Author Topic: Outdoor Writer Pat Wray Writes Letter To Brady Campaign  (Read 1414 times)

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Outdoor Writer Pat Wray Writes Letter To Brady Campaign
« on: April 09, 2007, 08:50:41 AM »
A letter to the Brady Campaign

By Pat Wray
For the Gazette-Times

Commentary

Paul Helmke

President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence

 
Dear Paul:

Congratulations on your position as President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. I want you to know I fully support the concept of reduced gun violence. I believe all legal gun owners feel the same.

I noticed in your recent blog on the Brady Campaign Web site (http://www.bradycampaign.org/blog/2007/03/06/) that you referenced one of my Corvallis Gazette-Times columns. In it I said some unflattering things about the gun owners who had conducted an internet attack on Jim Zumbo, resulting in the disintegration of his career as an outdoor communicator. Thanks for the mention, I guess. You were right — I did refer to them as a group of vengeful, vindictive, vitriolic jackals ... and I meant every word. And you were also right that the Zumbo event signaled a serious schism in the gun owner ranks; it exposed a fault line that few of us even recognized, much less understood.

But there were some things about the situation you missed as well, or chose to ignore. The first is this: the schism you exploited is not nearly as wide or as permanent as you seem to hope. Most of us hunters never agreed with Zumbo’s assessment of military knockoffs as assault or terrorist rifles. We don’t care if some folks want to carry military look-alikes to go hunting. We only care that the rifle is chambered for an appropriate caliber so it can kill the animal for which it is intended quickly and humanely.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can use my words to divide gun owners from hunters. What happened was a family squabble and like many squabbles, it has helped clear the air between us. Zumbo is already on his way back and the community of gun owners will come out of this a lot stronger for the experience.

This might be a good time to clear the air as well about the term “military assault rifle,” a term you use carelessly at best. The important civilian distinction lies not in such esoteric terminology, but in how fast and how much the weapon shoots, which brings us to the only important determination. Is the weapon semi-automatic? That is, does it shoot once each time the trigger is pulled? Or is it fully automatic, meaning that it continues to fire on one trigger pull until the trigger is released or the ammunition is expended?

Essentially all modern military assault rifles are fully automatic.
more... http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2007/04/08/sports/venture/1vent01_wray.txt
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