Zumbo's stumble

The Zumbo saga has me so fired up that I'm making an unprecedented (for me) second Sunday blog entry.

It seems that, incredibly, Zumbo had no idea what kind of firestorm he was bringing down on himself with his article. He apparently actually believed that there is not a huge number of law-abiding Americans who are aware that the Second Amendment exists, not to protect hunting, but to protect freedom. My guess is that he's learning differently, and in a big hurry.

By the way, it seems that some folks have contacted Remington about this, because of Remington's heavy advertising in Outdoor Life. While I agree that it's good to make anyone who does business with Zumbo aware that we will not do business with those who support Zumbo's writings, it is perhaps too early to throw Remington to the wolves. I can't verify the authenticity of this letter, but if it is genuine, it would seem that Remington is getting as much separation from Zumbo as possible (and so quickly that they didn't even bother to use a spell checker):

ALL - Jim Zumbo in NO WAY speaks for Remington! His opinions are his own. We at Remington take our 2nd Ammendment Rights extremely seriously and ourselves market and manufacturer a AR based 308 rifle. Remington Arms supports the lawful use of all firearms by thier owners in whatever legal manner they choose. We at Remington feel that it is the diversity of our tastes and uses of fireaems that should also be the binding element that assists us all in defending the rights granted to us by our fore fathers.

Rest assured that remington not only does not support jim's view, we totally disagree! I have no explaination for his perspective.

I proudly own AR's and support everyones right to do so!

What makes me sick is how quickly people on the internet have called to boycott Remington. All Jim said was he was hunting with our people! This is normal course in our industry. How else do people think we field test? with writers.

Remington has spent tens of millions of dollars to defend your rights and how quickly the thanks is threat and boycott! Please feel Free to post that remington does not agree with Zumbo in any way shape or form and we will assess our relationship with him accordingly.

Tommy Millner
CEO and President

As I mentioned in my previous entry, I do think Outdoor Life's editorial staff needs to hear from us, as does one other entity, as well. It would seem that Zumbo has been heavily associated with the NRA for quite a long time--I have not yet been able to verify that he writes for the NRA's Shooting Illustrated, but I've been told that he does. According to his biography, he established the NRA's Great American Hunters Tour, and is still heavily involved with that. If the NRA wants to continue to claim to represent America's gun owners in our fight to preserve the Second Amendment (what's left of it), they need to get as far from him as possible.

Finally, I want to list just a few other blogs that are covering this (this list is by no means comprehensive): I've already mentioned War on Guns, and there's A Keyboard and a 45, and Live from the (upper) Texas Gulf Coast. Those sites mention yet more that are covering this.

There's a rumor that Zumbo intends to issue a heartfelt apology soon. It had better be heart breakingly eloquent.

UPDATE: The apology is now available for viewing. I suppose he said the right things, but it's hard to get very convinced that a true change of heart was involved. It seems that the Brady Bunch is already crowing about this (his first piece--before "seeing the light") on My Space.

Found this on AR15.com--I hope Blacklisted doesn't mind me borrowing it.