CCW in National Parks -- opinion piece

[Unisaw]

The following opinion piece appeared in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on December 8th.  Short of the Brady Bunch of the VPC, I can't think of a better example of an opinion piece that relies on hysteria to the complete exclusion of facts and logic.  It is still possible to post comments in response to this opinion piece.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/391164_thomassononline09.html

Guns in national parks are tickets to mayhem

Last updated December 8, 2008 1:11 p.m. PT

DAN K. THOMASSON

WASHINGTON -- As a parting shot from the Bush administration, courtesy of the gun lobby, those who seek the solitude and beauty of some national parks and wildlife refuges will face the fact that the visitor standing next to them just may be packing heat and is ready to use it at the first sign of any unfriendliness, such as an argument over a camping space.

Overturning the Reagan-era ban on loaded weapons in these national treasures, the Interior Department has decided it would be all right to carry a concealed firearm into those parks located in states where undercover guns are permitted.

So much for finding a moment's break from the threat someone might decide to shoot you over a triviality, a daily possibility in today's urban battlegrounds. The only hope one might have under the circumstance is that before the assailant could pull the trigger, he or she would be attacked and eaten by a bear.

Those who argue that the regulation change is necessary to protect one from becoming a delicate morsel for a hungry grizzly are blissfully ignorant of the old hunter's rule that one should never take a handgun to a bear fight.

That is based on a long-standing observation that these not-terribly friendly animals don't take kindly to being thwacked by a peashooter, which in 99 of 100 cases fails to do what you want it to do to the bear. In fact, a bear with a pistol or automatic slug in its paw or elsewhere just becomes angrier, if that is possible. He or she might become so upset that a decision is made to prolong its dinner and your agony by biting off just a chunk of you at a time.

So to paraphrase an old children's warning, if you go out in the woods today, you better go in disguise 'cause this is the day the paranoids have their picnic. Since the days of Ronald Reagan and his sensitivity about being shot (having had the experience), the national parks, forests and wildlife sanctuaries have been the safest places in the country. One could carry a rifle or what have you in his car but it had to be unloaded and dismantled.

Why is it now necessary to extend the opportunity to commit mayhem under the guise of self-protection to places where mothers and dads take their kids to create lasting memories of family fun? Please don't try to find a sane rationale for much of anything advocated by firearms worshipers. In this city, which should be a sanctuary from violence, one can hardly find a day when someone doesn't die from a shooting. Yet the pistol- whipped, one-vote majority on the Supreme Court has decided the solution to this is to abrogate Washington's strict gun law.

Oh, yes. In so doing the retro forces from the 18th century, led by the Great Scalia, managed to do what none of the court's predecessors had ever dared -- validate the claim of constitutionally guaranteed gun privileges for individual Americans.

But that is another story. The obvious aim of those who clearly must sleep with their 9 mm's clutched tightly in their hands is to make no spot off limits to their "Roscoes." We're talking about college campuses and stadiums and bars and wherever. Now they are one step closer to that goal, having secured the right to haul their pistol-packing butts into the last remaining enclaves of sanity.

The Interior Department did not say it, but there seems little doubt that the concealed weapons are meant to take the place of common sense and bear bells and other devices designed to scare away or avoid predators.

How long now before the cheerful sounds of the meadows and forests of the great American set-asides are drowned out by the sound of gunfire? Is that a bit hysterical? Probably, but it is just as hysterical to believe that it is necessary to carry a firearm wherever one goes. I eagerly await the cards and letters and vicious emails that will undoubtedly follow.

E-mail Dan K. Thomasson, former editor of the Scripps Howard News Service, at thomassondan@aol.com.

[Boomhauer]

Blood on the trails! Blood on the trails!!!!!111!!!!

Idiots...

[AZRedhawk44]

Completely ignored the most dangerous threat on the trails... the 2 legged one.

Whether drug growers, thieves, rapists or weird serial killers, there are dangers in the wild spaces.  Those dangers are every bit as real as those faced in the cities or suburbia or the rural enclaves of peace and sanity where a sixgun on the hip denotes a man that can "care for his own."

The crux of the matter is, whereas in city/suburban/rural life a cell phone makes law enforcement aid minutes away (a lifetime and eternity in an emergency but still better than nothing), that same cell phone will either have no signal or be unable to summon the most effective means of rescue, which by best possible circumstances would be about an hour away by jeep or helicopter.

The gun owners have their adage... "When seconds count, police are only minutes away."  How more stark is that contrast in the back country without the niceties of civilized life and its ideal 5 minute response time to emergencies?  Chased by drug growing thugs and murdered in the woods, or raped for hours by some monster, as a result of the blissninny ideal of "gun control."

And... what about all the other weapons available when in the national parks?  Hatchets, saws, improvised spears from downed branches, knives, chains, vehicles... (this list can continue for quite some time)?  These are essential survival tools that make a potentially dangerous environment into a recreational experience for the family that has considerable education opportunities.  Shall we outlaw matches at our parks next?  Or pocket knives?

I could certainly get into a fight over a prime camp site and inflict violence with my Victorinox swiss army knife.

If I were the type to lose my cool in the first place.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the crux of the matter.  Many ways to say it:  An armed society is a polite society.  Judge by content of character.  Guns don't kill people, people kill people.  Argumentum ad infinitum.

[longeyes]

Dan is one more liberal who needs to take his meds.

He is blissfully unaware of what goes on in National Parks, but then his is the type that permitted the metamorphosis in the first place.

[Standing Wolf]

Dan is one more liberal who needs to take his meds.

Sorry, but I doubt they're going to help him. There aren't many cases that call for electro-shock therapy, but...

[grampster]

Did you ever wonder how folks like Dan would have faired a couple hundred years ago?

[MicroBalrog]

Did you ever wonder how folks like Dan would have faired a couple hundred years ago?

They'd be Tories.

[Monkeyleg]

On my first trip to Yellowstone as a kid, I remember a guy trying to get up close to a bear to take its picture. The guy wound up getting mauled pretty badly.

I wonder if that was Dan. Had the same mentality.

[El Tejon]

Dear West Coast Weenie,

I've been carrying in my state parks, and can report no blood on the trails.  However, I can report badly dressed tourists with flood blisters and loud children that need to be disciplined.

Maybe you Weenies are just without any manhood, hence your monkey butts and sandals.  I propose making it illegal for a Weenie to be outside arm's reach of a police officer.

Packin' in Pokagon,

EL TEJON

P.S.--we also tote our roscoes in stadiums, campuses and bars, all without bloodshed.

[bmitchell]

I can't believe I just read an article that said that a bear is more of a threat to an armed person than to the unarmed.

Ben

[K Frame]

You have to admit, at least they're consistent in their message of shrill doomsaying.

[Don't care]

Given the number of pot growers and meth lab producers in our national parks......as well as who knows of the rest of the criminal element there......who already are armed to effectively compete with the U.S. Parks Police..........

Does this twit have a remote clue to the untold dangers a national park poses? I suspect one has a greater chance of being criminally victimized in a National Park, than be attacked by wildlife.

[Tallpine]

I propose making it illegal for a Weenie to be outside arm's reach of a police officer.

At least make it illegal for them got outside city limits without some sort of an intelligence/common sense test. 

I can't believe the stupid "townies" sometimes, and it's not just the weenies - they show up in our neighborhood during hunting season apparently looking for deer to shoot from the county road.  :rolleyes:

[Boomhauer]

I work in a National Park. A relativley tame one, that's rather small.

There's a good reason, a very good reason, that I don't make many "patrols" and such. I'm not a LEO, and as such, not armed...

We've had poachers and people trespassing. I'm not going up against someone armed.

[K Frame]

So, are you for it, or against it?

[grampster]

I work in a National Park. A relativley tame one, that's rather small.

There's a good reason, a very good reason, that I don't make many "patrols" and such. I'm not a LEO, and as such, not armed...

We've had poachers and people trespassing. I'm not going up against someone armed.

And your point is?  Poachers and trespassers, it seems to me, are not folks that would have lawfully obtained a CCW permit.  If they are armed, they probably were armed before the rule change; and not lawfully.  You would have been in as much danger before the rule change as after.  Although, the possibility exists that perhaps you might be in less danger now because the poachers and trespassers might just not engage in that behavior as much.  It seems to me a study was done in the prison system and an overwhelming number of criminals were more edgy about armed civilians than they were about LE.

I hate to keep beating a dead horse, but what does anyone have to fear from a sane, law abiding, lawfully carrying citizen?  I've been lawfully carrying concealed since 1964.  The only time I ever pointed a firearm at anyone, or discharged a firearm at a person was when I was on duty, carrying a badge.  That ended in 1969.  Since then, I've been around multiple thousands of persons while I was carrying a firearm and no one knew it or was in any danger from me.

[mgdavis]

And your point is?  Poachers and trespassers, it seems to me, are not folks that would have lawfully obtained a CCW permit.  If they are armed, they probably were armed before the rule change; and not lawfully.  You would have been in as much danger before the rule change as after.  Although, the possibility exists that perhaps you might be in less danger now because the poachers and trespassers might just not engage in that behavior as much.  It seems to me a study was done in the prison system and an overwhelming number of criminals were more edgy about armed civilians than they were about LE.

I hate to keep beating a dead horse, but what does anyone have to fear from a sane, law abiding, lawfully carrying citizen?  I've been lawfully carrying concealed since 1964.  The only time I ever pointed a firearm at anyone, or discharged a firearm at a person was when I was on duty, carrying a badge.  That ended in 1969.  Since then, I've been around multiple thousands of persons while I was carrying a firearm and no one knew it or was in any danger from me.

The way I read Avenger's statement, he is making the point that the poachers and such are already armed, regardless of the law. I think you two are saying the same thing.

[Boomhauer]

So, are you for it, or against it?

Of course I'm for citizens CCWing in the national parks (and any other public place they damn well feel like CCWing at). What I am saying is that not being allowed to be armed is stupid, as there are armed criminals who could do you harm. I'm surprised we haven't found a body or two at my park yet...but I've encountered more than enough crazy fools for my comfort.

You break out the argument before realizing that I'm on your side already. Don't go jumping the shark.