…as long as I approve of how you use it.

Until today, I’d never heard of Jim Zumbo. According to Wikipedia, he is “a firearms and hunting commentator and writer, and former Hunting Editor for Outdoor Life magazine. He hosted the program Jim Zumbo Outdoors on The Outdoor Channel and regularly wrote columns, books and blogs on the topic since 1962, joining Outdoor Life magazine full-time in 1978. Cabelas, Remington, Gerber Knives and many other hunting-related organizations sponsored Zumbo’s program or reprinted his words.”

A little more than a week ago, Zumbo wrote a post on his blog titled “Assault Weapons for Hunters?“, in which he said he felt that “assault rifles” (which he also called “terrorist rifles”) had no place in hunting. He followed that with the assertion that they should be banned. Gun-rights bloggers were, to say the least, upset about this. Kevin at The Smallest Minority has written several posts about it (Elmer Fudds: Our Own Worst Enemies, That Didn’t Take Long…, The Wedge Goes In Deeper, …).

Zumbo has since apologized, saying he didn’t realize how many people hunted with these guns. The apology, in many ways, indicates that Zumbo doesn’t really understand why his comments generated the firestorm that they did.

There is a tendency among some people to want to ban anything they don’t approve of. There are a huge number of entirely well-intentioned people who would make it illegal to use racial slurs, or to participate in “hate speech”. In many cases, these people would also say they support the right to free speech. What they mean is, “I support the right to free speech, provided I like what you say.”

That is essentially what Jim Zumbo has said here. “I support the right to bear arms, provided you use the guns I like, and you use them in ways I approve.” By framing his apology around the fact that he didn’t know how many hunters used these guns, he’s still saying that he supports your right to bear arms — as long as you use them to hunt.

Given that Zumbo is a fairly high profile gun owner, and that gun rights activists are already portrayed as “gun nuts”, it’s not at all surprising that those who actively support gun rights are up at arms (pardon the pun) about this.