Monday, February 19, 2007

It's Official

It's official. Remington has canned Jim Zumbo. On a pretty Sunday in February, Mr. Zumbo made some dumb statements in his blog and ignited a firestorm of commentary that is going to cost him his job. The Remington website says:
Remington is in the process of severing our sponsorships with Mr. Zumbo. A formal announcement will be released by noon today.
I would bet that the rest of Mr. Zumbos sponsors follow suit.

What is so sad about this kerfluffle is that Mr. Zumbo was a respected gun writer, carried in the leading gun magazines. He was able to hunt all over the world and enjoy the sponsorship of the leading companies. He didn't keep himself current on the state of the shooting world and forgot that his opinions are worth only as much as the people who read him think those opinions are worth. His opinions became worthless literally overnight.



The weight of the online shooting community came out to revile his comments and report those same comments to his main sponsors, Remington and Outdoor Life, both leading producers in the industry. The power of the online community just revealed itself to the mainstream outdoor sports producers. It's a victory for the internet, but it feels like a hollow victory. We were betrayed by one of our own.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This showed Mr Zumbo's arrogance more than it did his ignorance. I hope his house and vehicles are paid for because he's in need of a new source of income. No outdoor magazine will ever print another one of his articles.

Rivrdog said...

...and what is the source of the accompanying cartoon? I've not heard the word "Arfcommers" before. I know that AR stands for Assault Rifle, and "commers" is short for "dot-commers" or bloggers, but what is the "F" in the middle for?

I think the artist who drew the cartoon has just insulted us.

Pawpaw said...

Naw, dawg, the cartoon was submitted as part of a photoshop contest at the AR15.com forum.

I may be mistaken, but "Arfcommer" is a sobriquet that they've adopted over at that forum.