Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board New Gun Law for National Parks

Ken, I guess I didn't express my point very well. I understand that you were talking about open carrying. I was commenting on the above quote. You stated that the motivation for anyone carrying openly could ONLY be to make themselves feel good and that is the point I disagree with. I brought up those who carry concealed because I think that there are many in that group that are doing so, in California anyway, illegally and it is my belief that many of those would like to carry openly for the purpose of being in compliance with the law. I just don't believe that those who would carry openly for the express purpose of bolstering their flaccid egos would be a large percentage. But even those sad soles deserve better than being shot by an outlaw, don't you agree?

Rat, my comment about getting shot, moves us from the artificial world that an open carrying person inhabits, to the world of reality. When I taught gun techniques at the CHP academy some years ago, one of the truisms discussed, was that if you are the bodyguard of someone about to be assassinated, you will be the FIRST shot, because you are the one armed. The gun makes you a target. Deserve has nothing to do with it. Once again, I am ONLY speaking to the issue of advocated "open carry." You may choose to bring in other issues, but that is your discussion, not mine.

Well, I had totally given up this discussion as any hope of realistic exchange of ideas had evaporated. But Bee's comments have been among the only practical and experienced observation made.

Solid.

There are hundreds and hundreds of hours necessary to become proficient and to be able to recognize and respond to "shoot don't shoot" situations (to say nothing of having non-lethal but effective force options available). And even then there's a likely and tragic chance you'll be wrong.


g.

That the person carrying openly is the first target is a given. I understand that that person is the first perceived threat of a perpetrator. My problem is that you stated that fact as a "good thing". I think it's very disingenuous of you say that "deserve has nothing to do with it" when you call it "the only good thing" to come out in that scenario. How could it be a good thing if they didn't deserve it for their choice of openly carrying? I'll leave it at that. Perhaps we are just unable to speak the same language. No ill will intended. I, of course, don't know you at all but over the years I've enjoyed your posts and I just didn't expect that kind of attitude from you.

Mark Twain or Charles Darwin could not have expressed it better.

Hi I thought we would have some posts when this thread started about guns ? Thanks Doug

Rat, let me try again. In the situation where the tensions are higher, the perp is more nervous and trigger happy, where the odds of something bad happening are enhanced, the odds are that the person who had caused all that is the one most likely to be the target, as opposed to someone who is truly an innocent bystander....and I define that as a just thing. A person who DELIBERATELY and PREMEDITATIVELY goes out of their way to create a more dangerous situation for themselves, will be the one targeted, not someone else.

Sort of like, if a person were driving drunk, and the drunk driver were the only one killed, I'd call that just. By the way, virtually never happens, which frustrates almost everyone.

I guess one could reasonably question the use of the rhetorical flourish of "good", when the better word is "just". I suppose that depends upon whether one considers justice good.

As I stated earlier in the thread Doug, my bet was an easy 100 posts. Past that already, so maybe 200?

Shoot! We should aim for a target of 200.

Thanks Doug,

I was the one who started this thread. It seems like a long time ago considering how much has been written since then. But, it has been "educational" for us/me to discover the disparity of opinion on this issue. We "love our mountains" seems to be our commonality. Sometimes I wonder how the great John Muir would have weighed in on this issue.

I thank you for letting us "air" on your wonderful Message Board.

Target ammo or hollow points, Alan?

Depleted uranium please.

That will undoubtedly make some folks happy . . .

What was that Robert Duvall line from Apocalypse Now - "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" . . . ?

Ken, firstly let me say thank you for your patience and your efforts to explain your position. I've been thinking about your last response for a few hours and I think I understand where, in my mind, our paths diverge. I spend as much time every year in the back country of Montana and Wyoming as I do in my home state of California and I tend to think of myself as a citizen of those states as much as I do of california. As you probably know, there is a very different culture about weapons in Montana, in particular, than there is here in California. In simplest terms, people there are a lot more at ease with seeing a firearm on ones person in the back country there than they are here. That's logical in the fact that there are brown bears there and not here but I think it's also cultural. As I think I've said here before, I have never carried a firearm ANYWHERE, concealed or openly, in California and I never will. I have carried concealed in Montana and Wyoming when there have been brown sitings where I am backpacking. Most of what I have been saying is with Montana in mind for me, not California. I can see, given the climate of gun culture in Cal., what you are saying about an open carrier causing discomfort to his or her fellow outdoorsmen (women) in this state. I've seen others in Montana openly carrying and it just doesn't give me any sort of pause at all. No more than a visible knife or ice axe does. I think my real departure from your position is that, since I failed metaphysics class, I have no confidence in my ability to look into another's soul and know their motive for openly carrying. People are different and perceive threats differently. I have friends that are absolutely terrified of having an encounter with a black bear. Me? Not at all. So that's my bone of contention with the scenario of an open carrier being taken out by a perp and calling that either good or just. I would agree with you that if that person is carrying openly without any perception of threat - deliberately and willfully doing so just to cause a disturbance and unease and that person becomes a victim of violence, I agree they asked for it. I just don't agree that you or I or anyone else has the ability to determine that the only reason that ANYONE would carry openly would be to deliberately incite a disturbance of the peace of others in the wilderness. Like I said, everyone's different. I have friends that can't fathom my nervousness concerning brown bears. I reply that they lack imagination and need to watch the Timothy Treadwell documentary. Maybe they're right and I'm wrong. I hope I never find out that I am right. Best regards, Rat

WhitRat, thank you for your articulate post on this open carry gun issue. I have spent quite a bit of time in rural Nebraska and the climate, in regards to firearms, is also like Montana, drastically different than most parts of California.

I would like to ask your opinion about some YouTube videos that were presented in a post earlier in this thread (on my computer they are on page 3). In your opinion, are the people that are in these videos with open carry firearms presenting themselves more like they do in Montana or Nebraska, or are they presenting themselves more like how Ken portrays them in his description below?

"A person wearing a visible gun is making a statement. They KNOW that they are making many people very nervous. They KNOW that they are offending many people. They KNOW that they are creating stress for every person that does not know them.

What does this say about such a person? From a psychiatric standpoint, nothing good that I can think of. They are deliberately destablizing the situation, and creating discomfort for most people. And they are doing it to make themselves feel good, and no other real purpose."

These videos seem to be taking place in an urban or suburban environment, not in the wilderness or farm country of Montana, Wyoming or Nebraska. My hope is that this mentality of the urban cowboy doesn't migrate into the wilderness of our California National Parks.

I am truly interested in your insightful thoughts on this matter because it seems like you have a broader perspective than most.

I know, I said I was done opining on this (I can hear the groans now), but what WhitRat just said is pretty central to this debate. This is really more about California and the culture than anything else. With 7 national parks, and a slew of other federally-administered lands, your state will be impacted more than any other by this new law. On the heels of the Supreme Court's overturning DC's gun ban, and another landmark gun-ban case pending this year, a core precept of the Cali culture is being shocked to the roots. I think it's understandable that many native Californians, who have felt pretty much gun-free for most, if not all, of their lives are apprehensive, unsettled and even angry.

The point of my prior posts, here and elsewhere, is simply to point out that you're not venturing into new, uncharted territory where the wild west suddenly comes alive again. Commonplace firearm ownership-and-carry have been the norm forever for the vast majority of us who live somewhere other than the northeast and the west coast - for good or ill, it just is people, and it's about to become a new norm for certain parts of California. As of last month it became legal to carry a firearm into your parks and other federal lands, and nothing is going to change that in the near future. No matter how you feel about it, you have to accept that you're going to see legal open-carry sidearms in Yosemite, Kings, Sequoia, Redwoods, Lassen, Death Valley, Joshua Tree and elsewhere this spring and summer. All the anger you can collectively summon won't change that - in fact, it may make it worse.

So given that unalterable fact, all that's really left for those Californians who take a dim view of this change is how to respond. I wholeheartedly agree that open-carry in a peaceful, family-friendly area such as a campground can border on antagonism and even intimidation, but you're stuck with that as the only real option for those who insist on carrying because it takes an act of God to obtain a concealed-carry permit in most of the Golden State. I supect that Mike, Ken, Icy, Alan and others who have weighed in strongly on this topic would feel less uncomfortable with a concealed-carry situation. Unfortunately, that's not an option at this point.

So, as a 52 YO dude who has lived his entire life in that world you're about to experience, my advice to you when you see that guy (or gal) with a Glock on their hip is to ignore them. Personally, I don't see the sense for a man to walk into a Grizzly-free national park with a firearm, but like WhitRat said, I can't see into their souls. Most people who carry a legal firearm do so for a reason, not just to be intimidating. The one thing you can be sure of in California is that if someone has a firearm permit, they've been vetted pretty well and probably register very low on the risk meter. However, some legal carriers do love the attention. If that carrier is the type you worry about - the "look at me and quake" badass - nothing shrivels and deflates his motivation more quickly than apathy. The more attention you give him - good or bad, just like a child - the more you reinforce the "correctness" of his carrying openly. I firmly believe that park rangers all across the country are hoping for a helluva lot of apathy from the non-carriers. I'm sure the last thing they need in their jobs is the tension of someone vigorously exercising their free speech rights in the face of another exercising their 2nd amendment rights.

A lifetime of experience in a heavily-armed state (by California standards, anyway) tells me that the vast majority of gun-owners just don't bother taking their guns out of their car or homes unless they have a reasonable self-protection motivation for doing so. Let's face it, it's a pain in the ass to haul a sidearm around when you don't need to. A BlackBerry on my hip is more than I want to carry most days, let alone a 2 or 3-pound pistol. I have no doubt that you folks will see an initial flurry of open-carry firearms this spring in the parks. Hey, it's new, and exciting, and liberating for all those who have felt shackled by California's gun laws for so long. I also bet you see a significant drop in the visual evidence of firearms by mid-to-late summer or so, unless something happens to galvanize that group. It'll become a chore and a pain and not all that liberating after a while, and most carriers will ask themselves, "Why the hell am I doing this?". Attrition by boredom.

And just to clarify, I am not "pro-gun" nor an enthusiast. I own several firearms - two pistols, a shotgun and a .22 rifle - but haven't carried on my person in over 25 years. Once my daughter began to walk 9 years ago, the Glock came out of my vehicle and went into the gun safe. It only comes out for trips to downtown Atlanta and the (increasingly rare) jaunt to the firing range. Other than a few years in the late '70s to mid '80s, firearms have been pretty low on my personal priority list. I do, however, believe the 2nd amendment is real and that firearm ownership, with reasonable limitations, is a citizen's right in our country.

I will now return to my not-posting mode . . .

Although I am a native Californian who owns no guns, I did live in Upstate NY for 20+ years and am familiar with encountering people carrying guns around (for hunting). Since I ran a lot, I had to make some adjustments every year during hunting season. I never had any major problems with the whole business. I will reserve judgment on the present argument.

I am really confused. There seems to be a mixing of definitions, laws and scenarios that are incompatible.

Rat: I don't understand your assertion as to my post. I guess that the statement of someone pulling a gun to commit a crime was not descriptive enough. Other than someone holding up the bears to get their food back, I was commenting on the "open carry" scenario in civilization. Those folks I find disturbed. People in wilderness, I'd only find misinformed and uneducated about the environment that they would be in, mainly.

Bulldog, I am confused by your post. My understanding is that the law change had to do with concealed weapons, not open carry.
You said: "No matter how you feel about it, you have to accept that you're going to see legal open-carry sidearms in Yosemite, Kings, Sequoia, Redwoods, Lassen, Death Valley, Joshua Tree and elsewhere this spring and summer. All the anger you can collectively summon won't change that - in fact, it may make it worse."

However, the law change had nothing to do with open carry, so it would appear to me that your statement, above, is not correct. Do I misunderstand?

You say: "So, as a 52 YO dude who has lived his entire life in that world you're about to experience, my advice to you when you see that guy (or gal) with a Glock on their hip is to ignore them. Personally, I don't see the sense for a man to walk into a Grizzly-free national park with a firearm, but like WhitRat said, I can't see into their souls. Most people who carry a legal firearm do so for a reason, not just to be intimidating."

So you see someone acting in a way that is not sensible to you, with the ability to take life instantly, whose reason is not understandable to you, and you would ignore them? Uhhhh....no.

I also don't know how in one sentence you say you cannot see into a person's soul for their reason for carrying, then in the next, reassure that you know for a fact that they are not carrying to be intimidating. That doesn't make sense. And they ARE intimidating. And they know it.

Hmmm...I wonder what the result would be if an open carry person say around the Ansel Adams Gallery on Yosemite Valley floor was pointed out as carrying a gun by someone yelling out to all those around to not look like a bear, rapist, criminal, mugger, pot farmer, etc. for fear of getting shot in self defense. Would that embolden the open carrier or make them feel like an ass?