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View Full Version : Assault Rifles For Hunters? - The ZUMBO lesson!


Quarterbore
02-19-2007, 04:33 PM
I was amazed to see a thread about this post on outdoorlife.com and this blog entry brought a great deal of attention to this outdoorlife writter and blogger, his sponsors, and more...

Here is the original post:

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:jDZ0K76hUJUJ:outdoorlife.blogs.com/zumbo/2007/02/assault_rifles_.html+http://outdoorlife.blogs.com/zumbo/2007/02/assault_rifles_.html&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

Assault Rifles For Hunters?
As I write this, I'm hunting coyotes in southeastern Wyoming with Eddie Stevenson, PR Manager for Remington Arms, Greg Dennison, who is senior research engineer for Remington, and several writers. We're testing Remington's brand new .17 cal Spitfire bullet on coyotes.

I must be living in a vacuum. The guides on our hunt tell me that the use of AR and AK rifles have a rapidly growing following among hunters, especially prairie dog hunters. I had no clue. Only once in my life have I ever seen anyone using one of these firearms.

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."

This really has me concerned. As hunters, we don't need the image of walking around the woods carrying one of these weapons. To most of the public, an assault rifle is a terrifying thing. Let's divorce ourselves from them. I say game departments should ban them from the praries and woods.


Well, this entry resulted in several thousand angry replies to both this blog entry (which has now been pulled) as well to the sponsors of Zumbo and his various writing and hunting adventures.

Sometime after the initial post Outdoor life added this reply:


UPDATE: As a point of clarification about this blog, it is important for everyone to realize that the opinions expressed here are Jim’s and not necessarily those of Outdoor Life.

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.

His position that AR- and AK-style rifles don’t have a place among our “sporting arms” is not one that I personally, or Outdoor Life as a magazine, happens to share.

In the six years that I’ve worked at Outdoor Life we have never wavered in our support of our Second Amendment rights, which don’t, and shouldn’t, make a distinction about the cosmetic look of the guns that we choose take to our local gun clubs or into hunting camp.

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.

John B. Snow
Executive Editor
Outdoor Life


Followed up with an new Blog entry from Mr Zimbo sayng this:

http://66.218.69.11/search/cache?p=http%3A%2F%2Foutdoorlife.blogs.com%2Fzumbo %2F2007%2F02%2Fi_was_wrong_big.html&fr=yfp-t-501&toggle=1&ei=UTF-8&u=outdoorlife.blogs.com/zumbo/2007/02/i_was_wrong_big.html&d=WixFT-xsOUKm&icp=1&.intl=us


I was wrong, BIG TIME

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.

Let me explain the circumstances surrounding that blog. I was hunting coyotes, and after the hunt was over and being beat up by 60 mph winds all day, I was discussing hunting with one of the young guides. I was tired and exhausted, and I should have gone to bed early. When the guide told me that there was a "huge" following of hunters who use AR 15's and similar weapons to hunt prairies dogs, I was amazed. At that point I wrote the blog, and never thought it through.

Now then, you might not believe what I have to say, but I hope you do. How is it that Zumbo, who has been hunting for more than 50 years, is totally ignorant about these types of guns. I don't know. I shot one once at a target last year, and thought it was cool, but I never considered using one for hunting. I had absolutely no idea how vast the numbers of folks are who use them.

I never intended to be divisive, and I certainly believe in United we Stand, Divided we Fall. I've been an NRA member for 40 years, have attended 8 national NRA conventions in the last 10 years, and I'm an advisory board member for the United States Sportsmen's Alliance which actively fights anti-hunters and animal rights groups for hunter's rights.

What really bothers me are some of the unpatriotic comments leveled at me. I fly the flag 365 days a year in my front yard. Last year, through an essay contest, I hosted a soldier wounded in Iraq to a free hunt in Botswana. This year, through another essay contest, I'm taking two more soldiers on a free moose and elk hunt.

When I started blogging, I was told to write my thoughts, expressing my own opinion. The offensive blog I wrote was MY opinion, and no one else's. None of the companies that I deal with share that opinion, nor were they aware of what I had written until this firestorm started.

Believe it or not, I'm your best friend if you're a hunter or shooter, though it might not seem that way. I simply screwed up. And, to show that I'm sincere about this, I just talked to Ted Nugent, who everyone knows, and is a Board member of the NRA. Ted is extremely active with charities concerning our wounded military, and though he's known as a bowhunter, Ted has no problem with AR 15's and similar firearms. My sincerity stems from the fact that Ted and I are planning a hunt using AR 15's. I intend to learn all I can about them, and again, I'm sorry for inserting my foot in my mouth.



As a community of gun owners, shooters, hunters, collectors, etc... it is essential that we work together to address problems like this when they happen. Huge numbers of people got involved with this issue and are continuing the fight to ensure that point is clearly broght home that AR-15s, AK-47s, or any other weapon is no more a weapon of terrorists then the family station wagon that could be loaded with explosives.

I am posting this information here to ensure these words of "wisdom" are not lost to the future...

Quarterbore
02-19-2007, 04:41 PM
More on this matter:

http://ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=548211

From Remington:

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


Press
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Remington to Sever Sponsorship Ties with Jim Zumbo

Madison, North Carolina – As a result of comments made by Mr. Jim Zumbo in recent postings on his blog site, Remington Arms Company, Inc., has severed all sponsorship ties with Mr. Zumbo effective immediately. While Mr. Zumbo is entitled to his opinions and has the constitutional right to freely express those opinions, these comments are solely his, and do not reflect the views of Remington.

“Remington has spent tens of millions of dollars defending our Second Amendment rights to privately own and possess firearms and we will continue to vigorously fight to protect these rights,” commented Tommy Millner, Remington’s CEO and President. “As hunters and shooters of all interest levels, we should strive to utilize this unfortunate occurrence to unite as a whole in support of our Second Amendment rights.”

We regret having to terminate our long-standing relationship with Mr. Zumbo, who is a well-respected writer and life-long hunter.

###


http://www.mossyoak.com/content.asp?id=1460

Mossy Oak Responds to Zumbo Blog

Mossy Oak strongly advocates the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights, which gives us the right to keep and bear arms regardless of type. The Second Amendment is vital to the outdoors lifestyle we all appreciate and enjoy here at Mossy Oak and across the entire outdoor industry.

“It is unfortunate that a long-time hunter and outdoor writer took a personal position that was unsupportive of the Second Amendment which does not differentiate between firearm types.” said Butch English, Executive VP of Sales and Marketing for Mossy Oak. “As a result of comments made by Mr. Jim Zumbo in recent postings on his blog site, Haas Outdoors, Inc. the home of Mossy Oak Brand Camo has ended all sponsorship ties with Mr. Zumbo effective immediately. While we strongly disagree with Mr. Zumbo’s opinion, we respect his constitutional, guaranteed right to speak freely.”

As shooters and hunters, we should all help educate and promote responsible firearm information and safety. It is important for the outdoor industry to focus our attention to educate those opposed to any type of anti-hunting or anti-Second Amendment movement.


-Mossy Oak


I don't have a link for this one:


Dear fellow 2nd Amendment Supporters,

I am writing to thank all of you for your activism in making us aware of the comments made on Mr. Zumbo’s blog. Hi Mountain Jerky and Seasoning has been a sponsor of his hunting show on the Outdoor Channel, but is in the process of terminating our relationship. We do not support his statements regarding his view of the Second Amendment and would not have supported the show or had his endorsement on our packaging in the past had we known this. We fully stand behind the individual right to keep and bear arms as our Founding Fathers intended. It is truly heartwarming to see the grass roots activism in support of our Second Amendment, please know Hi Mountain Jerky and Seasoning stands behind you.

Thank you,

Hans Hummel
President
Hi Mountain Jerky, Inc.

Quarterbore
02-19-2007, 04:58 PM
Here is the original entry as Cached by Google:

http://www.quarterbore.net/library/zumbo_on_assault_rifles.pdf

Here is copy of the page above after the entry was pulled. This has all the blog coments that were delivered in response.

http://www.quarterbore.net/library/assault_rifles.pdf

Here is the apology:

http://www.quarterbore.net/library/zumbo_I_was_wrong.pdf

Note, many of the blog replies were lost from the appology posting but I think the point is clear...

Quarterbore
02-20-2007, 02:10 PM
Here is a pretty good wrap-up of the past couple days...

The Blog Heard 'Round The Industry
Jim Zumbo angers firearm enthusiasts
by Jim Shepherd
posted February 20, 2007

Jim Zumbo, Hunting Editor for Outdoor Life magazine, angered firearms enthusiasts across the country with a weekend blog posting. His blog has now been suspended and sponsors are severing ties with Zumbo in spite of his apology.
This article is provided by Jim Shepherd in association with the "Outdoor Wire," a feed service specializing in the outdoor industry.

Legendary hunting writer Jim Zumbo has incurred the wrath of thousands of shooting enthusiasts with a weekend posting on his now-suspended blog for Outdoor Life magazine.

In the posting, Zumbo said "assault rifles" (or "terrorist" rifles as he went on to refer to them) had "no place" among "our hunting community." Adding that in his "humble opinion…these things have no place in hunting" because "We don't need to be lumped into the group of people who terrorize the world with them, which is an obvious concern."

Zumbo went on to say "game departments should ban them from the praries (sic) and woods."

That kicked off a firestorm among owners of so-called "black rifles". Within hours, internet sites had reproduced the offending blog, kicking off thousands of angry emails and internet postings.

Subsequently, in what may one day be classified as the worst apology ever written (aptly titled "I was wrong, BIG TIME") Zumbo attempted to soothe readers, attributing his remarks to being tired following a long day of hunting coyotes in extreme weather conditions.

He went on recount his 40 years of NRA membership and the United States Sportsmen's Alliance, an organization, which, he wrote, "actively fights anti-hunters and animal rights groups for hunter's rights." He also told readers he had plans to go hunting with an AR-style rifle to give them a try.

At that point, however, there was little, if anything, that would assuage an angry horde of electronically mobilized AR fans. They considered Zumbo's remarks as being tantamount to a sellout, with Zumbo offering up "black rifles" as a sacrificial lamb for anti-gun forces.

In an appearance on Tom Gresham's national radio show "Gun Talk" Sunday afternoon, Zumbo attempted to apologize, but listeners didn't seem to be buying his verbal apology. If anything, any attempt to assuage them only fanned the flames of outrage.

Over the course of the afternoon and evening, various executives associated with Zumbo posted their own comments on his blog site, attempting to deflect the anger at directed at Zumbo away from their companies.

It didn't work.

Instead, they found themselves under attack with angry feedback calling for everything from a boycott of all Remington products (a pair of Remington execs were mentioned as having been with Zumbo on his now ill-fated hunting trip) to cancellation of Outdoor Life magazine subscriptions and campaigns against all companies with connections to Zumbo.

Yesterday morning, responding to an onslaught of negative publicity, Remington CEO and President Tommy Millner released a statement severing "all sponsorship ties with Mr. Zumbo, effective immediately."

Zumbo was entitled to his opinion, Millner wrote, but the inflammatory comments were solely his and did not reflect the views of Remington.

"Remington has spent tens of millions of dollars defending our Second Amendment rights to privately own and possess firearms, " wrote Millner, "and we will continue to vigorously fight to protect these rights. As hunters and shooters of all interest levels, we should strive to utilize this unfortunate occurrence to unite as a whole in support of our Second Amendment rights."

In conclusion, Millner expressed regret at the termination of a long-standing relationship with a "well-respected writer and life-long hunter."

Outdoor Life announced they were discontinuing the "Hunting With Zumbo" blog "for the time being" due to the "controversy surrounding Jim Zumbo's latest postings."

Their notice went on to remind readers "Outdoor Life has always been, and will always be, a steadfast supporter of our Second Amendment rights which do not make distinctions based on the looks of the firearms we choose to own, shoot and take hunting."

Yesterday, anyone who didn't comment risked being lumped in with anti-gun forces. Any voices calling for reason and tolerance found themselves shouted down. And those writers professing support for Mr. Zumbo privately certainly weren't willing to go on the record with that support.

Additionally, Cabela's has not yet dropped their sponsorship of the Jim Zumbo Outdoors television show, Cabela's Frank Ross is being quoted as having said their legal department is "currently reviewing contractual obligations and commitments regarding our sponsorship of the Jim Zumbo Outdoors television show. "

"Jim's comments are as unfortunate as they are inappropriate," said National Shooting Sports Foundation president Doug Painter. "No one should divide firearms into good-gun, bad-gun categories."

Zumbo's ill-considered blog may not have been intended to create good-gun, bad-gun categories, but it has certainly raised firebrand rhetoric to an art form. Rather than hunters being supported by recreational and competitive shooting enthusiasts, they have now become "Fudds" to shooters who feel they have been labeled "terrorists" by a "hard-core hunter."

It's truly not a pretty picture, but may observers say it accurately reflects a widening gap between "traditional" and "non-traditional" shooting enthusiasts.

With Congress reconsidering the Assault Weapon Ban and Connecticut and New Jersey considering legislation that would limit handgun purchases to one per month, this latest schism is already being used as further evidence of the "need" to regulate firearms -all firearms - more stringently.

Jim Shepherd

Deadbolt
02-20-2007, 03:15 PM
I was very pleased to see Remington's response to Mr. Zumbo's traitorous coments. Zumbo and his ilk make me sick. He claims to be pro RKBA, but is just another elitist snob who thinks the 2nd Amendment is something to be tailored by the powers that be. He is so deluded that he thinks that hunting is a constitutionaly protected right. The 2nd Amendment is about FREEDOM. Our firearms are the teeth of liberty. He looks down his nose at my military style / surplus rifles and calls them "terrorist" guns! With that he branded us all terrorists. I wonder what he would call the Patriots at Lexington and Concord, 19 April 1775?
Anyhow... I hope Mr. Zumbo with his 40+ years of hunting experience enjoys all of his new found free time. I guess he can hunt for a job.:fal:

Quarterbore
06-04-2007, 01:19 PM
I have not posted all the updates I had seen on the "Education of Zumbo" but on Sunday there was an Article in the New York Times that pretty much sums it all up and it looks like a good Article as well.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/business/yourmoney/03rifle.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&oref=slogin

By ANDREW PARK
Published: June 3, 2007
LAST February, Jim Zumbo, a burly, 66-year-old outdoors writer, got a phone call at his home near Cody, Wyo., from the rock star — and outspoken Second Amendment champion — Ted Nugent. “You messed up, man,” Mr. Zumbo says Mr. Nugent told him. “Big time.”

Two days earlier, Mr. Zumbo, a leading hunting journalist, outraged Mr. Nugent and many other gun owners when he suggested in a blog post that increasingly popular semiautomatic guns known as “black rifles” be banned from hunting. Mr. Zumbo, stunned that hunters were using the rifles for sport, also suggested giving the guns, prized for their matte black metal finishes, molded plastic parts and combat-ready looks, a new name: “terrorist rifles.”

Gun enthusiasts’ backlash against Mr. Zumbo was swift. He parted company with his employer, Outdoor Life magazine. Mr. Zumbo says on his Web site that he was “terminated”; the magazine says that it and Mr. Zumbo agreed that he would resign.

But a week after hearing from Mr. Nugent, who has a devoted following among gun owners, Mr. Zumbo visited him in Waco, Tex., to make amends. For his part, Mr. Nugent was prepared to give Mr. Zumbo a lesson on the utility and ubiquity of black rifles.

“These guns are everywhere,” Mr. Nugent explained excitedly in a recent phone interview. “I personally don’t know anybody who doesn’t have two in his truck.”

Despite their menacing appearance — and in some cases, because of it — black rifles are now the guns of choice for many hunters, target shooters and would-be home defenders. Owners praise their accuracy, ease of use and versatility, as well as their potential to be customized with an array of gadgets. While the gun industry’s overall sales have plateaued and its profits have faded over the last decade, black rifles are selling briskly, says Eric Wold, an analyst in New York for Merriman Curhan Ford.

Moreover, manufacturers say, for every dollar spent on black rifles, gun buyers spend at least another customizing the guns from an arsenal of accessories. All of this has combined to make black rifles a lone bright spot for long-suffering American gunsmiths.

Yet Mr. Zumbo is not alone in finding the popularity of black rifles and the trade in them to be disquieting.

Gun-control advocates say black rifles are simply assault weapons under a different name — and just as dangerous as they were when Congress instituted a ban on some of them in 1994. The ban did not eliminate black rifles; manufacturers were able to make minor changes to comply with the law and kept selling them. (The ban expired in 2004.)

“What you have are guns essentially designed for close combat,” says Dennis Hennigan, legal director of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence in Washington, who notes that a Beretta black rifle was among the weapons obtained by men suspected of plotting a terrorist attack on Fort Dix, N.J. “If your mission is to kill a lot of people very quickly, they’re very well suited for that task.”

But efforts to ban black rifles seem to have only fueled their rise, analysts say. And while some major gun makers were reluctant to defy the spirit of the 1994 ban, dozens of small companies emerged, and their sales surged. (It didn’t hurt that many gun owners feared greater restrictions down the road, a fear that manufacturers were more than willing to exploit.)

“Whenever there’s a push like this, business increases as people buy a firearm while they can,” says Mark Westrom, president of ArmaLite Inc., a maker of black rifles in Geneseo, Ill. “If you want to sell something to Americans, just tell them they can’t have it.”

EVEN as politicians debate increased gun regulation in the wake of the mass shooting at Virginia Tech in April, gun control advocates say they are pessimistic about the chances of reining in black rifles. Illinois legislators who were trying to pass a statewide assault-weapons ban this spring ran into fierce opposition from Mr. Westrom and several other makers of semiautomatics who argued that the proposed law would cost the state jobs and hurt the economy. (The measure is still under consideration.)

The most popular black rifle has been in production since the early 1960s. In response to the Army’s need for a lightweight infantry rifle, ArmaLite had developed the AR-15, which could switch between semiautomatic (only one round per pull of the trigger) and fully automatic firing (continuous firing when the trigger is pulled). The Colt Firearms Company bought the rights to the gun and the military soon adopted it, calling it the M-16. From Vietnam through the Persian Gulf war, the M-16 was the most common combat weapon, and it remains in use by many American forces.

Because of restrictions on the sale of automatic weapons, civilians could buy the AR-15 only in a semiautomatic version. But in the 1980s, Colt drew unwanted attention when it was discovered that the gun, which had begun showing up in the arsenals of drug dealers, mobsters and antigovernment militias, could be easily converted to an automatic.

Colt redesigned the weapon to make converting it much more difficult, but when Congress passed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, the AR-15 was banned alongside the AK-47, the TEC-9 and 16 other semiautomatic weapons. The act also prohibited semiautomatics that could accept detachable magazines from having more than one of five generic features that were believed to increase the likelihood that the gun would be used in a crime. The National Rifle Association lobbied hard against the bill, but many hunters agreed with the premise that assault weapons were of little use in their sport.

“These killing machines are the weapon of choice of drug traffickers, violent youth gangs and the seriously deranged bent on revenge through mass murder,” Senator Charles E. Schumer, then a House member from New York who was one of the bill’s champions, said in April 1994. “They have no place in our society.”

But if the spirit of the law was a blow to black rifles, the letter of it allowed them to live on and thrive. Colt focused on supplying weapons to the military and law enforcement. But competitors were already copying the rifle, since the original patents granted to ArmaLite had expired. All they had to do was rejigger their designs to reduce the number of offending features.

Quarterbore
06-04-2007, 01:19 PM
Demand for black rifles, meanwhile, began to grow. A new generation of hunters, many of whom had fired M-16s in the military, adopted them for shooting predators on rural property and stalking small game. The .223-caliber ammunition they used was inexpensive and easily found. The guns began to get a reputation for being durable despite their light weight; they also loaded automatically (unlike bolt-action hunting rifles) and their recoil was gentle enough for even novice shooters and children to withstand. Once the AR-15 was deemed accurate enough for use in high-powered rifle competitions, it soon became standard issue for target shooters.

And with the basic design of black rifles open to industrywide adaptations, gun makers began adding their own innovations and accessories to refine and improve the AR-15’s performance. By 2004, when the assault weapons ban expired, black rifles had emerged as a major category in firearms. But while Colt’s sales had shrunk in the intervening years, output exploded for black-rifle specialists like Bushmaster, Rock River Arms and DPMS.

“The little guys perfected the platform,” says Michael Bane, a gun blogger and writer who is the host of “Shooting Gallery,” a program on the Outdoor Channel on cable television. “They had the 10 years of the ban to get their chops down.”

But for most of those 10 years, these small manufacturers managed to fly under the radar of many gun owners, including Mr. Zumbo, a self-described traditionalist who says he had seen only one black rifle during a lifetime of hunting. “I had absolutely zero idea of the number of people who are into these types of firearms,” he says.

Not so for Mr. Nugent, who stocked up on black rifles before the ban took effect and estimates that he now owns about two dozen. If the boom in black rifles began in spite of the federal assault weapons ban, it has accelerated only in the two and a half years since the ban expired. Manufacturers have been freed to revive once-prohibited features like collapsible stocks, flash suppressors and large-capacity magazines.

Analysts say that images from the Iraq war showing American soldiers armed with black rifles have also helped sales, as have concerns about domestic safety after Sept. 11 and Hurricane Katrina. “People on the street want to use what the people in the military and law enforcement are using,” says Amit Dayal, an analyst at Rodman & Renshaw in New York.

Based only on the volume of accessories sold — such as high-powered scopes and flashlights — Mr. Bane estimates that as many as 750,000 black rifles, including about 400,000 AR-15s, change hands each year. Brownells, a company in Montezuma, Iowa, a big seller of firearms parts and accessories, says AR-15 gear has become its best-selling product category.

Because all but a few gun manufacturers are closely held private companies, overall sales figures for the black rifle industry are hard to come by. But companies are required to report their overall rifle production to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and based on that, many of the small manufacturers that have specialized in the guns are “on the verge of being big,” Mr. Bane says. One, Stag Arms of New Britain, Conn., opened in 2004 and is already producing 2,500 to 3,000 black rifles a month, according to the president and owner, Mark Malkowski. That would be 30,000 to 36,000 a year, roughly the same number that Colt was producing in the late 1990s.

Buoyant demand has enticed a number of established gunsmiths into the market, too. Smith & Wesson, known for its revolvers, has made black rifles a strategic priority in its turnaround. It introduced its first model in early 2006. It was so popular that the company had to supplement manufacturing of the gun, which had been outsourced, just to meet consumer demand.

“It’s our hope that we would be the share leader in the category,” says Leland A. Nichols, Smith & Wesson’s chief operating officer. He said that in the company’s own surveys of consumers, its brand outpolled all other black rifle makers before it even had a product on the market.

A similar story is unfolding at the Remington Arms Company, long one of the strongest brands in hunting rifles. The company started its first line of black rifles earlier this year. In April, Cerberus Capital Management, the private equity firm that recently made a deal to buy Chrysler, agreed to acquire Remington for $370 million, adding it to the gun maker Bushmaster in the fund’s portfolio and raising the possibility of collaboration between the two companies.

“A month ago black guns were not a business opportunity,” says Al Russo, a spokesman for Remington, citing the growth potential that the Cerberus deal offers. “Now they are.”

Despite their popularity, black rifles remain a target for advocates of gun control. Seven states, including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, as well as several major cities, including New York and Chicago, have enacted bans on certain firearms they have deemed assault weapons, including some black rifles.

In February, Representative Carolyn McCarthy, a New York Democrat, introduced a renewal of the federal ban on assault weapons that would greatly expand the measure. But few expect the bill to gain any traction.

“It’s highly unlikely that any legislation to move an assault weapons ban is going to happen,” says Kristen Rand, legislative director at the Violence Policy Center, a gun-control lobbying group. “That’s the sad reality on the Hill right now.”

MS. RAND says it is hard to know how often black rifles are used in crime, because the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has not reported such statistics to the public since 2001. But based on anecdotal evidence, Ms. Rand says, criminals are favoring imported semiautomatics like AK-47s and SKS rifles, which are cheaper to obtain than AR-15s.

“We were never claiming that every buyer of an assault weapon is a criminal or is a potential mass killer,” says Mr. Hennigan of the Brady Center. “But the consumers of the assault weapons are going to include a higher percentage of violent criminals than other guns.”

Gun rights advocates scoff, saying that a .223-caliber bullet that comes out of a black rifle is the same as one fired from other guns. Mr. Nugent scoffs as well.

“It’s just a neat tool,” he says. “Black rifles are cool. Case closed. The more the better.”

Mr. Zumbo, chastened by the outcry that his black-rifle comments set off, says he hopes to resume writing about hunting and to revive his popular cable television show, which was put on hiatus when it lost sponsors after the blog post. He says his time at Mr. Nugent’s ranch reminded him that gun owners have to reject banning any firearm, lest it open the door to banning them all. He also says that, like it or not, black rifles are now mainstream.

“Having met the people who shoot these things, they were regular folks; they weren’t sinister people who were bent on causing harm, they weren’t hostile people,” he says. “They were interested in the guns because they were fun to shoot.”

tnek
10-13-2007, 05:20 PM
Zumbo is an unrepentant ass clown. Ted Nugent has lost a lot of respect for his unwavering support of him as well. Teds boards were on fire for days and I was one of many who signed up and commented and were promptly booted for not letting him off the hook with his aw shucks appolgy. The fudds still feel the same and many of them openly said so and teds mods let them carry on endlessly but threw off lots of AR15 commers. I still know idiots who dont get the second but as long as they can have their 1100 shotgun and Browning bolt gun they dont care what happens to the rest of the gun community.