Gazette/Blair Lee: "The NRA’s best friends"

Friday, March 16, 2007
The NRA’s best friends
My Maryland | Blair Lee

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f you think the National Rifle Association is tough on gun control zealots, just look what it does to its own.

Jim Zumbo, a 40-year NRA member and outdoors journalist, recently criticized hunters for using rapid-fire assault rifles on prairie dogs.

Zumbo wrote, ‘‘Excuse me, maybe I’m a traditionalist, but I see no place for these weapons among our hunting fraternity ... we don’t need to be lumped into the group of people who terrorize the world with them.”

What happened next is sickening. ‘‘The NRA whipped up a frenzy on the blogosphere where a rabid fringe element of the hunting community denounced Zumbo in the harshest terms, even attacking his patriotism,” says The American Hunters & Shooters Association, a gun enthusiasts group opposed to the NRA’s extremism.

Upon receiving 6,000 angry e-mails, Outdoor Life Magazine dropped Zumbo as its hunting editor. Likewise his TV show, ‘‘Jim Zumbo Outdoors,” was cancelled and the Remington Firearms Co., threatened with a boycott, terminated Zumbo’s sponsorship.

This guy is ruined for suggesting that mowing down prairie dogs is disgraceful.

A few years ago, Smith & Wesson got the same treatment.

In the wake of the Columbine school shootings, hysterical gun-control activists popularized product liability lawsuits against gun makers, holding them responsible for such murders. Unfair and illegal, but very expensive to defend. So Smith & Wesson decided to settle out of court, promising to install internal trigger locks and agreeing on background checks and tougher dealer regulations.

Calling Smith & Wesson ‘‘a traitor,” the NRA launched a nationwide campaign leading to a boycott bringing the company to its knees and forcing its eventual sale.

How does the NRA do it? Only 4 million of America’s 70 million gun owners belong, but the NRA’s ability to alter elections and legislation is legendary. No organization is better financed and followed by its members except, maybe, the Teamsters. Again, how does the NRA do it?

‘‘Fear,” explains Bob Ricker, who was once an NRA assistant general counsel and top gun industry lobbyist. ‘‘Fear, that’s what they market. Every month they’re out with a new newsletter saying ‘the sky is falling in, they’re out to take away your guns.’”

Raised in a culture where firearms are commonplace and often handed down from father to son, decent, law-abiding, gun-owning Americans are easy targets for the NRA. Ricker recalls seeing letters that read, ‘‘Here’s my last $15 until payday. I think it’s more important to send it to you [the NRA] to defend my rights than to buy food.”

But the NRA couldn’t do it without a foil, without the unwitting help of those self-righteous firearmsphobes who play right into the NRA’s hands. No wonder gun owners cling to the NRA after hearing the gun control crowd’s ignorant, irrational views.

For instance, last week a federal court ruled that Washington, D.C.’s law against firearm home-ownership is a Second Amendment violation. Both the Constitution and common sense dictate the verdict. Owning a gun for home protection is a no-brainer. But, to hear the gun-control crazies, you’d think it was the end of the world.

‘‘More guns mean only more violence” cried the Washington Post. ‘‘We’re not intimidated by the court’s virtual partnership with the NRA,” added Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton. And, of course, an ‘‘outraged” Mayor Adrian Fenty says he’ll appeal.

Fine, strike a blow for moral superiority in your blood-soaked city where gun control is an abject failure. And keep conducting those silly gun buy-back programs or, better yet, toy gun buy-back programs like Annapolis did. Or the ban on BB guns now under consideration in Baltimore because they ‘‘appear to be a real gun,” according to the bill’s sponsor. Or keep shutting down perfectly legitimate gun shows in order to send a ‘‘symbolic message” like the Montgomery County Council did.

And keep on suspending elementary school kids for playing cops and robbers at recess using their fingers as make-believe pistols (yes, it actually happened in Sayreville, N.J). And keep passing irrational gun control laws requiring non-existent safety devices and months of delay making gun purchasing extremely difficult and expensive.

But most of all, keep on blaming firearms for the crimes their operators commit. Not too long ago The Post editorialized, ‘‘The idea that the criminal law should be the first line of defense against gun violence is exactly backward. The first line, rather, should be a rigorous [gun] regulatory regime.” The Post then explained that cracking down on criminals ‘‘could fill prisons with people who, but for the wide availability of guns, would be far less dangerous in the first place.” Oh, I see, the guns made them do it.

Yes sir, keep pitching your insane gun-control extremism. But don’t be surprised when some terrified gun owner in middle America reacts by sending his last $15 to the NRA.

Blair Lee is CEO of the Lee Development Group in Silver Spring and a regular commentator for WBAL radio. His column appears Fridays in The Gazette.

His e-mail address is blair@leedg.com.

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No wonder gun owners cling to the NRA after hearing the gun control crowd’s ignorant, irrational views.

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Benlineberry said:

This guy doesn't seem like a left-wing nutjob, but I think he's wrong about Zumbo.

Zumbo was a "gun guy" that wrote as a "gun guy" for an outdoor magazine, but made some anti-gun comments. That's his case- period.

My image of Zumbo is of some crotchity old guy that thinks gun stocks should only be made of hand-waxed wood and only a wippersnapper would use one of those fancy-pants semiautomatics. Real guns are bolt action, and only hold three or four rounds, tops.

He strikes me as a gun dinosaur.

Whatever his belief, he should have known that if he bashed guns, it could be his job (as it should be.)

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RnRFreak said:

Hell, if there was an organized Maryland based gun rights lobbying group that fought for our rights, lobbied our legislators, and could move things to return Maryland to "The Land of Pleasant Living" and "The Free State", I'd be happy to pony up some money (little as I may be able to do) to keep up the good fight.

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Norton said:

marylandshallissue.org

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Dear. Mr. Lee:

I look forward to reading your column each week. This last week's column was no different, but it seems that you have been laboring under some misconceptions concerning the Zumbo affair, the AHSA, and even so-called "assault weapons."

The response to Mr. Zumbo's unfortunate comments came from the internet grassroots, not the NRA. Zumbo posted his blog late on Friday evening, when the NRA HQ was closed. The blog was read and quickly linked to a discussion at the AR15.com discussion board. AR15.com alone has around 20,000 registered members. From there, the word quickly spread among the internet gun owner community, and the rest is history.

People were primarily mad about Zumbo's disparagement of certain
firearms owners, not his opinion on the usefulness of certain firearms.
Zumbo got in trouble for his bigoted remark calling the owners of AR15's
"terrorists." This was a personal insult to innumerable veterans (such
as myself) who choose to own these rifles for target shooting, home
defense, and, in the extreme, if called for duty in the local militia --
as Governor Herbert O'Conor did in Maryland during World War Two when he formed a Reserve Militia that he called the "Maryland Minute Men." (radio address March 10, 1942, Archives of Maryland Online, Volume 409, Pages 616-620) (available at the Archives of Maryland Online: http://aomol.net/megafile/msa/speccol/sc2900/sc2908/000001/000409/html/a
m409--616.html). Governor O'Conor specifically asked these local
volunteers to bring their own firearms and ammunition since the war
effort caused a shortage among the state armory supplies.

So-called "assault weapons" function the same exact way as any other
semi-auto rifle, like the Ruger Mini-14 or the Remington 7400. I am
afraid it appears that you have been taken in by the anti-gun-owner
groups' misinformation concerning these firearms. I have attached a PDF brochure that debunks the myth that so-called "assault weapons" function differently from, or are more dangerous than, other semi-auto firearms.

Zumbo, a supposed hunting expert, said in his blog that day that he had
no idea how popular the AR15 was for prairie dog hunting. The reason the AR15 is so popular is that it is lightweight, accurate out to 500+
yards, ergonomic, rugged, and uses ammo originally designed for prairie
dog hunting. Hunting these prairie dogs involves taking long-distance
shots from 250-400 yards at the wily, football-sized animals that pose a
serious threat to the legs of cattle and horses due to their burrows.
There is no "mowing down" involved. Shots are taken one at a time, just
like with bolt-action rifles. Zumbo later educated himself on the issue
and retracted his ignorant statement.

The American Hunters and Shooters Association is a front group for the
gun control movement. Each of its board members is involved in extreme gun control initiatives or organizations. The obvious goal of the AHSA is to fragment the U.S. firearms community into hunters vs. everyone else, allowing the gun-ban crowd to win through a divide and conquer strategy. I point you to the following article detailing this
information:
http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/CamEdwards/2006/08/31/shoot_to_deceive

Thank you for your contributions to the Gazette.

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