Jim Zumbo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jim Zumbo is a prominent firearms and hunting commentator and writer. Until February of 2007, he was also the Hunting Editor for Outdoor Life magazine and host of the television program Jim Zumbo Outdoors on The Outdoor Channel. He has been removed from both positions after he condemned the use of semi-automatic civilian versions of military assault rifles such as the AR-15 and AK-47 for hunting in his blog.
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[edit] Career and interests
Zumbo has degrees in forestry and wildlife biology. Before becoming a writer, he worked as a forester and wildlife biologist for 15 years. He wrote his first article for Outdoor Life in 1962, and became a full-time employee of the magazine in 1978. His main focus is on big game hunting. He has written 23 books and approximately 1,500 articles for outdoor magazines. Zumbo is also a lecturer on big game hunting and firearms for organizations like the National Rifle Association and a successful wildlife photographer.[1]
[edit] "'Terrorist' rifles" blog entry
On February 16, 2007, Zumbo published an entry on his blog which read, in part:
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 [sic] and woods.[2]
Many members of the firearms community were outraged that Zumbo was apparently advocating tighter gun control legislation.[3] In response to the flood of threatened boycotts, Remington Arms's CEO Tommy Millner fired Zumbo as a spokesman on February 19,[4] The Outdoor Channel announced its intent to sever their affiliations with Zumbo, and his online blog was discontinued "for the time being" by Outdoor Life on February 19.[5] Outdoor Life subsequently dropped him completely, stating on its webpage that Zumbo would no longer be contributing to the publication once the last of his columns already to press had been printed. Gerber Knives and Mossy Oak severed all of their business dealings with Zumbo as well, as did a handful of other sponsors.
The speed with which calls for Zumbo's termination were acted on by his sponsors and employers (initial responses from sponsors occurred within a 36-hour period after he posted the first of two blog entries on the topic) were seen by many participants as evidence of the power of the Internet and of the "new media," including the "blogosphere," to influence and shape sociopolitical events. The New York Times published an editorial March 3rd 2007 criticizing the destruction of Zumbo's career as overkill and avoidance of healthy debate. [6] Two weeks after the blog appeared Mr. Zumbo was invited by NRA board member Ted Nugent to an "education" session at Nugent's Texas 'ranch.' Jim was lectured on the sporting uses of AR type rifles by Ted and two Texas outdoor writers. [7]
[edit] References
- ^ "Jim Zumbo's biography," www.jimzumbo.com.
- ^ "Assault Rifles for Hunters?" Hunting with Zumbo blog.
- ^ "''Terrorist' Remark Puts Outdoorsman's Career in Jeopardy", by Blaine Harden. The Washington Post, February 24, 2007, p. A03.
- ^ Remington 2007.
- ^ Zumbo, Outdoor Life 2007-02.
- ^ "Overkill." The New York Times, March 3, 2007
- ^ Junction Eagle, Outdoors Outback, by Kendall Hemphill, March 7, 07, see discussion page for partial transcript.
