[at-l] gun questions

[saunterer@jimbullard.org (saunterer@jimbullard.org)]

At 01:27 PM 1/28/02 -0600, Phil Heffington wrote:
>2.  Where are the places on the trail where federal, state or local gun
>permits are necessary to carry a gun?

In NY it is necessary to obtain a permit for any handgun not merely a 
'concealed' one.

>What criteria do you use to evaluate whether an item's potential use is 
>worth the weight of carrying it?

Well a gun wouldn't cut it for me.  Some of the more mathematical types on 
the list could probably run the odds of "needing" a gun against the number 
of people on the AT in a given year.  Frankly I expect that the odds of 
winning the lottery are better than the odds of needing a gun to protect 
myself on the AT.  The bear story quoted as justification for carrying a 
gun is the one and only incident of it's type I've heard of in the Eastern 
US in the last, what did they say, 100 years?  If I used that potential use 
as a criteria for bringing (insert whatever) along I couldn't hike for all 
the junk I'd be dragging with me.  For that matter I probably couldn't find 
a large enough motor home to carry it all driving to Maine.

Two or three years ago I read an article (Backpacker magazine) about bear 
country (Griz type) and there were several tales that rangers told about 
people who were killed by bears including those who carried guns.  Unless 
you have a big enough gun, you see the bear coming in time, you can get the 
gun out and are a good enough shot... well, the endings weren't pretty.

Life is full of uncertainty.  We can't be prepared for absolutely 
everything in the sense of having the proper equipment, tools, whatever at 
hand exactly when needed.  The point is to be prepared for reasonably 
foreseeable problems and use our wits for the rest.  Those who aren't 
willing to deal with those odds should consider never leaving their houses.

sAunTerer