Posted on 05/08/2008 7:58:35 PM PDT by Redcitizen
Pressured by the gun lobby and 51 US senators, the Interior Department proposes enhancing everyone's national park experience by letting people pack heat with a picnic. That's just what the nation's millions of park visitors don't need.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I’d rather have a firearm and not need it then need one and not have it at hand.
We all have fun on the range -- I'm the only Indian in the local Cowboy Action group.
Some of the targets are shaped like Indians - I told the Range Officer I'd just assume they were Lakota (my tribe's deadly enemies). Hey - we ain't mad with nobody!
Think of it this way - they’d be right, just not in the way they thought.
Instead of wild gunfights every 5 minutes (which is what they think), it would be quiet, people would be polite to each other, women could walk around unmolested, dangerous animals of all kinds would be quickly dispatched (what most of the West was really like, sans hostile natives).
“California 2-Year-Old Dragged From Yard by Coyote in Third Such Attack in Five Days”
Wonder what would some parent do in a National Park where firearms are not currently allowed?
Or someone hiking along a trail and is jumped by a mountain lion as has happened in California on several occasions ....
You go into their habitat you’d better be prepared.
I spend a lot of time in the wilds, hunting, fishing, camping, etc......... and while most serious crime is in the big cities, my biggest fear in the outdoors is still the 2 legged variety.
Armed for self defense in nation parks.
Pleased to meet ya. I’m Dine’ myself. Im armed cause I cant shoot worth a darn with arrows!
I remember this story because the visitors were from out of the country. Mesa Verde is nearby to where I lived And they had the chutzpah to sue:
14 July. A 4-year-old boy was attacked by a lion at Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, at about 10:45 a.m. The lion grabbed Raphael Degrave of Bougival, France, by his face and shook and dragged him for several yards. The youngster was hospitalized with cuts to his nose, left ear, and shoulder and required 52 stitches. The lion had previously been seen approaching people, and was killed. The family of Raphael filed suit against the National Park Service three years later, charging that park officials failed to protect them from the “known risk” posed by the mountain lion. Source: (Wildlife Report; from the Colorado Division of Wildlife; 10/22/97) (Deborah Frazier; Rocky Mountain News; 07/16/97) (John C. Ensslin; Rocky Mountain News; 06/28/2000)
http://cougarinfo.org/attacks2.htm
P.S. full disclosure - I'm actually only a little bit Cherokee (not enough for the rolls), and that way back. In Cowboy Action shooting one adopts a persona from the Wild West, either historical or fictional, and being sort of contrarian by nature I chose not a cowgirl but a historical Crow (Apsaroka) lady who joined up as a scout with General Crook because she was annoyed at the Lakota (they had killed her brother). Besides, all the good cowgirl names were taken! (so many names are taken in cowboy action that one fellow I know got frustrated and took the name "Not Yet Taken".)
I like the way you developed your persona. Thats so funny about being inside a barn and not being able to hit it. I presume you do quite well with a double barrel and a revolver.
Ive gone modern with semiauto pistols. Maybe one of these days I’ll get a revolver for fun. =)
Memo to CSM:
You bunch of namby-pamby panty-waists better stay east of the Hudson: the real world can be a tough place, especially for those who can’t take care of themselves.
“I have camped in a number of national Parks in Colorado and Wyoming over the years, and always had a good, loaded, firearm close by.”
Very wise.
“I lent relatives a firearm when they toured a National Park. Hee Hee.”
Good for you...and them. I hope it was a friggin M60. Or an M16 with an attached M203. Give the predatory scum something to think about.
I had never fired a single-action revolver until I shot my first cowboy action match. I had fired a double barrel and a lever action before, but only my dad's old 16 ga. Parker and his .348 Winchester, which are both a far cry from a Stoeger coach gun and a slicked up Win 92 in .357. If I'd tried to fire the .348 that fast, it would have knocked me on my posterior! (you can see an ejected shell in the air over the 92 in the picture)
If you have a local club, you ought to try this game. It is tons of fun. My husband shoots too, he doesn't really go in for the costume angle at all, he's just there to shoot (but I beat him in the last match, buckskin, feathers, and all < gloat gloat gloat > )
licensed gun holders are not the ones that are going to harm others, it is the people that do not care about law that will.
I was a history major in college, with a concentration in military history, so I have had a lot of fun doing the research and getting everything right, down to the beadwork on the war shirt and leggings. The costume is as accurate as I can make it. Next step: finding an Apsaroka dictionary and some good audio tapes!
Odd timing this article...a story in the Richmond Times Dispatch today announced the arrest of a man for shooting two hikers on the Appalachin trail here in Virginia. It was the same individual convicted years ago for two murders on the trail in the same general area. Sentenced to thirty years but released after 14...ACLU will certainly want to know if he had been advised of his loss of his firearm rights. At any rate the four victims here might have wished they had been armed.
Oh, please. The only crime that I think would be even remotely likely to increase in the national parks if this was allowed is poaching... and somehow, I have a feeling that it’s not that hard to get a gun into a national park in the first place, if someone really wants to break those laws. However, in my opinion, a slight increase in illegal hunting activities would be well worth it for how much more people would be able to defend themselves, and the possible lowering of other crime rates as a result.
There, fixed it.
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