As one of America's best known outdoor writers, Jim Zumbo has fired off countless shots, literally and figuratively. The most memorable, however, is the rhetorical hipshot he let fly three weeks ago in his Outdoor Life blog. It was the shot heard 'round the cyber world.
With a commentary posted Feb. 16 that enraged many gun owners, the longtime Outdoor Life hunting editor and host of a popular TV show discovered that the First and Second amendments to the Constitution don't necessarily mix.
Zumbo, who lives near Cody, Wyo., is a two-time director of the Missoula-based Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation; his name and face are familiar to most Montana sportsmen and women. The author of more than 1,500 magazine articles and 23 books, he also has some 3,000 published photographs and seven videos to his credit.
But it's the last 255 published words for which he's now best known.
His fateful blog entry was a short column titled “Assault Rifles for Hunters?” He wrote it after a day of hunting coyotes in southeastern Wyoming, in the company of a couple of executives from Remington and several other gun writers. In his column, he opined that military-style weapons commonly known as assault rifles aren't appropriate for hunting.
“I must be living in a vacuum,” he wrote. “The guides on our hunt tell me that the use of AR (-15) and AK (-47) 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. 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 prairies and woods.”
Millions of people have blogs or online journals in which they record sundry musings. Most of these people probably wonder whether anyone ever reads their postings. Not Zumbo. Not anymore, at least. He has confirmation of wide readership - too wide for his own good.
His harsh opinion of assault rifles struck a nerve. The first three readers to respond essentially agreed with him. But the fourth responded, “Divided we fall.” A torrent followed. Critics strafed Zumbo with an angry fusillade:
“Zumbo is obviously a dinosaur with liberal views. He probably hunts with John Kerry.”
“You're an (expletive) and too stupid to realize that once the AR-15 is banned, your beloved Marlin .30-30 will be next.”
“The only people I despise more than power-hungry politicians are treasonous cowards like you.”
It got worse - much worse.
Assault rifles are a touchy subject. Zumbo was right when he wrote that most people consider them terrifying. Assault rifles are the weapons ubiquitous in TV and movie shoot-'em-ups and, tragically, in too many real-life killing sprees. Congress banned them in 1994, with Montana's Max Baucus famously casting a decisive vote in the U.S. Senate.
Although commercially available assault weapons are based on military weapons designed for combat, their mechanical operation is virtually identical to semi-automatic hunting and target arms. Second Amendment advocates saw the ban on assault rifles as a step toward banning other - possibly all - guns.
The gun lobby is a force to be reckoned with. Millions of Americans own and responsibly use guns. The NRA keeps many of these gun owners in a constant state of agitation with hyperbolic warnings of government plans to confiscate guns. Zealous gun owners tend to be single-issue voters who act as a bloc.
The 1994 assault-rifle ban factored in that year's Republican takeover of Congress and grew as an issue in many of the tight election campaigns in following years. Many members of Congress dived for cover when the law came up for renewal in 2004. Baucus, for example, was among those who recanted. Legislation to renew the ban failed, and assault rifles again are perfectly legal.
But, as Zumbo proved, they're no less controversial.
I heard about his controversy from a friend downtown. I went to the Outdoor Life Web site, found the “Hunting with Jim Zumbo” blog, read his column and started to read the comments posted by readers. I could see that many people had responded, so I decided to make a printout and take it home to read. It took so long to process the file I thought something was wrong with the office printer.
Once it started to print, the pages kept coming - and coming. Only then did I notice the document was 883 pages long - five paragraphs of Zumbo's column and 882 pages of responses from readers. I canceled the rest of my printout. Similarly overwhelmed, Outdoor Life finally shut the blog down Feb. 19. By then, the firestorm had spread across the blogosphere. Critics helpfully posted names and addresses of Zumbo's sponsors and began organizing boycotts.
The reaction took Zumbo by surprise.
“I had no idea when I wrote the blog what the repercussions might be,” he said.
Early in the barrage, Outdoor Life executive editor John B. Snow added a disclaimer to Zumbo's blog, noting the opinion was “not one that I personally, or Outdoor Life as a magazine, happens to share.” As the firestorm grew in intensity, the magazine abandoned Zumbo: “In light of comments made by Jim Zumbo in his Feb. 16, 2007, blog posting he will no longer be contributing to the magazine in print or online,” editor-in-chief Todd Smith announced.
Commercial sponsors quickly followed suit. The NRA hastily declared it had “suspended all its professional ties with Mr. Zumbo.”
More than that, the NRA claimed the battered Zumbo as a kind of political trophy:
“The ensuing wave of grassroots response in support of the Second Amendment is clear indication that America's gun owners will act swiftly and decisively to counter falsehoods or misrepresentations perpetuated by any member of the media - whether it is one of the major networks or a fellow gun owner,” NRA officials said in a written statement.
In other words, if this is what we do with one of our friends, imagine what we're going to do to the rest of you.
None of this is particularly surprising. I might well be the gun-friendliest editorial writer working in the mainstream press, but I still catch flak from fellow gun owners. Many of them are Second Amendment absolutists who regard even the smallest deviation from NRA talking points as collaboration with the enemy. A lot of gun owners prefer unnecessary enemies to uncertain friends; some simply have trouble discerning friend from foe. I don't view the world - or gun issues - in stark, black-and-white terms. I see some shades of gray. I want my gun rights, as guaranteed by the Second Amendment, but I don't believe they always trump all the rights of others.
I thought Zumbo made a good point about assault rifles. Guns configured for combat are a poor choice for hunting. At least, the common calibers and commercially available ammunition for these weapons wouldn't be my choice for game. I'm also a traditionalist who values most of all the old bolt-action rifle my grandpa gave me, and I find the appearance, aesthetics and stigma of military-style weapons unappealing.
These guns are attractive to people with a certain mentality, but not mine. Unlike Zumbo, however, I'd argue that people shouldn't hunt with modern military weapons - not that they shouldn't be allowed to. We already have laws against the misuse of guns, whatever the type. Adding laws to prevent lawful use of particular guns is pointless.
I tracked Zumbo down by phone the other day, bracing myself for an unpleasant interview with a defensive, possibly combative subject. I was surprised to find him open, contrite, reflective and not even the least bit bitter. He was thoughtful and engaging. He struck me as a nice guy. As we spoke, I wondered whether the critics who cut him down might have been less brutal had they talked with him instead of merely typing responses to the words they read online.
He told me he wrote the commentary from the perspective of a hunter, not stopping to think as a gun owner. He was thinking in terms of using the right tool for the job, but, he said, “the gun community took it differently.”
“I don't blame anyone,” he added. “I wrote what I wrote in total ignorance.”
Although he isn't about to trade in the bolt-action Model 70 Winchester he uses for elk hunting, Zumbo said he's taken a crash course, done his homework and now has a different opinion of military-style rifles. He's since learned about new legislation in Congress (H.R. 1022) aimed at renewing the assault-weapon ban, and he better understands the intense reaction his column triggered.
He's doing all he can do to apologize, including sending a lengthy letter to the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
“My own lack of experience was no excuse for ignoring the fact that millions of Americans - people who would share a campfire or the shelter of their tent, and who have hurt nobody - own, hunt with and competitively shoot or collect the kinds of firearms I so easily dismissed,” he wrote, vowing to dedicate whatever career he can resurrect to defense of the Second Amendment.
“I know the Second Amendment isn't about hunting and never has been,” he added. “My blunder was in thinking that, by working to protect precious hunting rights, I was doing enough.”
Zumbo said that, at 66, he could retire and isn't worried about the financial fallout.
“I just don't want to go down in history as a guy who betrayed America's gun owners,” he said.
I asked Zumbo about his First Amendment right to free speech and its taking a back seat to the Second Amendment.
He doesn't see it that way.
When politicians say something objectionable, “we all have the right to jump in,” he said. “Those people trying to silence me have got as much right to express disagreement with what I said.”
Still, other writers undoubtedly will heed Zumbo's lesson. More than the harsh reader responses, the speed and severity with which Zumbo's publisher, network and sponsors forsook him are sure to create a chilling effect. Generally speaking, the popular outdoor press isn't anyone's idea of hard-hitting journalism. Some of it isn't very good at all. Something tells me it's not going to get better anytime soon.
“Some of the top gun writers in the country have called me,” Zumbo says. “One told me, ‘Holy mackerel - I'll think twice before hitting Send.' ”
Who could blame them? Who wants to be next in line for a swift “Zumboing”?
Strictly speaking, the First Amendment protects citizens from government censorship. It doesn't necessarily shield anyone from retribution from employers or fellow citizens for voicing politically incorrect views. Yet the First Amendment protects free speech because it's essential to democracy. Whether free speech is suppressed by the government or companies or Web-surfing mobs makes little difference if the effect is the same.
Free-wheeling discussion and vigorous debate are the only ways we have to test ideas and find the best. If ruination is the penalty for not being 100 percent right 100 percent of the time, people will hold their tongues. Democracy will wither if we enslave ourselves to familiar orthodoxy. Freedom of speech doesn't count for much if there's no freedom to be wrong.
Steve Woodruff is the Missoulian's opinion page editor
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