Bigger fish to fry

After a full week of the Great Zumbo Debacle, I think it's time to shift targets (metaphorically speaking). Further attacks on him would be "bombing the rubble," so to speak--there's simply nothing left to gain by continuing to lambaste him.

Besides, apparently somewhere on Ted Nugent's web board (I'm not going to wade through almost 50 pages looking for exactly where), Zumbo showed evidence of finally having gotten a clue:

JimZumbo
Junior Member posted 02-23-2007 03:30 PM
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Thank you all for letting me speak. Yes, I know the 2nd Amendment has nothing to do with hunting and hunting guns, and yes, I promise you I am now dedicated to educate all shooters that we must all stick together regardless of our gun choices, and also tolerate the firearms others may choose to use if they are dissimilar to ours. I will do everything I can, within my power as a journalist and public speaker, to protect the 2nd Amendment and America's gun owners.

Finally, instead of saying that "'Assault weapons' are OK, because they can be appropriate for hunting," he is acknowledging that suitability for hunting has nothing to do with "legitimacy" or the Second Amendment. It took him bloody long enough to get there, but now that he has, I can no longer fault him.

In fact, I believe that there are some nuggets of good to be salvaged from this whole sordid mess. I've mentioned before that this incident really put the spotlight on the power of the gun owning community, when some outrage is sufficient to fully mobilize us. That power may well be needed in coming days, as bills like H.R. 1022 raise their hideous heads.

In this Washington Post article, another outdoor writer, Pat Wray, "blamed" the NRA for driving the fury against Zumbo.

"This shows the zealousness of gun owners to the point of actual foolishness," said Pat Wray, a freelance outdoors writer in Corvallis, Ore., and author of "A Chukar Hunter's Companion."

Wray said that what happened to Zumbo is a case study in how the NRA has trained members to attack their perceived enemies without mercy.

In truth, the NRA was rather slow in addressing the situation, and would very likely never have done so but for the tsunami of grassroots indignation of thousands of individual gun owners. The enemies of civilian gun ownership like to portray a behemoth "gun lobby," which they invariably equate with the NRA, while ignoring the millions of gun owners and freedom lovers from whom the NRA (and every other gun rights organization) gets its power.

Speaking of Wray, he has had long-standing issues with the NRA, and is something of a cheerleader for the American Hunters and Shooters Association--a group whose president, John E. Rosenthal, is the founder of the Massachusetts anti-gun group, Stop Handgun Violence. The AHSA's primary mission seems to be to forestall the gun ban lobby by doing much of their work for them, and thus perhaps appeasing them enough that their double barreled shotguns will be left alone. A laudable endeavor--if you happen to believe that the Second Amendment protects the right to hunt, as long as you do it without scaring the soccer moms.

Exposing Wray for what he is would seem to be one of the beneficial side effects of the Zumbo imbroglio. Another who has gotten a pass for far too long is David Petzal, of Field and Stream. Anyone who has not read Unix_Jedi's breakdown of Petzal's position, as well as some interesting history, should do so.

Zumbo was a symptom--people like Petzal, and organizations like AHSA are the disease.

As is so often the case, much of what I discussed here I found on War on Guns