High Mtn Seasonings has now dumped him also. http://www.himtnjerky.com/ If you haven't emailed or called the rest of the folks sponsoring Zumbo, please do so today.
Mossy Oak dumped him today also: 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.
I'm still stunned that we've gotten results so quickly and decisively. I'm surprised that we got any results at all! I sent the Outdoors Channel an email requesting that his show be cancelled. It will be interesting to see how long any action takes, and what it is. I did remember to mention that I'd be contacting their sponsors and advertisers that I'll boycott their products if Dumbo.. uh Zumbo is supported by them. jim
Gerber knives seems to feel his apology is enough. That's fine.....I won't be buying anymore of them for Christmas and graduation presents. Following Jim Zumbo’s recent comments, those of us at Gerber would like to clarify that we respect the opinion of our sponsored hunters and users however, we do not necessarily agree with all their opinions, nor do we endorse their public statements. Our presence and development in the tactical and hunting markets is proof-positive we are committed to supporting these industries and all those involved. Since Jim’s blog was published he has issued this apology: http://outdoorlife.blogs.com/zumbo/2...wrong_big.html. Thanks for supporting our rights and for supporting Gerber Legendary Blades. Jason Kintzler Senior Communications Manager
Hopefully Gerber can be convinced to change their opinion, if not I won't be buying from them anymore. Too bad because their annual public warehouse sale has pretty good deals, oh well Kershaw isn't far away from Gerber.
I really don't think we need to sow the ground with salt here fellows. We've got the guy fired from his job and all of his sponsors have are disassociating themselves from his opinions. Gerber is taking a neutral position and that is their right to do. They said they did not endorse his opinions or offer any comment about them. That's fair enough.
I'd disagree......this shitstorm needs to swirl big enough so that any other closet liberals out there making a living off the gun toting public will think twice before they spout off the crap Zumbo did. As for him being fired, do you have a link to that info? All I see on the Outdoor Life site is they have "discontinued his blog for the time being " (my emphasis)......which I don't take as fired, but that he is just not writing a blog now....as in "we are just waiting on this to blow over".
I am not surprised at all. The sponsors are motivated by dollars and cents, and will respond accordingly. And the faster because that is all the motivation they have in the short term. If only politicians were motivated the same way (well, I guess some are by pockets deeper than ours) but they respond to votes. It is a damn shame that the interval between elections allows the sheeple to have short memories. We monkeys and many others jumped Jimbo, and rightly so. Now we need to muster the same reaction to that stupid bill to re-enact the AWB.
Back to Articles Tipping Point -- Suicide on the Web Something fascinating just happened. I suspect it will be studied by those who do such things, but at this point, it is clear that last weekend we saw a sea change in the way gun owners react to threats. If you heard Gun Talk last Sunday, Feb. 18, you heard Jim Zumbo, longtime hunting writer for Outdoor Life, addressing a blog (online comment piece) he wrote. If you didn't hear it, you can download the archive file here: http://guntalk.libsyn.com. It's the February 18 show, "part C." Jim basically committed career suicide. In short, he wrote in his blog on the Outdoor Life web site that he had just learned (while on a hunt) that some people use AR-15 rifles for hunting. He offered his thought that this was a bad image for hunters. Okay, that's his opinion. But, he went even further, calling for game departments to ban the use of these rifles for hunting. After crossing the line and calling for a banning of those guns for hunting, he firmly planted his foot on a land mine and called AR-15s "terrorist rifles." The explosion from that misstep was heard throughout the firearms industry. You see, the AR-15 is one of the most popular firearm platforms going. I own three of them and love to shoot them. I don't consider myself a terrorist, and neither do the millions of others who own them and shoot them for recreation, or who own them for personal defense. On "Personal Defense TV" we have been showing that the thinking among security trainers has moved away from the shotgun as the ideal home defense gun, and in many quarters, it now favors the AR-15 or some other carbine (short rifle). Zumbo had made a mistake from which there was no recovery. He wrote his blog while on a hunting trip. Just before going on the air, I checked the internet forums (fora?) and found a firestorm. People were livid, and with good reason. Some of the comments were clearly over the top, but most of them conveyed the rage that comes from a feeling of being betrayed by someone you thought of as one of your own. We were only 30 minutes away from going on the air for a live, three-hour broadcast, so I called Zumbo's home. He was still enroute home from his hunting trip and knew nothing about the controversy he had created. I left word that if he wanted to come on the show to make a statement, he could call in. During the last hour of the show, he decided to go onto Gun Talk, live. He had just posted an apology on the Outdoor Life web site. His explanation was that he just didn't know anything about these rifles, and had no idea that people actually hunted with them. I felt for Jim, but I also knew that in calling for the banning (even if only for hunting) of any gun was incredible, but calling them rifles used by terrorists was, quite simply, unconscionable. Having just read some of the comments on a few of the online groups where people were posting Zumbo's home address and personal information, calling for . . . well, it was hard to know what they were calling for . . . I made a comment about our willingness to eat our own. Some of that was based on hearing gunnies say that they won't buy Ruger firearms because of something Bill Ruger said two decades ago. Hey, the man is dead and buried. Still, in this case, I was wrong. That's not what was going on here, as I discovered when I got off the air. To listeners who took offense, I do apologize. The outrage by gun owners is completely understandable. To put it in context, Zumbo's comments came only days after we saw the introduction of a bill in Congress to bring back the Clinton Gun Ban (the so-called "assault weapons" ban). The final nail in the coffin was when-- Sunday afternoon -- the Brady Campaign (the leading group working to restrict gun rights) posted Zumbo's comments to several places on the net, saying, in effect, "See, even the top hunting writer says these rifles have no legitimate use." At that point, it was all over for Jim Zumbo. Thousands upon thousands of emails were directed to Remington and all the sponsors of Zumbo's television show on The Outdoor Channel. The emails were all pretty much the same -- dump Zumbo or I'll never buy any of your products. Remington first posted a message saying it was severing all ties with Zumbo. On Monday, the company said it was ending its sponsorship of him. Other companies followed, and it continues. Outdoor Life removed Zumbo's blog, and his apology. Each had generated thousands of comments -- almost all of them hugely negative. We can take away from this experience several observations. The first is that this attitude of "just let them take those ugly, black guns" is common among hunters and competitive shooters. Anyone with that attitude is a fool. Sit down with a hunter from England or Australia, hear him tell the story of what happened there, and watch the tears well up in his eyes when he says they never thought the government would take away their hunting guns. To gun banners, there is no such thing as a good gun. They want them all. When Tom Diaz, of the Violence Policy Center, was on Gun Talk, I forced him to admit that he would like to ban all guns. What about the police, I asked. Once we get all the other guns, he said, the police won't need their guns, either. A ban on black guns, or "Saturday Night Specials," or 50-caliber rifles, is a ban on all our guns. There is no such thing as a bad gun or a good gun. We can't throw babies off the back of the sled, thinking it will keep the wolves away from us. The next thing we learn from this is that the world has just changed. This entire episode took place inside of 36 hours, on a weekend -- a three-day weekend for President's Day. It happened...and this is important...entirely on the internet. The original posting was on the net, the reaction was on the net, the emails demanding that companies break off with Zumbo were on the net, and the reactions from the companies were all on their web sites. This was completely an internet event. It was a nuclear explosion, with tens of thousands of messages posted, spanning all the firearms-related web sites. How often over the last 30 years, as I fought for gun rights, traveled to Washington, DC, wrote about gun rights, spoke at the Gun Rights Policy Conference, and for the last 14 years, broadcasted about gun rights on the radio, have I lamented the inability to get gun owners motivated to protect their own rights? This powerful example shows that it can be done. Now, the real question is whether we can generate that kind of response when we need to defeat a gun ban. Can we melt down mail servers of elected representatives the way gun owners hammered the servers at various companies? I don't know. What I do know is that we are facing more calls for gun bans and restrictions on our gun rights over the next few years than we have seen in the last 40 years. Someone on the side of gun rights needs to develop a way to replicate this . . . this "Zumbo Effect" . . . to beat back the assault which has already started. We must find a way to "Zumbo" our attackers in Congress, in the state houses, and wherever they assault our rights. Tom Gresham
