UMass Amherst – a.k.a. Zoo Mass – has over 200 Registered Student Organizations,. But the development of the UMass Gun Club sparked considerable debate.  Nick Piccirilli’s documentary charts the birth of the club, featuring interviews with students, professors, and faculty members. And some shooting.

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44 COMMENTS

  2. I went to an extremely liberal college (like, super duper liberal) and tried to start a gun club, problem was 2 other groups of students tried at the same time. The only feedback we got from the administration was to “sort it out for ourselves”, for which club would be the one to claim the prize.

    There can only be one, after all.

      • Ha! It was slightly more convoluted than that, but essentially you nailed it! We all wanted to be the official pioneers.

        • For some reason, I’m reminded of a line from some western 40 or so years ago, with either Jim Brown or OJ Simpson and either Raquel Welch or Julie Newmar, where one of the man’s lines was, “Why is it that whenever three or more Mexicans get together one of them appoints himself Generalissimo?”

          Oh! 100 Rifles!

  4. UMASS gun club and turn out looked good, hope it works
    The dark haired and glasses professor ? stated if the Jews had guns that would not have made a difference when Hitler was in power
    Grow a pair
    Not the size of the dog in the fight, it is the fight in the dog
    Israel has been holding their own for awhile

    • You got that right. That “professor” obviously is not a professor of history or needs to have his degree revoked. The Warsaw ghetto uprising was the perfect example of anything of why an armed populace is great. That uprising tied down several Wehrmacht divisions from getting to the front, and killed thousands of German soldiers. They only failed because Stalin didn’t want to have to deal with them, so he stalled his steam roller on purpose. Now imagine if the Warsaw ghetto uprising had occurred all over Germany and Poland, in hundreds of areas. Half the German military would’ve been too busy fighting insurgency to mount any effective resistance against any allied force.

  6. Ive been trying to get a shooting club started at Drexel but the administration shot it down thus far

    • Good luck with that, Philly is its own little world away from the rest of PA, and might as well be a part of NJ; I mean, its mayor is the anti-gun Michael Nutter, should tell you all you need to know.

    • I am a graduate student at Drexel and when I first enrolled I looked for a gun club as well. I looked through the entire student organization list and discovered that none existed. I personally did not have time to start one (I was even debating if I had time to join one but I mean really, we all know we would make time) but I wondered if any one here had tried. Good to know there’s at least one other Drexel student who shares that interest.

      • You guys should probably look into becoming members of Langhorne Rod and Gun Club or New Holland Rifle and Pistol Club, both about an hour outside of Philly. Start bringing interested friends to the range and hopefully if you get enough people interested you can ask Drexel again and get that club rolling.

  7. Im about half way though. Its alright I guess.

    People say and think different stuff… yeah.

  8. Glad to see an M1 Garand there, probably about the only effective semi auto you can own in MA I’m guessing?

    • No sir, we can have quite a few effective semi-autos of the magazine fed variety, but they’re mostly limited to 10rds unless you have pre-ban mags.

      • I had three converted Saigas when I was in MA along with multiple pre ban 30 round magazines. It was slightly neutered due to the laws. One of those Saigas was a Saiga 12 I got for a great deal in West Springfield. The laws may suck, but you can still get good stuff there.

  9. I am surprised to see any support whatsoever for the Second Amendment at U of M. I am encouraged.

  11. As one of the co-founders of the club we have a lot of student and even some faculty support. If more students would put in the time the school even agreed to look at bringing back collegiate level shooting sports.

    Western MA, though very liberal, is much more rural minded than the urban areas. Tons of lifted trucks, hunting, quads, shooting ranges, etc.

    While guns are much less a part of the culture in MA, gun owners here are very impassioned as we need to be to keep ourselves from getting railroaded. I’ve spoken out at statehouse hearings and I will continue to do so in the future, as well as to work to mobilize others.

    Mike

    • Best of luck mobilizing. I am thoroughly confused that the populations of some states seem to think that their society will be better if they surrender their rights to the state. We’ll see how it goes for MA in the next legislative session.

  13. Great video. I was floored to see a successful gun club at U Mass. A university in such a gun restrictive state sounds like a hippie commune to me. This documentary made some very good observations from both sides of the great gun debate. I felt they hit the nail on the head toward the end when one student talked about how both sides want opposite outcomes, and it will be a long difficult process to come to a compromise. I just want to own a normal looking AR (not the NY franken-AR) and have 30 round mags so I’m not reloading all day at the range. Police and military can have them, why can’t I?

    This sort of makes me want to go back to college just to join/start a gun club.

    • “it will be a long difficult process to come to a compromise.”

      It had better be an infinitely long time, because any compromise will eventually lead to total confiscation. There has never ever been any other outcome, and it’s unrealistic to believe that there ever will..

      Shall Not Be Infringed means Shall Not Be Infringed.

  14. That was probably the best gun debate I’ve ever watched. Wasn’t sure if I was going to watch the whole thing, but I ended up doing just that. Highly recommend.

  15. Years ago I worked for a little company called Motorola in Phoenix AZ. Not always the greatest place for work but sometimes even a blind squirrel finds a nut. Most large companies sponsor or encourage clubs they were no different only problem was we were not allowed firearms on campus which created problems with some match shooting since it happened just after work. One perk of the club was it gained us access at the Nat’l Guard range for rifle, pistol plus trap and skeet. Technically we had 3 clubs since the trap/skeet folks were a separate breed and the long gun versus pistol/shotgun folks had their own sub-group.
    Conversations with management finally allowed us to transport on campus if the weapons were cased and locked in the trunk. We were also allowed to promote and talk about the gun club like every other organization at work. The gay and liberal organizations’ could not protest or complain because they were allowed equal access. We actually had several of the “alternative lifestyle” people in the club no problems or issues just some common ground.

    • The National Guard Range in Scottsdale? If so, they’ve recently been making that a pain in the butt for even Military units to have ranges there. I heard some residents were complaining about the noise.

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