being sure

I'd never even heard of Jim Zumbo until today. He lives in a log cabin near Yellowstone National Park, writes for outdoors magazines, gives lectures and is even the star of a cable-TV show about big-game hunting in the West. He used to be well loved by the hunting community, until quite recently when he criticized the use of military-style assault rifles by hunters, in articular, for hunters who use assault weapons to shoot prairie dogs.

Mr. Zumbo wrote the following on his blog:

"Excuse me, maybe I'm a traditionalist, but I see no place for these weapons among our hunting fraternity...As hunters, we don't need to be lumped into the group of people who terrorize the world with them... I'll go so far as to call them 'terrorist' rifles."

The reaction was swift. He's no longer friends with the big names in "gunmaking", and the NRA and the hunting community have turned their backs on him. His career, they say, is pretty much finished. He offered an apology and promised to go hunting with an assault weapon soon, but that didn't help. For the record, my father is a card carrying member of the NRA who believes that gun registration is a good thing and assault weapons are ridiculous. I'm sure there are others who agree with his views.

What if Zumbo hadn't said he was sorry? What if he said that he really really means it and let them all turn their backs for a bit and stomp their feet and hold their breathe and stop inviting him out for big game hunts? He'd still have his log cabin in the park.

We all worry about what people think. I'm one of the worst on the planet for this. I want to be loved and respected for my flaws, my strengths, the whole package. Still, sometimes, you have to say, "no, that's not right" or "this is what I know is right" or even, "I'm not sure I'm right, but this is what feels right, right now."

One time I refused to sign off on a project that I felt wasn't ready. I got some flack and I had to stay late and I had to work with the others and figure out a compromise. It frustrated the others, a lot. Still, it was my name and my signature and I couldn't sign off knowing about the brokenness. We've all had to stick up for decisions we made, and voice our thoughts on decisions we felt weren't right. Sometimes we have to be the one to say, "the emperor is buck naked." Not everyone will love us for this and some of them will hold us personally responsible for the emperor's nakedness just because we happened to point it out.

I'm grateful for Mr. Zumbo for showing me the importance of certainty and for not caring what the world thinks about every stupid little thing we do or say. I hope Mr. Zumbo retracts his apology and owns his words so the little West Texas prarie dogs can thank him too.