Lions and Tigers and Black Rifles, Oh My…
February 26th, 2007 by Syd
Funny, but I never thought about taking my black rifle hunting. Still, after all these years, my favorite deer hunting rifle is an old Winchester Model 94 30-30. My grandfather got it from a Texas Ranger as payment for a rebuild on the engine of his car. The old lever gun has taken more deer than you and me and everyone I know put together. Put one of those 150 grain soft points where it needs to go and the deer drops like a rock, no chasing. For varmints, I like the Savage Model 110 in .243 with a 9x scope. Some loads of the .243 can get nearly twice the muzzle velocity of the Remington .223, and kick out a larger bullet. It will take deer, coyotes, and most of the other things you find in my neck of the woods. I like to be a humane hunter. If I shoot an animal, I want something powerful enough relative to the animal that it puts them away immediately. I don’t like seeing them suffer. For that matter, I don’t do a lot of hunting these days because I don’t like seeing them suffer. Sorry. Call me a wuss, but it makes me a little queasy to watch them die slowly. It may be my stage in life, but I’ve reached the point at which I’d rather photograph a deer than shoot one. My son shot our most recent deer with the 30-30. It was a perfect shot and the deer didn’t take a single step, just fell over dead. That’s the way I like it.
The black rifle, now that’s a different matter entirely. The black rifles are fighting guns for the most part, and I think every citizen of this republic who can handle one ought to own one. I never have been overly enthusiastic about AR-15’s because I’ve always been worried about a gun that required a “bolt assist” to operate reliably. My choice for the black rifle is the Kalashnikov. The 7.62×39mm Kalashnikov has roughly the same ballistics as the 30-30, but it’s endowed with 30-round magazines. You’d have to call the accuracy mediocre at any kind of range, but inside of a hundred yards, the Kalashnikov is a fearsome thing to behold, and it just doesn’t jam or fail. It fires as long as it has ammunition. I have even had spent cases jammed in the action of my rifle and yet it continued to fire. I have tried everything in the world to make the Kalashnikov jam and I just can’t do it. It keeps on ticking.
Let’s not be squishy about this. The black rifles are meant for fighting. You can hunt with them, but they’re not hunting guns. They’re anti-personnel rifles. If you need to hold a mob of jerks at bay, the black rifles are second only to a SAW. They get Mr. Evildoer’s attention in a heartbeat. The black rifles are fighting rifles – spit it out, don’t equivocate. Do you think police officers carry them in their cars to zap the occasional prairie dog in their idle moments? Come on. The “sporting uses” argument doesn’t get much traction with me. Yes, you can target shoot, shoot 3-gun matches, take nifty courses with them and vaporize varmints with them, but so what?
This “sporting uses” discussion is a trap. If you let the gun grabbers define the debate in that way, we will lose. What’s the sporting purpose for a snubnose .38 revolver or a Kahr compact 9mm pistol? Answer: there aren’t any. They’re personal defense firearms, plain and simple. That’s the only justification they require. For that matter, what are the “sporting uses” for a Government Model M1911 or a Glock? Yeah, you can shoot tactical matches with them, bullseye with the 1911, but that isn’t what these guns were designed for. They were designed to enable soldiers, cops and others to gain the upper hand in a violent encounter. If “sporting uses” become the litmus test, we’ll lose most of our favorite guns.
It’s the black rifle that keeps me company at night, and if TSHTF in my town, it will be the black rifle on my shoulder, the M1911 on my hip, and the snubnose in my pocket. These are guns that work. They have proven time and again that they do the job for which they were intended. When I see the gun grabbers trying to take them away, I say, “No, I don’t think so. You don’t have a right to do that, and I have the right to own them. And yes, I’m willing to fight about it.”
Here’s a closely guarded secret: the Second Amendment is about military rifles – AK-47’s, M-16’s, FAL’s and M-14’s. It’s about fighting guns much more than it is about “sporting” guns. The Second Amendment is about those kinds of firearms that you use to drive tyrants and invaders from the field. It is the military rifles that are protected by the Second Amendment because they are the most effective small arms on the planet, and that’s what the authors of the Constitution were talking about. They weren’t talking about vaporizing varmints and shooting IPSC matches; they were talking about removing bad governments and defense against sudden invasion. And no, bad governments and their agents never like the 2nd. It makes them nervous and keeps them awake at night, and that is the way it should be.
“Let’s not be squishy about this. The black rifles are meant for fighting. You can hunt with them, but they’re not hunting guns. They’re anti-personnel rifles.”
So very true, and there’s nothing wrong with this. As ugly as it may be for some people to contemplate, there are (relatively rare) occasions in modern human existence when a decent, live-and-let-live population may be left with no other choice than to fight back against those who would oppress them, be they criminal or self-styled master.
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“This “sporting uses” discussion is a trap.”
Yup. Anyone swallows this bait is going to wake up one day with a pain in their posterior and gunless.
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“…bad governments and their agents never like the 2nd. It makes them nervous and keeps them awake at night, and that is the way it should be.”
As someone once said, all governments tend towards tyranny. I think it must be some character flaw in the type of person who seeks political office in the first place. Regardless, keeping “them” on their toes by letting them know that if they push too far we have the means to push back, just makes good sense.
DAL357
There you go telling the antigunners that the 2nd Amendment was meant for fightin’ guns, like the black rifles they try so hard to ban. Now that the truth is out, your gonna’ really scare the bejesses out of them!
Yeah, I’m such a trouble maker.
Let me see now . . . this thing has a trigger (firing mechanism), a barrel, a stock/grip and it fires projectiles . . . so it is called a “gun” which includes everything from a missile launcher to a BB gun, be it a pistol, revolver or rifle. It could be mounted on an airplane, tank, water vessel or inside your pocket.
The gun banners only focus on “civilian” weapons. But it is perfectly OK for these same gun banners to sanction weapons of mass destruction! Why? They are either stupid civilians or idealogs who want your freedom on a silver platter!
Americans - Beware of BOTH!
Syd,
What truth you speak. The Framers also knew of what you speak.
I have a Mini-30, which satisfies my 7.62X39 craving. My favorite “Black” rifle is a well worn and lovingly maintained G-3. I have a couple bolt actions for hunting…but don’t hunt much. (I know how and I will if I want to). I have almost as many shotguns as I want. But my HK is a joy to shoot and a comfort to have. I am modern enough to “know it won’t ever happen here”, and I am pragmatic enough to know that when it does I have “nearly enough” magazines and 7.62X51 ammo to make things difficult for the Ogres and Trolls usually attendant to “freedom loving liberal warriors”. I will fight for my country and for freedom again as I did a long time ago.
By the way, Thanks, Syd, for the platform you provide and for the inspiration your efforts are to many of us.
Hmmm. Truth will out, I guess.
BUT, has anyone ever informed the grabbers that, while they had “ugly” guns banned, it was still perfectly legal (after you jumped through the moderately expensive and time-consuming legal hoops - not hard here in Texas) to only the ORIGINAL version of the “ugly” gun in FULL AUTO????
In true liberal fashion, they only handled what affects the honest, law-abiding middle class. The liberals already had their bodyguards armed with them!
What a lot of people don’t seem to realize is that the “assult ban” is a smoke screen. Once these guns are banned, they will then say that the 2nd does not apply to hunting or sporting guns and confiscate them; thus disarming America.
- WAKE UP BEFORE IT’S TO LATE!!!!! -
What about Mr. Jim Zumbo and this -
February 28, 2007
Mr. Alan Gottlieb, Chairman
Citizens Committee for the
Right to Keep and Bear Arms
12500 N.E. Tenth Place
Bellevue, WA 98005
Dear Alan:
They say that hindsight is always 20-20. In my case, hindsight has been a hard teacher, like the father teaching the son a lesson about life in the wood shed.
I was wrong when I recently suggested that wildlife agencies should ban semiautomatic firearms I erroneously called “assault rifles” for hunting. I insulted legions of my fellow gun owners in the process by calling them “terrorist rifles.” I can never apologize enough for having worn blinders when I should have been wearing bifocals.
But unlike those who would destroy the Second Amendment right to own a firearm – any firearm – I have learned from my embarrassing mistake. My error should not be used, as it has been in recent days by our common enemies, in an effort to dangerously erode our right to keep and bear arms.
I would hope instead to use this spotlight to address my hunting fraternity, many of whom shared my erroneous position. I am a hunter and like many others I had the wrong picture in mind. I associated these firearms with military action, and saw not hunting as I have known it, not the killing of a varmint, but the elimination of the entire colony. Nothing could be further from the truth, but I know from whence it comes. This ridiculous image, formed in the blink of an eye, exerts and unconscious effect on all decisions that follow. In seeking to protect our hunting rights by guarding how we are seen in the public eye, I lost sight of the larger picture; missed the forest for the trees.
My own lack of experience was no excuse for ignoring the fact that millions of Americans – people who would share a campfire or the shelter of their tent, and who have hurt nobody – own, hunt with and competitively shoot or collect the kinds of firearms I so easily dismissed.
I recently took a “crash course” on these firearms with Ted Nugent, to learn more about them and to educate myself. In the process, I learned about the very real threat that faces all American gun owners.
I’ve studied up on legislation now in Congress that would renew and dangerously expand a ban on many types of firearms. The bill, HR 1022 sponsored by New York Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, is written so broadly that it would outlaw numerous firearms and accessories, including a folding stock for a Ruger rifle. I understand that some of the language could ultimately take away my timeworn and cherished hunting rifles and shotguns as well as those of all American hunters.
The extremist supporters of HR 1022 don’t want to stop criminals. They want to invent new ones out of people like you and me with the simple stroke of a pen. They will do anything they can to make it impossible for more and more American citizens to legally own any firearm.
Realizing that what I wrote catered to this insidious attack on fellow gun owners has, one might say, “awakened a sleeping giant within me, and filled him with a terrible resolve.”
I made a mistake. But those who would use my remarks to further their despicable political agenda have made a bigger one. I hope to become their worst nightmare. I admit I was wrong. They insist they are right.
Enclosed, you will find a check that is intended to be used to fight and defeat HR 1022. I also hope it inspires other gun owners to “do as I do, not as I say.”
I’m putting my money where my mouth should have been, and where my heart and soul have always been. I know the Second Amendment isn’t about hunting and never has been. My blunder was in thinking that by working to protect precious hunting rights I was doing enough. I promise it will never happen again.
I don’t know what lies over the horizon for me. I am not ready for the rocking chair.
I’m going to devote every ounce of my energy to this battle. I will remind my fellow hunters that we are first, gun owners. Whether we like it or not, our former apathy and prejudices may place that which we love, hunting, in jeopardy. I will educate fellow outdoorsmen who mistakenly think like I talked, even if I have to visit every hunting camp and climb into every duck blind and deer stand in this country to get it done. I was wrong, and I’m going to make it right.
Sincerely,
Jim Zumbo
The damage that this guy has done is beyond imagination and here he is backpaddling.
Bill G.
I specifically wrote this article without a reference to the unfortunate Mr. Zumbo. Of course, that incident was in my mind and it was a part of the purpose for article. The Zumbo discussion has gotten so hysterical, and so much has already been done on it, that I didn’t see the need to pen another “pile on Jim” piece. He made a terrible mistake in using the “terrorist” language. Words are a lot like bullets: once you launch them, they’re hard to call back. Just ask John Kerry. I wanted to talk about the way we discuss our firearms and the political liability of allowing “sporting uses” and hunting to become the justification for owning firearms.
I followed the Zumbo affair as it unfolded. I read the initial post, the angry comments, the first apology, and the angry comments before Outdoor Life whacked the blog. I read the second apology on Nugent’s forum. Up to and including that point, Zumbo was still talking about taking an AR-15 deer hunting, and my conclusion was that he was completely tone deaf on Second Amendment issues and still didn’t “get it.” These later statements such as the one you posted here show some growth and learning, and only time will tell if the community can forgive and rehabilitate Zumbo. The timing of his initial post was particularly bad, given that Carolyn McCarthy had just re-introduced the AWB in the House. A lot of damage was done. It had the scent of a conspiracy.
The response of the community and the industry was particularly ferocious. Perhaps a more measured response was not possible given the circumstances, but the anti-gun media immediately cast it in terms of “NRA zealots destroy dissident sports writer.” While this is false, perceptions are often more important than realities in the political sphere, and the bad press we received was as damaging as the original defection.
In retrospect, I wish that our response to Mr. Zumbo could have been more self-conscious in the political sense.
As to the question of Zumbo’s forgiveness and rehabilitation, I really don’t care if he ever works again. He called me and a lot of my friends “terrorists” for no reason. He provided our adversaries with a lot of ammunition. He touched off a firestorm that did not serve us well for the upcoming battles we will face in the congress. If Nuge wants to play “Dr. Phil” with Zumbo, that’s fine with me, but I won’t be there holding the crying towel.
It does not matter what a firearm “looks like.” It is the manner in which it functions that matters. The plastic stocks, folding stocks, flash hiders, big magazines, gadget rails, optics, etc., etc. are just for show. All that stuff is just cosmetic and effects HOW the arm functions not a whit.
The classic example of this is former congress-critter Bob Barr during the “assault weapons” arguments in congress years ago. He took a classic Ruger 10/22 with factory furniture, which all of the anti-gun folks agreed, was not an assault weapon. He removed the factory furniture and replaced it with a folding stock and high-cap magazine and viola; all agreed it was now an assault weapon.
The Second Amendment does not contain a “sporting purpose” clause.
A good example of how useful Zumbo has been to our adversaries is this screed by Paul Helmke on the Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-helmke/terrorist-rifles_b_42764.html
Zumbo is going to have to send a lot of letters to Alan Gottlieb before I get over this.