No quarter for gun-rights Quislings
Since I couldn't say it better myself:
On Friday evening, a gunwriter who was apparently tired of his 42-year career put his word processor in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
The gun writer was Jim Zumbo of Outdoor Life, and the bullet was this.
The first link summarizes what happened quite nicely. And for those of you who might be inclined to see this as a kind of Internet lynch mob, Beck nails, quite precisely, why it had to happen:
This is justice in action. These are not times for craven, flubber-spined, and supine throat-displays to tyranny by someone with the firearms authority that Zumbo carried until he spoke his mind on the matter of "assault weapons". If his sense of fashion does not permit him to carry an AR-15 in the woods, then he should not do so, but he has no right to call for their prohibition. "Opinion" be damned. When an "opinion" demands the suppression of other peoples' rights, then it is to be completely condemned as wrong for its disconnect from the facts of reality. It is a fact that the essence by which to define a "terrorist" is not the weapon that he uses, but the use to which he puts a weapon. I am fully aware that, in this day and age, a statement like that arrives with such blinding acuity that untold millions of utterly stupid people will simply not be able to see it. However, there are enough remaining who can to dispose of a punk like Zumbo by popular market demand, and that's good enough for today.
Somebody working in that field for 42 years, and seeing the politics, would not have said what Zumbo said unless he believed it. And it is not just "expressing an opinion"; it's giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Zumbo has been tried for treason to the cause of 2nd Amendment rights. He still has his 1st Amendment rights, to say what he believes in any forum that will have him, to any audience that will listen. Unfortunately, that's no longer the gunnie community. And anyone out there who actually thinks this is a free-speech issue had better not start with me.
UPDATE: check out this from Tom Gresham, who just may fall heir to the mantle of Col. Jeff.
Comments
Posted by: jeffrey smith
Posted on: February 21, 2007 10:26 PM
I read this on Claire's blog.
The clamor seems a bit excessive.
You know my feelings on guns--but the real reason they're not on my list of priorities is that they are vastly over rated in the struggle for freedom. It's the flow of information that's important--the ability to find it and pass it on to others. If you don't know who to aim your gun at, what's the point?
In the struggle against the armies of the Endarkment, the value of firearms is negligible. They've got better and will use it--as proved by Waco, Mrs. Johnston, etc. etc. It's the flow of information, that keeps facts alive so people realize there is an Endarkment coming on, that's the only hope to stop the Endarkment in its tracks. And if the last freedom is the freedom to kill yourself rather than be a slave, I know of a few ways to do that without guns.
But in a way, I feel sorry for the zhlob, even though he did commit the sin agains the Holy Ghost. When you're out deer hunting, who needs an AK 47?
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: February 22, 2007 09:55 AM
Yeah, yeah, I know you're a Democrat in recovery. :-)
If everyone had the right ideas, guns would be unnecessary. But if that were the case, we never would have come to the present state. I think that a lot of people have been informing TPTB that their behavior is unacceptable. But marshalling sufficient force does wonders for their hearing acuity. Armed resistance can be considered as a form of propaganda-by-deed. However, propaganda-by-deed has a spotty (at best) record of effectiveness. For the individualist, there's an inherent contradiction in killing somebody, no matter how richly they may appear to deserve it: if every individual is valuable, then any killing destroys value. And even the most detestable jackboot has somebody who loves him. In a self-defence situation, the life of somebody who will not initiate force against others is certainly more valuable that that of somebody who will initiate force. But there will always be a loss. If you had a gun in the Reichskanzlerei in 1933, you'd probably decide that losing the Autobahn and the Volkswagen was worth it to save umpteen million lives. Then there's the issue of intent. It's arguable that the typical jackboot no more intends to tyrannize than the voter who indirectly put him there. But both do in fact tyrannize, because they don't think through the ethics of what they're doing. If you make jackboots responsible. why not voters? And if voters, we're screwed because "we have met the enemy and they is us."
As to whether a deer hunter "needs" an AK47 (which is not in its civilian guise an "assault weapon" as Zumbo knows full well), I guess it depends on where you are and the distance of the shot. If we make public policy decisions on what we think people "need", or rather "don't need", then there's no depths we can't sink to, because besides air, food, water and shelter, there's very little that humans "need". In Ohio, it isn't legal to shoot deer with anything besides shotgun slugs; does this mean that nobody in Ohio "needs" an AK47? Hmmm?