the hunting industry.

For more information please email Jason Kintzler at

[email protected]
Gerber Legendary Blades


A Division of Fiskars Brands, Inc.
14200 S.W. 72nd Avenue, PO Box 23088
Portland, OR 97281-3088
www.gerberblades.com

Cabela's - looking into dumping him

Originally Posted by [email protected]

While Cabela’s believes everyone has the right to express their own opinions, we strongly disagree with Jim Zumbo’s February 16 posting on his Hunting with Jim Zumbo blog on Outdoor Life’s Web site.

Throughout our 46-year history, Cabela’s has firmly supported all aspects of shooting sports. We strongly support the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States and the right of every U.S. citizen to purchase, own and enjoy any legal firearm of their choosing.

While we fully support Mr. Zumbo’s First Amendment right of free speech, we believe his opinions on this matter are counter to those shared by Cabela’s and many of our customers. Cabela’s Legal Department is currently reviewing contractual obligations and commitments regarding our sponsorship of the Jim Zumbo Outdoors television show.

Sincerely,
Suzanne

[Countertop]

Antipitas

Just a clarification,

Mike Solita is an Outdoor Life employee who commented at my blog. He doesn't blog there and I am not him.

[Bud Helms]

Threads merged.

[wjd]

Well, I don't really need another Remmie but I think my son would just love a new 750.

Too bad about Gerber, I liked their stuff. Buck aint bad either though.

[HiPowering Along]

Zumbo called in during the third hour of Tom's Gun Talk radio program:

http://media.libsyn.com/media/guntal...18guntalkC.mp3

Zumbo's part is about 20 minutes into the program.

Personally, lame apology not accepted. Tom, if you're reading this, yes people are allowed to make mistakes. However, professing that my firearms are 'terrorist weapons' in an international stage (the 'net), from a gent that's supposed to be a professional writer, it too much. The "I was tired" defense is just too lame.

[ATW525]

Zumbo called in during the third hour of Tom's Gun Talk radio program:

http://media.libsyn.com/media/guntal...18guntalkC.mp3

Zumbo's part is about 20 minutes into the program.

Personally, lame apology not accepted. Tom, if you're reading this, yes people are allowed to make mistakes. However, professing that my firearms are 'terrorist weapons' in an international stage (the 'net), from a gent that's supposed to be a professional writer, it too much. The "I was tired" defense is just too lame.

I think Tom had things a bit backwards when he condemns us for turning on Zumbo, when it was in fact Zumbo who turned on us.

[Al Norris]

Countertop, my apologies. I have corrected my post.

[BobK]

Guess I won't be buying anymore Gerber products.

[gnut]

Roger that!

[Striker]

Guess I won't be buying anymore Gerber products.

Ditto!

[FirstFreedom]

Luckily for us, Gerber quality is in the toilet now anyways.

[AK103K]

Yup, glad I got my MKII's when I did.

[Mal H]

Tom Gresham has added an excellent analysis of the Zumbo train wreck to Guntalk: "Tipping Point -- Suicide on the Web".

[Al Norris]

GADs! I love this part:

I made a comment about our willingness to eat our own....

Still, in this case, I was wrong. That's not what was going on here, as I discovered when I got off the air. To listeners who took offense, I do apologize. The outrage by gun owners is completely understandable. To put it in context, Zumbo's comments came only days after we saw the introduction of a bill in Congress to bring back the Clinton Gun Ban (the so-called "assault weapons" ban). The final nail in the coffin was when-- Sunday afternoon -- the Brady Campaign (the leading group working to restrict gun rights) posted Zumbo's comments to several places on the net, saying, in effect, "See, even the top hunting writer says these rifles have no legitimate use."

It's good to see that Tom "gets it."

I also like this last part:

This entire episode took place inside of 36 hours, on a weekend -- a three-day weekend for President's Day. It happened...and this is important...entirely on the internet. The original posting was on the net, the reaction was on the net, the emails demanding that companies break off with Zumbo were on the net, and the reactions from the companies were all on their web sites. This was completely an internet event. It was a nuclear explosion, with tens of thousands of messages posted, spanning all the firearms-related web sites....

Now, the real question is whether we can generate that kind of response when we need to defeat a gun ban. Can we melt down mail servers of elected representatives the way gun owners hammered the servers at various companies? I don't know.

That's the Big Question. If it looks like H.R. 1022 is gonna get out of committee, then we need to "Zumbo" all our Congress Critters! Hammer them hard. Not one Email, but as many as we can send.