No Guns in the Wilderness? Are People Nuts? GRAPHIC!

[Art Eatman]

Certain events are rare, insofar as any one person is concerned: House fire, major car wreck, tort liability lawsuit. But, folks carry insurance against those events.

A firearm is nothing more than a form of insurance.

Mountain lion attacks are quite rare. However, they do happen. Same for bears. To me, there's an obvious answer, and I'm reminded of the saying I heard from a cop, some forty or more years ago: "Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six."

Art

 

[Eyesac]

+1

The chances of an animal attack are very, very small. I still take a gun

Better to not need one and have one...

 

[koja48]

I carry almost everywhere I go . . . destination & degree/source of hazard determines which tool I select.

 

[ranger335v]

My wise old sargent in the AF once said of parachutes, "You may never need it, but if you need it just once and don't have it you will never need it again."

Seems to apply to defensive weapons too.

 

[351 WINCHESTER]

I live in Fl. We have bears, cougars, coyotes, gators, huge rattlesnakes, bobcats. Under the right circumstances all will attack. I always have my 640 stoked with h/c wadcutters. I guess that makes me a criminal when I venture into a national forest, but I'm more afraid of the 2 legged ones. I firmly believe that man has a God given right to protect himself and his loved ones. Man's laws are wrong.

 

[Creeping Incrementalism]

To distinguish between a National Forest and a National Park:

Dogs + Guns = Cool = National Forest

No Dogs + No Guns = Sucks = National Park.

NF/NP don't always have signs about guns, but they always have signs about dogs.

One story I read about a guy in Alaska being attacked out of nowhere by a starving bear, what first alerted him was the growl of his dog, whereupon he drew his revolver, just a moment before the bear charged from out of the brush.

Dogs are the first domesticated animal, for a good reason.

One more thing: this auto-spell check red-underline thingy rules!!! How long has it been around?

 

[Caimlas]

Well, yes, it's foolish to be out in the wilderness without protection.

But, consider: people have been - successfully - doing just that for millions of years (at the least!), and in environments much less hospitable than North America. Africa, India, Central and South America all have more (and more common) poisonous snakes, and large predatory or dangerous animals. And that doesn't even take into account the inhospitable climates, bugs, poisonous plants and quicksand... you get the idea.

My point is, if you know what you're doing, and you're not so foolish to travel alone (that is the DUMBEST thing a person could do, period) through 'wilderness', then you're, more than likely, going to be Safe Enough from threats not originating from two-legged animals. Do you have knowledge of your surroundings? Can you tell when you're being stalked? Do you know to avoid berry patches (and other areas of conflict) when there might be a bear around? Folks, last I checked, there were no pack-hunting predators in North America, short of feral dogs and wolves (in the rarest of cases), which will attack a human, and two people have been shown to be able to fight off large predators (bears, mountain lions) without injury if they're alert and aware of their surroundings.

That said, having a gun is never a bad idea when it's just you and one or two other people.

And if you don't like national parks, try national forests. They are, as far as I know, not inflicted with the same bull*hit no-gun rules, and are subject to state law.

 

[bearmgc]

I don't go to National Parks, but I do carry in National Forests. I was fishing the Big Sandy in the Bridger Mountains last weekend, and met a Government guy who told me a guy shot a young Griz over his bait site a week ago. Folks will tell ya there's no Griz in these mountains, yeah right.
But I still carry mainly to be prepared for 2 legged bad guys.

 

[Bondo_Red]

I always wondered the best legal protection in the no-gun wilderness areas.Combat knife?Tranq gun?Crossbow pistol arrows dipped in poison?

 

[jeepmor]

I always wondered the best legal protection in the no-gun wilderness areas.Combat knife?Tranq gun?Crossbow pistol arrows dipped in poison?

Whatever gun you see fit, can conceal adequately to stay out of hot water should you meet up with Mr. Ranger, and a good lawyer on retainer.

 

[twoblink]

trying to kill a big black bear with a 357Mag revolver is not the goal, scaring it off with the noise is.. Bears scare fairly easily from noise (in pre-attack mode). Once they have sunk their teeth into your arse, that's another story altogether.

But a WHISTLE would at least be good... 30-06 probably better.. SICK PICS.