Do you have any idea how ridiculous what you’ve written is?
I said that people should have a right to carry a handgun in a national park, because they might need to defend themselves from either a dangerous animal or a dangerous person.
And you think this is the same as “you don’t belong out there if your only answer is to destroy the life that we are collectively trying to protect”?
And that makes me a “dieheard survivalist.” Right.
If I get attacked by a person or an animal in a national park, I want to survive. That doesn’t mean that I go in there with the intention of killing innocent animals or that I’m a “survivalist.”
Just FYI if someone is carrying a gun concealed, that means that the gun is not visible. Do you think that someone who wants to bring a handgun into a national park with the intention of doing ill with it is going to let a law against it stop him? Do you even know what concealed carry means? Do you know anything about firearms or the laws surrounding them?
Like I said before, this seems like a case of a self-confessed “granola” hippy who knows not the slightest thing about firearms, irrationally being afraid of the guns themselves instead of the criminals who would use them to do harm to others. All I can say is, to quote Boyd Rice: “If others choose to see the world in terms of sugar, spice and everything nice, that’s certainly their prerogative, and I would never dream of trying to tell them otherwise. However, I might suggest that they always keep a loaded pistol on the off chance that they could possibly be mistaken.”
Perhaps. I don’t think I’ll just let you frame this debate on guns with the version of the rights debate most convenient for your argument though. Nothing you’ve said so far indicates you know much about guns or government.
If you live in a shall-issue state, you are around people legally carrying concealed guns every day. How many times have you ever noticed one of them?
Yes. If you feel that you need to kill an animal in a protected environment to protect yourself, you do not need to subject yourself to the risk. If other species can’t be safe from human intrusion and destruction on protected lands, they can’t be safe anywhere. There is no other place for every other animal on this earth to go. We dominate everything.
Sweetheart, you really need to work on your sense of humor. It seems to be broken.
*Innocent *animals? No, no. You should only kill the guilty ones. Wait, how do you know they are guilty if you don’t try them first? Animals do what animals do, there is no guilt and innocence involved. They aren’t human. If they feel threatened, they will protect themselves either by fleeing or fighting. Don’t threaten them by tromping through their yard.
No, really? You are so smart! How do you do that? I really thought that concealed meant jellylike. So, if the gun in concealed, I’m not really aware he’s got it, am I? Can’t really do much about that seeing as how I’m not a mind reader. I never said Joe Blow was waving around a concealed gun, did I?
Not everyone who does ill has the intention of doing ill. Sometimes it’s impulsiveness, stupidity, hubris, what-have-you. I don’t for a second believe that every instance of gun violence is premeditated and committed by psychos. There are some monumentally stupid and/or impulsive people out there. On occasion, the law protects us from those idiots by keeping them unarmed.
No thanks to the likes of you, I’m learning a lot more than I knew before I opened up this topic in Great Debates on a board established to fighting ignorance. Shame it doesn’t eliminate arrogance, but then we wouldn’t have you, would we?
Never professed to be a hippy…born too late, I guess. I’m not afraid of guns any more than I’m afraid of bombs and viruses (neither of which I know a great deal about) and other things that are deadly. And, oh yes, I fear people but not enough to want to kill them. Believe it or not, I fear poisonous spiders and bears, too. I do try to manage my fears, though, because it’s no way to live, I can assure you. You manage them by arming yourself. I manage them by trying to educate myself, be alert, and, well sometimes, just shoving those fears out of my head. Plus, self-defense training, a long time ago.
I would like to believe that we can try to understand each other and treat each other with respect even if we can’t understand why our views differ. Not everyone goes through life experiencing the same thing. Often, there are distinct reasons why people come to differing viewpoints. Try to imagine why that might be for a moment. Frothing at the mouth is so unbecoming.
Why not? I disagree with you, but that’s a completely different topic. The government may be compelled to recognize human rights, but as I said, carrying a gun is not a basic human right. To discuss that any further, would hijack this thread. Start another one, if you like, but I won’t continue this line of argument here because I can’ keep up with both in one thread.
I don’t much about chemistry either, but I know that meth labs tend to be explosive. What’s your point? I’m here. Educate me. Or just let Johnny L.A. and a few other do the work while you sit back and criticize. I don’t care.
Only once when a guy allowed his concealed firearm to be seen and was asked to leave the establishment I was in. I was an uninvolved observer. Can’t say I felt bad about it though.
When was the last time you where out hiking and saw a person with a gun? Was it a hunter? Or a random crack addict hiking with his ‘Assault Weapon’. Where is it that you go hiking?
Do you really believe that having ‘Parks’ follow State gun laws will encourage more crime in ‘Parks’? You think giving the same rights in ‘Parks’ to those proven responsible CCW holders will create more crime?
What do you mean by ‘Parks’? And no, it’s not the proven responsible CCW holders I believe will create more crime. It’s the impulsive ones. And the angry ones. And the stupid ones. But nobody like that actually goes to the trouble of getting a permit, do they? Of course not. If they are permitted, they are all perfectly safe.
By ‘Parks’ I mean the Parks that this bill would affect. I should not have put it in single quotes.
Thing is, Brown Eyed Girl, Those permitted CCW holders that do not cause any problems outside of the park system will not likely cause any problems in the park.
And I really, really doubt we would see an increase in poaching from those people with their .38s or 9mms.
I don’t carry, I’m not arguing from any position that would possibly benefit me.
And you must have missed my question. How often have you run in to people carrying guns in parks (National, State, whatever) and where do you hike? As this bill is only supporting State laws to apply in national parks, I don’t suspect that that would increase.
I should point out that the first commercial double action revolver was 1851. Most revolvers are double action these days.
I’ve got a Jane’s Guns book somewhere I picked up on the remainder table. List of most commercially available firearms till… eh, 2000 or so. (It’s entertaining bathroom reading. I learned about the Llama pistol from it.) Want I should go through and count the sorts? It doesn’t count oddities, just normal pistols that would tend to be seen, so very few six-gun replicas in it.
Inasmuch as I’ve already posted previously, I certainly hope this is the case. I’m willing to hold out for data.
And I wouldn’t expect people to poach much with a .38 or 9mm, but it’s not just small caliber handguns that are permitted now. Those are just ones that can be easily concealed in the 48 states that permit concealed carry. Now, I’m just rehashing things that were already discussed above.
Prior to the legislation, if a park ranger comes upon someone in the backcountry or wildlife refuge with a high-powered rifle (or whatever weapon you hunt with), the likelihood is that he’s found a poacher (or drug runner, perhaps) and can further investigate and arrest based upon the illegal firearm. Now, he has no legal basis, if the gunholder is legally permitted to carry the firearm. It makes it slightly-significantly (?) more difficult for LE to protect these areas. Of course, I hope that this is not the case, but park rangers and police are not thrilled about this legislation either. I expect they’d know better than I do what the ramifications are.
I didn’t miss your question but I’m not certain how relevant it is. I have hiked in county, state, and national recreational areas. I have visited national wildlife refuges as well as privately- and locally-managed conservation areas. I, personally, have not observed any illegal activity of any kind, though I have seen the unfortunate consequences of such.
You learn something new everyday. I’m sure it’s no surprise that most of what I know about guns comes from Hollywood and wikipedia. There are very few I could actually identify. I have no interest in guns themselves, although I’ll sit down and watch a full day of back to back westerns or war movies. Go figure.
The question was relevant because you where wondering what you should do when you ran into a person carrying a gun in the wilderness. I was wondering how many times that had happend to you.
As SenorBeef said, it gets tiring to debate the same thing again and again with people that don’t educate themselves about the subject. But we do it any way because we are evil gun owners.
Well, when I lived in rural Hawaii, I came across some hunters with dogs and rifles hunting feral pig on state park land. Of course, I did exactly what I said I would do in a situation like this. I kept my distance. As far as I knew, what they were doing was legal, but I didn’t ask to see their hunting licenses.
The thing is feral pigs are an introduced species and are incredibly destructive to native environment. Reducing their numbers actually serves as conservation and is treated quite liberally in Hawaii.
Nope. I suspect that most law enforcement folks know the difference between a pistol and a revolver. It’s pretty clear that many anti-gun folks do not. Unfortunately they would still like to draw a distinction about something they know nothing about.
Your point about rifles in an area where hunting is not allowed in not lost on me. I’ll have to do a little bit more digging as I do not hunt and know little about the rules involved vis-a-vie carrying a rifle. Off hand, I suspect burden of proof would apply (like a dead animal).
I’m on my way to rent a carpet cleaner, so I will be out for most of the day. But this has been interesting.
The only time I worked directly for the NPS I worked in Natural Resources, but that was before I lived in park housing - when I was living in GGNRA I worked for a park partner non-profit organization doing education and science.
Yeah, our housing was owned by NPS but maintained by the park partner, and they actually did a surprisingly good job of it.
I should also just join Washoe’s admiration of NPS LEO Rangers - these guys do an extremely difficult job, with way too few people. My interactions with them have given me the impression of some of the most professional, courteous, and pragmatic cops I’ve ever seen. I also think they have better things to do than hassle legitimate gun owners with a permit who happen to just be driving down the George Washington Parkway and not even stopping in the park.
With the exception of Alaska, Montana, and Wyoming (the only U.S. states with Grizzly populations,) I’m having a lot of trouble figuring out what animals you think people would be defending themselves against. Rattlesnakes - most bites are on people who actually handle the snakes or are intoxicated, so a gun won’t help. Mountain Lions - if you are looking at it, it’s not going to attack you, they only take prey they can catch unaware. Bison - heh, OK, I’m only including that as a joke.
I never go out in the wilderness armed, and going out into the wilderness has been a part of my job for ten years. If I go to Alaska, that may change due to the Grizzly issue, but I consider the “armed in the wilderness is common sense” argument completely specious unless there are Grizzlies present.
I’m more concerned about this:
I mentioned a poaching incident earlier, and Mr. Moto has mentioned pot farms in national parks.
Prior to this law, if a park ranger sees people with guns in the park, s/he knows they’re likely to be up to no good - poaching or guarding the pot. S/he calls in backup, and they go in, guns drawn, with the upper hand on the suspects.
Now, will park rangers still be able to do that? Or will this lead to incidents where the ranger has to walk up to the openly armed person and ask them what’s going on, losing a critical advantage?
If it were only CCW holders who were allowed to carry in the park, I’d be a lot less worried, for the reasons Una Persson brought up. But we don’t have the buffer of knowing people with guns in the park have been through the CCW process.
I usually try to be helpful to educating people on these boards about gun issues. Genuine curiosity will inspire me to do some work to assist someone in that way. But you appear to be disguising an agenda as curiosity - like the “what use could guns possibly have except killing people?!?!” type questions - that’s not a genuine curious question but a statement, generally. So when you asked what purpose a semiautomatic handgun could serve besides combat, I thought you were going in this direction.
You clearly have an agenda here, and just because you’re phrasing some of your statements as questions doesn’t mean they’re inquisitive.
How does one actually use this right to life and be safe? The US court system has ruled repeatedly that police have no obligation to protect you - ultimately your safety is your own responsibility. Does your right to life and safety depend on you being a 240 pound dude or a self defense expert to potentially defend yourself against physically more imposing threats?
“Choose to excercise your government right”…? Replace the “right” here with a right you’re fond of and see if what you said doesn’t sound scary to you.
I’m not quite sure what that last sentence means. I don’t threaten your life, but people who share my views do?
I will back off from going overboard about assuming your intentions.
Edit: I’m seeing people here say that this law isn’t limited to legal CCW holders, is that true? I was under the impression it meant that federal parks would be removed from the list of places you were banned from carrying even if you had a permit, not that it simply allows anyone unlicensed carry in those areas.
There are about half a dozen people in the US killed by rattlers each year. More are bitten but survive. I’d guess that most, if not all, these people didn’t even see the snake before being bitten. Unless, of course, they were messing with it. I grew up around rattle snakes. Believe me, they’re easy to avoid. In fact, I’ve never had one chase me.
All that aside, I’m not sure yet how I feel about this new law. The real reason I can see to carry a firearm is simply because you want to. If you’re going to protect against an animal, you better have a big gun and know how to use it. Let’s see, that would be grizzlies and cougars, right?
BTW; does this law apply only to concealed guns?
BTW; I am a gun owner.
Peace,
mangeorge
No. The legislation lifts the prohibition of firearms in federal parks and wildlife refuges. It means that whatever the state laws are with regard to firearms apply on federal land in that state. If the state law permits concealed carry in any place not prohibited in the laws, then this also applies to national parks and refuges in that state. If the state allows firearms to be carried openly, then the same applies to federal parks and refuges.
If the state prohibits firearms on state park land, but allows it elsewhere, you can bring your firearm to the national park, but not the state park in that state.
Having actually read the section legislation and posted the releveant part of it in this thread, this is my understanding of it.
