"Bad things don't happen on the trail..." a/k/a "If she only had a pistol..."

This happened just up the road from me a couple months before I set out on the A.T. myself in 08. I was home for a week in april and went up there by the little makeshift memorial they had set up. Sad sad case. I think armchair quarterbacking the whole thing is a little in bad taste really. Criminals are criminals because they dont fight fair. if she had had a weapon or not she might not have even had a chance to use it. Im sure the sorry sack of **** didnt square off to her and say "draw". It not always like the movies guys.
 
Mentor said:
Carry if you want to. Don't carry if you don't want to. And don't tell those who choose to differently that they're ignorant, misinformed, irresponsible, etc.

That's my $0.02 CDN.
Click to expand...

That's basically my opinion on everything, the older I get. On religion, guns, the whole nine yards, vegetarianism, etc.

Let me ask you this, however. If someone could legally carry a handgun, not a situation like they would have to be breaking the law, and chose not to and someone in their family died at the hands of an attacker - doesn't even have to be a human, could be a bear...how would that differ from someone not making someone use a seatbelt in their vehicle or a helmet on their ATV, resulting in their death or extreme injury?

At what point do we apply safety device status to a firearm or are they forever damned as evil?
 
in the minds of the government and the liberal types, and the anti gun people, yes, guns are evil.

to me they are a multipurpose tool
 
She didn't do the right things.She was unarmed.Humans became a super-predator and at the top of the food chain because of our technological advancements in weaponry.
Without a weapon in the eyes of many predators we're just a weak hairless ape.
A mountain lion,a bear or a pack of dogs could have made a meal out of that women or any human.Unfortunately the most dangerous game and the most twisted of animals got her.

This week the laws allowing pistol carry in National Parks went into effect.Learn from the past or repeat the mistakes.

The Samurai were made obsolete by farmers with single shot rifles.Martial Arts does not replace modern equipment.A serial killer with a pistol trumps a mixed marital artist or anyone else unarmed the vast majority of times.
Don't allow yourself to be brain-washed into believeing a gun is a weapon useful only for killing or evil.Guns save lives every day.Innocent lives well worth living.

Ted Nugent: "To my mind it is wholly irresponsible to go into the world incapable of preventing violence, injury, crime, and death. How feeble is the mindset to accept defenselessness. How unnatural. How cheap. How cowardly. How pathetic."
 
Bushman5 said:
in the minds of the government and the liberal types, and the anti gun people, yes, guns are evil.

to me they are a multipurpose tool
Click to expand...

No offence Bushman5, but you're painting with too broad a brush here. I am a 'liberal type', and I also happen to be in a line of work that often sees me sitting down with policymakers and stakeholders engaged in discussions about 'what to do about guns'. If your broad-strokes assessment were accurate, I would be railing against them and demonizing firearms owners. In reality, I have repeatedly gone on record in defence of firearms and firearms owners. I pay my OFAH dues and have, in years past, put a hell of a lot of lead downrange. Making categorical statements like the above doesn't win anyone over to your (our) cause, but it risks alienating potential allies.



Don, a firearm can definitely be a safety tool. Of course. But it's also - and primarily, by design - a deadly weapon. So it stands to reason that some consideration should be put into the decision whether or not (and where) to carry one. The seat belt analogy only holds up in a very limited sense. Using a seat belt is essentially a yes / no decision that requires no additional skill to execute. Further, a seat belt is a context-specific tool. It is worn (or not) in a car, and has no applications outside that setting (indeed, it really doesn't exist outside that setting). Also, bizarre scenarios aside, you cannot take someone's seat belt and use it to harm someone else. The helmet analogy makes much more sense to me, but, then, I choose not to wear a helmet when hiking either.

A lot of the debate over this comes down to a personal opinion about whether an 'armed society' is necessarily a 'safe(r) society'. I suspect that I will disagree with the pro-carry crowd on this one, but I certainly respect your opinions.

Best,

- Mike
 
if this thread continues with political discussion i forsee it being shut down or moved due to the fact you can't discuss politics outside of the PA.
 
Good shut it down. :mad:

Meredith was a little scrapper and definetely gave that guy what for before evil finally prevailed. She was prepared in her own way and in the manner she was comfortable with. She didnt just give up or not fight back. Sometimes the bad guys win, it doesnt mean the good guys werent prepared or were idiotic or "didnt do the right things" Just because they didnt do them the way someone else would do. The diference between Meredith and anyone talking crap about her on the internet is she was in the van. There wasnt any room for an armchair in there.

Sorry if Im coming off defensive but this particular story hits close to home. Ill try to stay out of it.
 
Mentor said:
Carry if you want to. Don't carry if you don't want to. And don't tell those who choose to differently that they're ignorant, misinformed, irresponsible, etc.

That's my $0.02 CDN.
Click to expand...

Well said. Choosing whether to carry is all about weighing risk vs. reward. More people die from lighting strikes in the wilderness than do by being attacked - yet how many of us take any precautions to protect ourselves from it? How many of us keep hiking in a thunderstorm, rather than seeking low ground and cover? Are we going to rail against people, calling them irresponsible and ignorant, if they hike in a storm?


I am a big supporter of firearm rights, but the ridiculous attitudes of some people - who think you aren't a real man unless you've got a gun - are almost enough to make me want to ban guns just to spite those obnoxious people.
 
I feel bad for her. I'll remember her as a brave woman.

Common sense tells me that bad guys would think twice about doing bad things if they knew the victim might be "armed and dangerous".

Leave the politics out of it and think simply.
 
I enjoyed reading about this woman fighting the scum - good for her having martial arts training and good for her breaking his hand! I am saddened that she didn't manage to prevail in the fight for her life though - it seems like it was a close run thing.

TBH I disagree about the importance of being armed - you can lose a weapon or have it taken off you. Being trained in martial arts is more valuable because you are equipped to defend yourself wherever you are.

The lesson to learn from this poor woman's ordeal is probably to fight harder at the first instance - break his hand, break his nose, kick his groin, kick his knees as hard as possible - don't take no shit from no scumbag! It sounded like she was suckered by his claim that he only wanted her CC - I would advise any woman to never trust this sort of scum on anything he says, don't go with him, don't stop fighting! Also don't be afraid to kill or maim - better he dies than you! Better a scumbag is lost to the world than a brave & tough woman!

Life imprisonment or execution - either way society deserves to be safe from the likes of this guy.
 
sounds like she didn't even have a strong hiking stick.


she got Darwin'd.


glad they got the guy.

vec
 
I think everybody is forgetting surprise element "Ambush" if you lake!
A gun,machine gun, a knife, a big body will not help you, especially if someone wants you dead.

Sad story, very ugly raport too
 
That story rips my guts out.

I had a run in with a creepy bast*rd out hunting one time..i had my little sister with me.. But the situation went my way...
 
we can discuss this without calling people ****holes. There should be more topics like this, and there should be similar discussion with the guberment types.
 
Mentor said:
No offence Bushman5, but you're painting with too broad a brush here. I am a 'liberal type', and I also happen to be in a line of work that often sees me sitting down with policymakers and stakeholders engaged in discussions about 'what to do about guns'. If your broad-strokes assessment were accurate, I would be railing against them and demonizing firearms owners. In reality, I have repeatedly gone on record in defence of firearms and firearms owners. I pay my OFAH dues and have, in years past, put a hell of a lot of lead downrange. Making categorical statements like the above doesn't win anyone over to your (our) cause, but it risks alienating potential allies.



Don, a firearm can definitely be a safety tool. Of course. But it's also - and primarily, by design - a deadly weapon. So it stands to reason that some consideration should be put into the decision whether or not (and where) to carry one. The seat belt analogy only holds up in a very limited sense. Using a seat belt is essentially a yes / no decision that requires no additional skill to execute. Further, a seat belt is a context-specific tool. It is worn (or not) in a car, and has no applications outside that setting (indeed, it really doesn't exist outside that setting). Also, bizarre scenarios aside, you cannot take someone's seat belt and use it to harm someone else. The helmet analogy makes much more sense to me, but, then, I choose not to wear a helmet when hiking either.

A lot of the debate over this comes down to a personal opinion about whether an 'armed society' is necessarily a 'safe(r) society'. I suspect that I will disagree with the pro-carry crowd on this one, but I certainly respect your opinions.

Best,

- Mike
Click to expand...

I completely agree with you on this. And personally I dont see how a gun is a multi purpose tool, to me they were designed with a single use in mind and while that use can be good or bad I think there are a lot of alternatives to guns that can be just as or more effective for self defense.
 
Calebklyne said:
I completely agree with you on this. And personally I dont see how a gun is a multi purpose tool, to me they were designed with a single use in mind and while that use can be good or bad I think there are a lot of alternatives to guns that can be just as or more effective for self defense.
Click to expand...

- target shooting
- hunting
- professional competition
- LEO usage
- defensive
- teaching tool
- and yes, even killing people

a VERY multi purpose tool.
 
I don't usually post in threads like these as it's akin to p***ing into a tornado.
Please, show a little respect for the woman. Just because she didn't have a gun, stick, axe, knife, rocket launcher doesn't automatically make her an imbecilic sheep ready for the slaughter.
Aside from a very small slipjoint, I don't carry any weapons on a daily basis (I wouldn't class a slipjoint as a weapon, but in a pinch it can be deployed as one). If I'm shot in a bank robbery, does this automatically enter me for a Darwin award?
 
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