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Old January 21, 2009, 01:39 PM   #15
ZeSpectre
Senior Member
 
Join Date: June 4, 2007
Location: Shenandoah Valley
Posts: 3,276
Quote:
I hate to take the other side but I really would prefer to keep guns out of national parks. I go up to Shenandoah National Park as often as I can and there is no reason I can think of to have a gun there and frankly, it sort of spoils the reason I go there if there are armed people tramping around in the woods. Go to George Washington National Forest, just a stone's throw away if you feel at risk. It is legal and there are even a couple of shooting ranges.
BlueTrain,
Honestly I'm not intending to slam you, I'm just having a really hard time understanding your thinking.

There have always been "armed people tramping around" in SNP and if you don't think that's true you need a serious reality check!

Some of these people were legal (park rangers/park police), some illegal but non-threatening (folks who put their personal safety at a higher priority than park regulations), and others were illegal AND threatening (people of evil/malicious intent looking for easy prey).

The only thing that has changed in that part of the equation is that now folks who believe in self-responsibility and self-protection are no longer criminalized for that belief.

As for me I'm FAR more worried about the way I see people driving along Skyline and Blue Ridge Parkway than I am about lawful concealed carry.

but enough of the myopia, the issue is FAR larger especially when one considers the sheer size of many of the National Parks and the per-capita crime rate (which is really high) and the ratio of law enforcement per square mile (which is really small) not to mention the situations such as the ongoing drug pipeline war that exist in parks like Big Bend that run along our national borders.

I'm glad you feel safe enough to think that firearms have no place in parks, but I was camping only slightly more than two miles away from where Julianne Williams and Laura Winans were Murdered in 1996 and it gave me a different perspective on risk in our parks.

Last edited by ZeSpectre; January 21, 2009 at 02:06 PM.
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