With black bear populations rising, run-ins have become almost commonplace — more than 15,000 in the past year in states east of the Mississippi River...Or, as "astoundingly flawed" Paul Helmke tell us:
In a 2006 attack, a 210-pound male bear killed a 6-year-old girl and mauled her 2-year-old brother as well as her mother who tried to fend off the animal....
14 people have been killed in attacks by black bears in North America since 2000...another 10 people were killed by grizzlies during the period, mostly in Alaska and Canada. [More]
Concealed weapons have no place in our national parks, which have always been safe places to enjoy our nation’s magnificent natural and historical treasures...It's no country for ignorant men, either.
[Via Ed M]
8 comments:
.44 Magnum, 258-grain gas-check semi-wadcutters. Bear-B-Gone. Worry about the laws later. Photos of bear victims... chilling. One that sticks in my mind is a hiker being carried on a stretcher, hands crossed on his belly, looking very calm, his left leg only a bare bone from hip to knee. Of course he's dead. The bear just wanted a taste and decided he didn't like it. And we should die to satisfy that whim, Helmke, as you'd have us die to appease any human criminal with an itch?
Simply put, no.
Why do I get a feeling that Paul Helmke seldomly gets very far past the parking lot or the tour bus when he visits a National Park?
gee, someone should write sara over at alternet.
sara, do you want to start a man-bear war? people are getting mauled at a rate of several per month, now. it's time to come clean, sara.
Dear Paul H & Sara,
I am about to visit a national park, and would like to invite you, as my paid guests, to come along with me. I will be going unarmed, for your peace of mind and safety of body.
But with the current bear scare,
.
.
you go first.
B Woodman ;)
III
I friend of mine is going ATVing in Colorado this summer. He has CCW from Missouri. His Colorado outfitter suggested he carry a .357 with 158gr JSP as a minimum when he and his wife are on the trails. More for cougars, I believe, than bears.
I've spent a lot of time in bear country, and have always gone armed especially in cub-season.
It's amazing to read the stuff that "experts" will tell you about bears. Like-- "just lie down and they will go away."
Maybe, If it's a grizzly. A grizzly mostly just wants to end the threat you represent. Play dead, he's happy. Unless he's hungry, of course.
A black bear, on the other hand, wants to kill you, and will if you let him. Curling up just presents him with a more compact morsel. With a black bear you must fight: stick, feet, fist, whatever— if Mr Helmke has his urban way and a better means of defense is not available.
I don't know but what I might be on Helmke's side. I don't think bear arms are a good idea in Nat'l Parks, after all the damn bears already have those six inch claws, aren't those enough arms for a bear. Plus they have a whole Hell of a lot of teeth, can run faster than humans and have reflexes quicker than a cat's. How much damn advantage should they have, now we want to arm them?
I wonder if Mr. Helmke and I could start a movement to arm people instead of bears in Nat'l Parks. You know, just to level the playing field in the game of survival of the species (human), now them I could see needing arms, not bears.
What say you Mr. Helmke? Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot Helmke rode the short bus.
about two years ago, the publication
Gates of Chesed (a summer safety
periodical for the Orthodox Jewish
community, esp. in the Catskills)
had on its cover a big black bear
and the caption "Your new neighbors"
and "they are here to stay."
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