Hiking, backpacking and camping in place like Yellowstone and Glacier, where grizzly bears roam free, requires care, planning, and courage. Noises and shadows at night are troubling, sleep is often light and interrupted. Food has to be handled carefully, stung up high at night. We cannot eat, sleep, and store food in the same places. Pepper spray offers little consolation.
Hiking, backpacking and camping with guns in places like Yellowstone and Glacier, where grizzly bears roam free, requires no care, little planning, and no courage at all. You can shoot your way out of any situation.
I predict that in our national parks, small game will soon be targeted for sport killing, and that large mammals will routinely be killed in “life threatening” situations. Even though it has been years since anyone has been killed by a grizzly bear, they will soon be dropped whenever they even threaten a gun-toting human.
That’s what happens when cowards with guns roam free.
Piece of Mindful 
See: http://www.adn.com/bearattacks/story/509629.html
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Your point?
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The attacks are not as rare as you claim.
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That’s why it takes a little courage to go into those places without a gun. That’s the way it should be. We should lose a few boy scouts now and then. That keeps wilderness wild.
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Tell that to the people of Anchorage that have been mauled in the middle of the city. See the side bar links in the article.
About a year and a half ago, a bird hunter was mauled on Dupuyer Creek just SW of Valier. Not in the mountains even. That same year a grizzly met his end near Summit on US 2 when he was attacking an elk hunter. As I recall the story the bear was shot within 5 yards of the hunter as the bear was in full charge. Also that same year a bow hunter in southern MT had a similar situation. I believe he was either mauled or nearly so.
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Again, your point?
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Pretty much the same as before. These attacks are just not that rare. Also, they are happening away from wilderness. Why is it a good thing to let a 15 year old boy get chewed up? http://www.calgaryherald.com/Travel/Predatory+bear+Alta+teenager+food+Expert/1609502/story.html
In this case, without the shotgun, the bear would have finished the task.
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Probably the best answer to your fear is to kill all the grizzlies. That way you can walk in the woods and not be scared. And no boy scouts will ever again be eaten.
Kill all the wolves too. That way the world will be safe for sheep. Isn’t that what you want? To be safe all the time?
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My fear?
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When all the animals are killed off, then we probably need to start systematically killing cars. That’s when I’m seriously stocking up on guns and ammo.
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Many years ago, my brother-in-law was going to Glacier for a week of camping and hiking. He showed me the .22 pistol he intended to take along to protect himself. I laughed at him and suggested the .22 would only piss off any charging grizzly he shot at. I suggest taking something larger than a pop gun if you are going to be packing.
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That way he won’t have to be afraid.
Pussies pussies everywhere, yet none for griz to eat.
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While MT is correct that packing “heat” in place of smarts is a bad idea, he must be an adherent of the Polosi school of obfuscation and denial. He makes a factual statement and when confronted with proof to the opposite, smugly persists with his thesis.
http://news.google.com/news?q=bear+attack
Duh!
With respect to that gratuitous swipe at the boyscouts, when my kids went into the mountains with the scouts, I was glad I knew the scoutmaster was packing more than food and tents. This new law just decriminalizes prudence.
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Do you think that I am saying that bears don’t attack people? They do occasionally, but mostly they just make us scared. Introducing guns into the equation makes for dead bears, and safe and secure pussies.
Risk is part of life. Courage requires taking risk on, dealing with it. Camping without a gun is a scary proposition, but courageous people do it all the time. Bear encounters are unavoidable, but with caution and preparation, are mostly avoided.
And my words about boy scouts – actually, I’m parroting Ed Abbey, but think about this – maybe bears will only eat the gay boy scouts. Win-Win!
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More danger lurks on the roads leading to scout camp than in the woods. Are roads safe? Are donuts safe? There is no logical basis for what we fear most, compared to what we should most fear. I guess God really won’t protect us, unless we’re packin’ 24/7. Now, that’s faith we can believe in.
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It’s an interesting phenomenon that has been quantified and studied – right wingers are more prone to manipulation by means of fear than those of us on the left. They are also more submissive and tolerant of cognitive dissonance. So when Conrad Burns won their trust, nothing he could do would ever cause them to stop trusting him.
Fascinating!
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Proof please regarding your claim that the right uses fear more than the left. Your claim does not seem to even “bearly” stand scrutiny.
Please consider what Obama did using fear to garner supreme power over business and the financial markets, and justify the multi-trillion budgets.
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Then there is the left’s political scare regarding globlal warming. Not science, just fear to justify seizing immense control over our daily lives. http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/05/21/disproving-the-anthropogenic-global-warming-agw-problem/
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Consult the work of Bob Altemeyer – he’s been studying the subject for years. His methods are rigorous, his findings interesting – Right wingers, tested time and time now for decades, are more authoritarian and yet submissive to authority, and more prone to being manipulated by fear. They are also more insulated – that is, unwilling to confront people who disagree with them and prone to stay surrounded by people who agree. I’ve noted this too – you’re an exception.
Obama’s method of manipulation was to be vague, and allow followers to imprint their own views on him. He is now “betraying” them, but as with Clinton, they will still follow.
The question with Global Warming can be evaluated by making scientific inquiry, which people are prone not to do. So both sides can be manipulated.
But there is also evidence all around us which independent minds can evaluate – I’ve noticed that it is getting hotter all the time, the spring comes earlier, birds migrate father north, glaciers are rapidly melting, forests are burning (growing up in Montana, forest fires were a regular occurrence, but not the annual conflagrations we have now), insect pests are moving north (pine beetles are devastating whole swaths of forest land), we’re having unusual and frequent “hundred year” events. If that ‘scares’ me, it is a reasonable fear, and not something like “terrorism”, which is nothing more than a bogeyman.(It is so easy to see they are dangling it in front of you to scare you!) Those who say the climate is changing and that we are in trouble are not politically motivated. Exxon is.
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Oh, you forgot, we’d also see “gunfights at the Old Faithful Corral” in your list of dire consequences.
High Noon at Old Faithful. The horror…the horror…
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Reasonable to assume that if you allow gun toters in the National Parks, there will be gun incidents, as the little lamb followed Mary, and that fear will overcome good sense, and large mammals will be needlessly killed.
Lot’s of small ones too.
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The bear loads in my .44 Redhawk make the whole gun go “spranggggg!” They’d do more than tickle.
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Mark,you write: “I’ve noted this too – you’re an exception.”
I’ve noticed that about you as well. Goof also. Some of us just don’t fit the party labels that define political behavior. Ideological you are liberal and I am conservative. Beyond that we agree on everything. 😉
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I’m better cast as a European-style socialist. American liberals drive me batty. Other than that, we agree on everything.
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Craig’s “proof” that righties are more prone to manipulation by fear: Religion! The numbers don’t lie. True believers on the right respond to simple answers, simple politics. Hope and comfort comes from lots of repetition(echo).
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Ladybug, what?????
Today I took a few hours to flyfish up at Duck Lake near Babb. I saw something somewhat unusual. There were ladybugs on the water and crawling up my waders. The ‘bows snarfed them like candy. I don’t know whether they were lefty loosies or righty tighties, but the trout didn’t seem to care. All we needed was Jaws music to set the tone.
When the world comes to dine on us, like the ladybugs, we can either just think happy thoughts and breast stroke on the surface, or we can be prepared. It’s an individual choice.
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