'Everyone I hike with carries a gun' !!!

[Onestepmore]

I just read this discussion on Backpacker

http://www.backpacker.com/gear/ask_kris ... wsletter03

I am so glad I live, and bushwalk, in Australia

[Hallu]

To be precise, it's a recent law (2010) that allowed visitors in US national parks (and state parks etc...) to carry firearms (not in federal buildings such as visitor centers though), if permitted by local and state laws. Before this, you could only carry firearms in most Alaskan parks and in parks where hunting is permitted (similar to Australia). At first in 2010 you needed a permit valid in the state the park is in. But in 2011, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that makes a firearm-carry permit in one state valid in every other state.

People don't realize it, but Obama is the worst president the US ever had regarding gun control (if you're anti-gun of course, as probably most of us are on this forum). He basically sat on his *&%$#! and did nothing on the issue (just a smoke screen which failed when another school massacre occurred), to keep being popular and re-elected. http://newwest.net/topic/article/brady_ ... e/C41/L41/

“He (President Obama) not only failed to voice any support for–much less sign–any new gun laws to close dangerous loopholes, but has actually signed repeals of more federal gun polices than President George W. Bush did in both of his terms.”

And the best part:

Another favorite part of this report covers the national park gun amendment to the so-called MasterBlaster Bill, another issue I’ve written about frequently. According to the Brady report authors, Obama opposed the national park gun rule during the campaign, but once elected, he reversed his position and had his justice department “mount a vigorous defense” of the rule’

When the Brady Campaign won an injunction against implementation of the national park gun rule, pro-gunners in Congress attached it in the form of an amendment to a credit card reform bill. The report gives a blow-by-blow of this process, pointing out that President Obama could have passed credit card reform without the amendment, but refused to do it. Even more frustrating to the report’s authors, “The White House did not voice any opposition to this guns in parks amendment.”

Now why does he do all this crap ? Well he basically makes deal with republicans in order to pass other bills that are more important in his eyes, such as education bills. But if you arm every nut job in the country, and let your children get butchered, having better teachers and schoolbooks doesn't amount to much.

Now to go back to National Parks, that may be right now the only thing better in Aussie NPs. But on every other levels, Australia fails dramatically compared to the US : conservation, law enforcement, infrastructures, promotion, accommodation, the status of a national park and the antiquities act etc... American parks are part of their national pride, their culture. You can't just modify their boundaries at will, or place a mine in the middle of it, without razing considerable uproar, unlike Australia. And yet they only have 50 NPs, against our 500. But that means they're much better funded, bigger, more accessible.

[Moondog55]

Well personally bears scare the crap out of me, and if I was walking in a Park in the USA where there were bears I would be loaded to the gunnels with high powered, large caliber firearms, for the same reason in Canada I would be packing a pump action shotgun

[Hallu]

How about Eastern Europe and the Carpathians then, they're full of brown bears you know. What would you do ? You can't have firearms in Slovakia for example. You should also read this : http://web.archive.org/web/201101011816 ... Itemid=123 Pepper spray trumps your shotgun, big time. I also would rather carry a pepper spray than a heavy shot gun on a long hike...

[Moondog55]

Obviously there will always be this discussion and difference of opinion between those who shoot and those who do not. But I would [ personally] prefer a shotgun with a range of 30 meters to a can of spray with a range of 5.
I'm not afraid of firearms or the people who use and carry them, I am afraid of human eating carnivores who weigh a tonne and can run faster than a horse over short distances. If Thylacoleos [ and Drop bears] still lived in Australia maybe we'd all carry big guns when in the bush.
As I have said when we were discussing hunting; when I was a lot younger a lot of us carried a rifle when bushwalking, rabbit and wallaby/kangaroo were part of the normal diet

[Hallu]

The higher the range, the higher the risk of shooting someone you didn't intend to shoot. It's not discussed in the article, but with pepper spray the risk of accidentally killing somebody else instead of the bear is null. It will take somebody shooting his kid or his wife in the dark thinking it was a bear to ban firearms in US NPs again I'm afraid... I don't have anything against a professionally trained person carrying a firearm, such as a ranger, but this law allows any idiot with a hand gun under his pillow at home, with no shooting range or safety training, to bring it freely in a national park...

[wayno]

how many people are attacked by bears? often pepole are attacked because they didnt follow basic rules... keep their food well away from their campsite... or were in areas known to frequent a lot of bears and werent making enough noise to warn the bears.
there was a mauling in the press a while back, it was the salmon run, the hikers were walking up a stream surrounded by a thick wood.... they came around a corner, surprised a bear at close range and it attacked....

[roysta]

Let's just hang in there for awhile, we'll have someone shot in a NSW NP soon enough.
And that's under Oz gun laws.

[neilmny]

I got me one of those flouro orange polar fleece hats to wear in the bush, for winter anyway.
It's not bullet proof but it is a lot easier to see than most headwear.
Now some may say the bright flouro thing is an abomination in the bush
but a bullet in the scone would be a lot worse.

[LandSailor]

Well personally bears scare the crap out of me, and if I was walking in a Park in the USA where there were bears I would be loaded to the gunnels with high powered, large caliber firearms, for the same reason in Canada I would be packing a pump action shotgun

+1 on this. I used to wonder which is worse, snakes or bears. After recently reading a description of bear attacks in this book I would prefer a snakebite any day! Grizzly bears are massively stronger and faster a human so you can never escape them. But the thing is they dont necessarily kill you straight away.
They might start tearing the meat off your leg till they reach the hip. And apparently they find the vital organs particularly delicious so they might rip these out next (hopefully you'll be at least unconcious by that point).
The various species behave differently too. If I remember correctly, with black bears you can just play dead and they will leave you alone. With grizzly bears you have no option but to fight. The worst thing you can do is run away as this triggers an immediate chase reflex.

[Moondog55]

Wayno a lot more people are attacked by bears than is ever reported in the press.
This included my BIL who disturbed a black bear in his back yard [ middle New York State and a very heavily urbanised landscape] and while a lot of the bear stories that get told are part of the "Lets scare the tourist" stuff there is enough truth in the tales to make me even more scared as the animals are no longer scared of people.
To quote Native-American experts "Bears are monsters"

[Clusterpod]

Everyone that surfs, swims and dives in the ocean should start carrying powerheads in case of sharks.

[wayno]

i know americans who walk the trails regularly and don't have problems with bears and don't arm themselves with guns..

[Lindsay]

Did anyone else find the readers comments below the Backpacker article bizarre and disturbing? Seemingly you have a 1 in 211 chance of being killed with a firearm in the US and this is quite acceptable, and if you are threatened in the bush by a bloke with a firearm the police may organise a flyover of the area, never mind about actually going out and looking for the bloke.

As Onestepmore has said, I'm glad I walk in Australia.

[wayno]

depends where you live, live in the wrong suburb in an american city and its literally a war zone with murders, and drive by shootings most nights.... young men armed and roaming the streets looking for trouble....
i read that four times as many people were being shot dead in los angeles than were being killed at the height of the troubles in ireland... and it would depend what suburbs you were in as to your likelihood of being shot.. the police look after the wealthy suburbs more than the rough suburbs.
if your in a gang, your hances of getting shot are pretty good.... as gangs fight wars of attrition against each other...

[Moondog55]

Hmmm? If it's a choice between bears or East LA I'll take the bears. Even in the limo East LA was a little scary it must be hell after dark. We took the long way home from Disneyland BTW. Real America and plastic American are so totally different

[corvus]

We don't have Bears in Tassie we do have deadly snakes !! and we do not allow hunting in our National Parks so your worst experience may be getting a broken leg from a charging Wombat or an infected Leech or Tick bite, so if you don't want to dodge bullets come to Tassie to do your walks (and spend your money)
corvus

[puredingo]

I'm with moondog on this one. If I had the option to carry a firearm in bear country I'd definitely be packing a nice little double barrel shottie....Mainly because if I made no impact with the first round and Ol' smokie was right on me I'd put the thing under my chin and KABOOM!. Getting eaten alive is not on my things to do before I die list.

As for surfing, I surf everyday of my life and have done for 30 yrs. I've seen sharks and been near sharks but at least I've always been lucky enough to be able to make it to land where until evolution catches up I'm safe, with a bear you can't even climb a *&%$#! tree!

[Onestepmore]

I remember reading an account of this bear attack on a group of UK scouts in Norway. This is not the report I read but it'll do.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/0 ... 19511.html

I found a few more
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... skull.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... mercy.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -bear.html

Aparrently the perimeter flares set around the base camp malfunctioned and did not deploy. One of the teachers/leaders shot a bear at close range when it was actually inside a tent with the student that died. I read a personal account by him.
Scary stuff
I think carrying firearms in these sorts of situatiions is justified. This however is different from the handgun-toting mentality that seems to be expressed by some of the US hikers
I think they need to distinguish who is the 'enemy' - wildlife or humans?

I'm not anti-hunting (I love venison, I'll happily shoot rabbits and foxes, pigs need to be controlled, I have friends that hunt with dogs etc). I'm opposed to it in NP where there are walkers though.
I'm just very glad we have no need to carry a gun while bushwalking here

[Travis22]

The most dangerous thing on this earth is the human being. Id be more afraid of some nutter in the bush then an animal. Animals which if you know what animals are in the area your entering into are highly predictable.

Other human beings out there are about as unpredictable as it gets.

Regarding people getting shot in the NSW NP's......... mate your about 400times more likely to die in a car accident on your way to the NP. Best stay at home.

Travis.

[wayno]

@onstep more
the first article is about a polar bear attack, they are in a class of their own,, the only bear that will actively deliberately hunt and eat a human,
teh island of svalbard has the highest population of polar bears on land at that time of the year when the ice cap has shrunk. theres very litle for the bear to eat while they wait for the ice to return to let them get out and chase seals on teh ice floes, but a human snack is just too much to turn down when they are starving.... and in the spring when the females have cubs to nurse or feed as well. ...
for the millions of americans that go hiking they are a lot safer than the 30,000 americans that are shot dead every year........ if you think people geting atacked by bears is under reported its nothing compared to the under reporting of people shootings... the most dangerous animal in america by far is humans....
snakes don't put aussies off going for a walk . in america there are far more snake bites and deaths from snake bites than bear attacks.... then theres scorpions. i think 700 killed in mexico alone in one year from scorpions...
yesa bear is big and scary but its often the smaller threats that will get you. you can't miss a bear..... you can miss a snake or scorpion...

[wayno]

interview here with backpacking mag editor about guns, from the angle of an experienced american hiker

http://hardcoreoutdoor.com/2013/07/02/b ... cking.aspx

[maddog]

Regarding people getting shot in the NSW NP's......... mate your about 400times more likely to die in a car accident on your way to the NP. Best stay at home.

Meanwhile, in the United States, firearms rival motor vehicle fatalities as the leading cause of unnatural death.

guns and vehicles.jpg (68.19 KiB) Viewed 9989 times

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-1 ... -2015.html
http://www.nature.com/news/firearms-res ... er-1.12864
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... fic-deaths

[wayno]

yet you look at the american media going on an on about the casualties they had in iraq and afghanistan, meanwhile back in america... the no's of americans being shot was tens of times higher and barely gets a mention apart from the odd mass shooting, but only a very small percentage of those shot are shot in mass shootings.
you want to worry about the odd bear attack in a country the size of the states with over 300 million people plus tens of millions of tourists? put it into perspective, there are tens of millions of safe treks in the states every year. if you act sinsibly and follow the rules in bear country your chances of being attacked are pretty slim...

[perfectlydark]

Made the mistake of thinking LA central would be like sydneys cbd at night as me and the family were there 2 years ago..let me say screw guns for bears, carrying a gun through LA should be compulsory! Scary city after dark

[wayno]

mate. you should get a medal for being out after dark there...

[perfectlydark]

Yeah. Never again lol

[wayno]

take a country with hundreds of millions of firearms. including semi automatic weapons. heaps of drugs and alcohol, lots of violent gangs and mix it all together.... and you've got, um..... America....

[Travis22]

Id much rather see Alcohol and tobacco made illegal or how about limiting quantity or consumption times and places (sounds a lot like whats happened to firearms hey!) then any further push on firearm restrictions in this country.

Keep drugs and alcohol away and 99% of your problems would be gone.

Motor vehicles are 1,000,000 times more dangerous then firearms in AUSTRALIA.

When you tally up the cost and casualties of drugs (cigarettes included) and alcohol on society ive always been completely baffled at the way some people jump up and down a carry on about firearms, like all the problems in Australia would be solved if we didnt have them. IMO firearm related deaths absolutely pales in insignificance to just about every other cause of death in this country. Legally owned firearms used by their licensed owners im talking about..

More bush walkers wander into the bush and die because of their own poor judgement or lack of skills or adaptability to changing conditions so perhaps we should just ban bush walking too?

You want hunters out because of this perceived threat to you but you are a bigger perceived threat to yourself so IMO applying the same logic means that you should not be out there in the first place then.

I have no idea what the figures really are but my guess would be that your about 10 million times more likely to die while bush walking through your own actions then being shot be a hunter.

Travis.

[wayno]

drop bears. you forgot to mention the danger of drop bears.... very dangerous and unpredictable...