Friday, August 14, 2009

Broken Minds

I was reading through some of the hunting forums this morning and have come to a startling conclusion. We have among us, and by us I mean sportsman, hunters and shooters, those who do not understand what the anti-hunting and anti-gun movement is doing.

In one forum a member asked a simple question, "Who on the forum is an NRA member?". What ensued was nothing less than startling. Out of many who proudly claimed NRA membership a couple people attacked the NRA as being on the far right extreme fringe. Now, I understand these could have beeen anti's who joined just to attack, but they have other posts on the forum talking about their hunts. The conversation that came about went right back to the Jim Zumbo incident. Do you remember when Jim Zumbo said on his show that the black rifles has no purpose in sporting use and called them a "terrorist weapon"? Not long after this happened, I sat front row and listened to Ted Nugent talk about gun ownership and freedom. (If you ever get the chance, he is a powerful speaker.) Ted told the story of calling Jim Zumbo and talked to him about it. The entire community of competition shooters were ready to hang Zumbo. Ted Nugent told us how he "fixed" Jim by explaining that if we allow the anti's to define firearms by an operating characteristic, look, range, accuracy, or any other trait, they would define, categorize and ban them all. After the conversation Ted invited Zumbo to come to his ranch and go on a hunt with a black rifle. Zumbo accepted and after the hunt decided black rifles are usable for sporting purposes among other things and told Ted he enjoyed the hunt with it.

That is the simple and quick just of the events.

We still have people with a mindset that conforms to the anti's propaganda in our ranks. I don't want to kick them out, I want to help them understand. If the anti's can define and outlaw one class of firearm, they will define and outlaw all of them.