There  has been some argument in the comments over at Sebastian’s about the use of the term “Fudd.” As I stated in a previous post, I think using the term is counterproductive, at best. This does not mean, as some have suggested, that I give the hunters, or any other gun owners, who do not support our rights a pass. I just think that the name calling is particularly helpful, especially with something so easily misunderstood or twisted as “Fudd.”

One of the glaring problems with using “Fudd” is that there is nothing to indicate that the original is anything but a caricatured dumb hunter. He isn’t working to ban EBRs, or any of the other things that people use to define a “Fudd.” This makes it hard to seperate the meaning people are trying to convey (an anti-rights, or rights ambivilent hunter) with the one that comes to most people’s minds (a dumb hunter.) For something like that to work, it needs it’s own meaning, not something different that a lot of people will attach to it without much thought. For instance, AHSAhole, as suggested by BadIdeaGuy, does not have a seperate meaning, and is far enough away from anything else that you can’t really draw your own conclusions about it, unless you are very familiar with the issue.

In one of his comments, Sebastian compares the “there are hunters, and then there are Fudds” to “There are black people, and then there are n****ers.” Several other commenters said that the comparison went too far, but I think it is accurate. While it does risk raising a variant of Godwin’s law, and there is certainly a lot more venom associated with “the n word” that really can’t be compared to calling someone a “fudd,” I don’t think that is what Sebastian’s comment was doing. Both of the words have a historical useage and meaning, one a slur against a race, and one a slur against hunters. Trying to attach a meaning appart from that historical meaning to either of them is difficult and pointless, and will confuse a lot of people along the way. And blaming other people because they attach the historical meaning, and not yours, to the word is asinine, unless maybe you attach a carefull definition every time you use it. And at that point why use the slur at all?

While I agree that we need to correct people that are opposing our rights, whether they be hunters, misguided gun owners, or those outside the shooting community entirely, I don’t think that calling them “Fudds,” and further ailienating them is going to help.