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R.B.
Trad climber
Land of the Lahar
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It's true, you'd have to be pretty quick on the draw.
(good kitty photo, meow!)
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RDB
Social climber
way out there
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"you post photos of people eaten by bears, i'll post photos of people accidentally killed by guns. lets see who can post more."
Slow down now :)
My point of the obviously really gross bear mauling pictures is to show what kind of damage a bear can do in very short order...they aint pets.
I am way more likely to shoot a human in self defense than any bear. A bear is doing what it does naturally and manifest destiny aside, I like wondering around in the back woods...and having a grizzly there makes it even more fun for me. But I aint going to let one eat me for crimney sakes. Bears don't have fantasies about playing with humans...you are just food or just scary to them not much in between.
People get shot for all sorts of reasons. Some even deserve it. Seen very few bear that did. But just because a bear didn't deserve it, I draw a line at any humans a happy meals.
Like i said, I wasn't there and I doubt the bear "had" to be shot but I won't get my panties in a bunch telling everyone that the guy made the wrong choice either.
The bear certainly had the ability to kill both hikers in very short order.
But I would have rather not seen the bear killed.
Couple of ways this could have gone...
bluff charge, no action required, good idea to leave the area
bluff charge, and pepper spray would have reinforced the bluff
real charge and female hiker mauled
real charge bear wounded and crawled off to die
real charge, bear wonded and kills one or both hikers
First and last are the most likely. These two got off lucky imo.
Bear and humans untouched is the best option. Past that it goes down hill fast. Humans generally being accepted as the more intelligent species should be required to plan ahead and have more options than just a firearm. But I don't resent the guy for having a firearm or using it if he thought it was required.
I don't go to known bear country (s.e. Alaska bush for example) without a firearm. But I have hiked and climbed in griz country most all my life and live with bears seasonally at my rural home.
I differ my peceptions of bear country by...bears likely to see humans as food and those that don't. Inland grizzley will kill you if surprised but are more likely to run in the lower 48. Wilderness Brown bears may eat you as an option and kill you when surprised but seldom do they fear you. Scary bear to meet in the wild, armed or unarmed. They know you are meat and you certainly recognise you are meat.
All this knowing full well black bears kill more people every year than grizzley or Brown ever do, but I don't walk around my property with a firearm. I do have one handy how ever because fido doesn't want to be a happy meal either.
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franky
Trad climber
Bishop, CA
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real animals with inflated populations due to lack of predators? are those the ones you are talking about. And yeah, my posts came off a bit extreme. I simply believe that people are in more danger in parks now that the gun rules have changed, and i have a hard time believing that the individual in the story was defending himself against a bear that wanted to kill him. If that bear wanted to kill him, i think it would have.
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rwedgee
Ice climber
canyon country,CA
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Bear policies differ from place to place as I learned from a visit to grizzley country "Saw 3 bears. Their bear policy is different than the Valley. They instruct you to put food IN, yes IN your car. If a bear comes in or near a camp ground they "haze" it once then kill it if it comes back. "You'all too liberal out there in California" was the response I was given." No shortage of bears so far.
From the TR
http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/620901/Yellowstone-TR
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RDB
Social climber
way out there
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Gun rights so more thread drift..
"Besides if I needed a gun it certainly would not be difficult to take one away from most of the group I'm talking about because most of them are geriatric patients....I bet they make up the majority of the NRA's dues paying members. They are real believers and often feel a little afraid because they aren't so well off physically."
Easy for "us" to condem that crowd (those looking for a firearm to feel physically capable) Not so easy to put ourselves in their place as even the most unfit here is generally way better off than the norm in the general population.
Not a huge fan of the NRA as I don't believe gun rights or gun control issues should be fear based. But lots of people do fear something they think a gun might solve, what they can/might not physically.
(more on toipic)
At some point they are right. Like this bear incident there are many ways this incident might have happened and ended. Best case would have been hikers and bear survive unharmed. But if the shooter truely feared for their lives or just his friends then the handgun was the only reasonable answer he had available. And a 45acp was a piss poor answer for a inland grizzley. But it worked in this case.
A geriatric patient is not likely to be the best skilled or the best trained to use a firearm safely, or in the best circumstances, but sadly it might be the only option they have between death and survival.
I find it interesting that those (climbers in particular) that are so quick to condemn firearms as a legitimate item for self defense don't look at incidents like these and wonder what they would do without a firearm?
Rape, home invasion, murder, bear or cougar attack? Not likely that I will ever be a victim of any of them (white middle class male) but I'd like some options as a response if they did. A women is raped every 1.3 minutes in America according to the DOJ. 1 out of every three in their life times.
You either choose very carefully where you go and with whom or chance it like going into grizzley country without a firearm. Or you protect yourself as required, be prepared and go where ever you want and hope you can/have made the right decisions.
BTW I have also known people killed by gun accidents and people killed by guns that were not accidents. We all play at a funny sport here. That we see people die on almost a daily basis and no one seems too concerned about those choices we all make, seems a little more than strange to me.
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Scared Silly
Trad climber
UT
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Seems to me the parks are looking at the shootings and not every shooting ends up being justified:
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_15194552
Grizzly death case could set precedent
Jackson, Wyo. » The successful prosecution of a Jackson Hole hunter who claimed self defense after killing a grizzly could set a precedent in Greater Yellowstone, where the grizzly population is expanding and loaded guns are now allowed in national parks, experts say.
...
However, this incident will likely mean they will not be reported.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Haveing been a serious compettition shooter and hanging out with countless gun nuts shooting the sh#t for the many hours that you spend waiting your turn to shootat pistol matches I tend to agree that most folks who carry 24/7 shouldn't.
Unless you actually do live or work in a situation where deadly force is likly to be used against you, carrying 24/7 is a bad sign and not healtly. And yes it does indicate a desire to use that custom hardware...
Situational carry is an entirely different animal. You choose to carry in a situation where that tool has a high probibility of being needed.
You lug your trad rack arround Rumny all day and chances are pretty good that you are a pathetic, fat, over the hill tradster that can't get up any of the decent bolted climbs. You bring your trad rack to Cannon on the other hand and you are styling.
Same thing goes for guns. Where you bring your guns says a lot about who you are.
Bear story. Old guy I cooked with in Wyo told me he had a brown bear wander into his kitchen @ the logging camp he was working at in AK. One round in the eye from his .41mag and the crew was eating bear meat for dinner.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Good one TMC.
I was thinking of mentioning the .41 mag. also.
A dark horse round with outstanding ballistic performance.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Funny how these days eveyone needs some crazy .338 mag rifle or .500 pistol. BINTD when people actually shot Grizzel Bars for a liveing they used whatever they had which was more often than not a .30-30
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ionlyski
Trad climber
Kalispell, Montana
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ionlyski...it was a joke, and one we used to hear a lot when I was on shot
Alright Felio, you passed the test. Yeah, it's true, people actually use the bear spray on themselves. The label on the can say's "repellent" so they just think it works like bug dope, AKA DEET. Happens every year.
Arne
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Having lived in Alaska whether we hiked 'hot' or not was sort of
what keeps Vegas alive. In the words of Clint, "Are you feeling lucky today, punk?"
After I was the undoubted object of desire of a hungry white bear (a redundancy, I know)
I rarely felt lucky without Clint's favorite onboard.
A few years ago my mother-in-law took us on a cruise that stopped in Kodiak. The wife and I went to Rent-a-Wreck and drove off for a hike in some prime Kodiak country. I felt so stoopid making all that noise. No, I felt stoopid being unarmed.
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Mark Not-circlehead
Boulder climber
Martinez, CA
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Maybe if Timothy Treadwell had a .45, he wouldn't be bear sh#t now............. (not that he would have used it, mind you, as he had sero=iuous mental defects).
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Maybe Timothy Treadwel was meant to be bear sh#t?
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Klimmer
Mountain climber
San Diego
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I have a very good friend from Canada who was also one of my best men at my wedding. He is a wildlife biologist and a college professor, climber, and also into paragliding.
He teaches college courses for Canadian inuits for Wildlife Management, Biology, Ecology, Wilderness Survival, and courses in indiginious methods like flinting etc. He is really good at what he does. The natives come to him to learn the arts they once knew, he is that good.
Throw Jim out into the Artic, butt-naked, and he will survive. He knows what he is doing. I tease Jim and say, "You know at the end of the World all that will survive are roaches and Jim."
When they do wildlife studies in Grizzly Bear country they carry firearms. Also Polar Bears will hunt man. They will literally seek you out and eat you if given the opportunity. To go into any of their habitat you better be ready, and to be ready . . .
You carry a gun.
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snaps10
Mountain climber
Visalia, CA
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Last year I saved the lives of three foreign tourists by driving my car directly at a bear, as it was charging them in Sequoia National Park.
Should I have just let them get attacked, because it's a dangerous animal in the wild?
Quite presumptious to say the guy just up and wanted to shoot a grizzly.
Here's a possible scenario.
Grizzly charges woman.
Man, who is trained with his firearm, draws and shoots grizzly.
Man gets some that night for saving woman's life.
Why throw the guy under the bus before anything is known? Guilty until proven innocent?
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nick d
Trad climber
nm
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 1, 2010 - 03:50pm PT
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Seriously Rochead? You cant even manage to post a coherant argument, much less an intelligent one.
By the way,in case its beyond your vocabulary, geriatric means old and infirm. And they would be an easy source if I wanted a gun to commit a crime with.
A guy of just that description was present last year at a local Walmart while a domestic violence (I think, it was not the pertinent part of the story) was occuring. He vowed to set things right with his concealed weapon.
Did he? Well the only person who got shot was one of the clerks at the store. He didn't have anything to do with it.
I understand the fear some of these people feel but having a hangun does not make them safer, and it gives them the ability to inflict damage on innocent people.
And I asked this before, but would you be cool with them opening fire in North Pine Campground because they were "menaced" by one or more bears?
Here's my perspective based on a recent observation on the bus. I ride the bus to work every day and naturally I see a lot of the same faces. I saw a guy that I see all the time, both on the bus and occasionally at work. So he's on the bus jacking around with the stuff he is carrying and manages to drop his hangun on the floor. He then needed assistance to pick up his gun as he was not able to bend down and pick it up.
I was bellitled as being too "unmanly" to be able to carry a gun, so it seems that you guys are identifying the above mentioned dude as your idea of a "real" man.
Not sure I get identifying yourself with what might be the lowest common denominators in shooting, personally I would rather hold myself apart from fanatics. This is the same crowd you hear on TV shouting white supremecy slogans at Sarah Palin's rallies.
Maybe Roxy will go out and get in another fistfight to assuage his (self-described) violent temper. So this is another observation, if you cannot control your emotions then probably you shouldnt go armed 24/7. It sounds like you mostly get your a*s kicked, so is that what the gun is for? Just dying to shoot somebody for a little payback? I know you are afraid of wild animals as well, so maybe you should move to an urban setting like NYC.
Yeah, yeah, cant go out without a gun in a super-dangerous place like that. Of course the chances of dying by gunshot are way worse out West than NYC. Maybe there's just too many guys like you with guns.
I'm sorry you live with so much fear, I'm sure its really hard.
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Overheard at the base of the Jam Crack after a tragic firearm incident:
"I tell that you that guy with the rack of cams was coming right at me!"
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nick d
Trad climber
nm
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 1, 2010 - 05:15pm PT
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Actually, I do not consider myself invincible, even though you made that claim for me.
Thanks for recognizing my awesome studness!
You sound like a really immature guy, not too smart to boot. I say that because you cannot stay out of trouble, and sounds like you have a police record.
My whole point, which not one of the posters has made a cogent argument against, is that not everyone belongs everywhere. And if you cannot go to the woods without needing to kill all the animals you see, just don't go.
Simple.
I am a loner and have had the majority of my outdoor experiences alone. I have been afraid at times but i dont need a handgun to go outdoors. For one a gun does not make me safer. For another I usually need my carrying capacity for the stuff that actually keeps you alive, you know, food and water.
On some level I am armed. With an IQ in the high 150s, that is! Pretty sure no animal can outwit me and I look around a lot. That is how you really stay safe in the woods, not by killing everything in sight.
And again, anyone care to offer some intelligent discussion about the shooting up Yosemite idea? Because I bet it's coming sooner than later!
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