Looks like some Maine legislators are crapping their pants about the new park rule. This would also prohibit carrying firearms on the Appalachian Trail through Maine as well. Who needs guns on the Appalachian Trail? I mean, it’s not like bears are anything to worry about either. It’s perfectly safe, really. Besides, you can always carry a whistle.
I note the Appalachian Trail Conservancy is supporting this, thus ensuring they will never see a dime of my money, and the next time I see them out on the trail heads recruiting or handing out literature I’m going to tell them why I want nothing to do with them:
“I believe allowing firearms on the Appalachian Trail is unnecessary, possibly dangerous and, simply put, a bad idea,†Proudman said. “Perhaps most important, we don’t want the culture to change.â€
Nice of you to impose your choice on me jackass by using the government to lock me up if I choose differently. Screw the Appalachian Trail Conservatory. Don’t give those turds any money.
I’ve fired shots & “seal bombs” to scare off polar bears, but I never felt I had anything to fear from black bears unless perhaps hiking alone. But when it comes to the 2-footed predator, I feel I have a lot to fear in remote areas. Aside from the pot grow & meth production operations found on public lands throughout the country, you also have a fair number of very sketchy people who hang out in remote areas.
The following is from Wikipedia’s article on the Appalachian Trail, and represents only a sample of the crimes committed in the back country against unarmed people who thought crime was an urban past-time:
“Violent crime, including murder, has occurred on the trail in a few instances. Most have been crimes by non-hikers who crossed paths relatively randomly with the AT hiker-victims. The official website of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy points out that the number of violent crimes is extremely low when compared against the number of people (3 to 4 million) who hike on the trail every year.[26]
Nine homicides have been documented on the trail since the first reported homicide in Georgia in 1974.[citation needed] In 1981, the issue of violence on the Appalachian Trail received national attention when Robert Mountford Jr. and Laura Susan Ramsay, both social workers in Ellsworth, Maine, were murdered by Randall Lee Smith.[27] Another homicide occurred in May 1996, when two women were abducted, bound and murdered near the trail in Shenandoah National Park. The primary suspect was later discovered harassing a female bicycler in the vicinity[28] but charges against him were dropped, and the case remains unsolved.[29]
On May 6, 2008, Randall Lee Smith, the killer of Mountford and Ramsay in 1981, shot two fishermen from Virginia near the trail in Giles County, Virginia, not far from the site of his 1981 murder; he then stole their pickup truck but crashed it and was imprisoned. The fishermen survived, but Smith died in jail four days later,[30] most likely from an acute pulmonary thromboembolism incurred when he crashed the pickup truck.[31]”
In the woods, I go armed.
I resigned my support via there web site comments section.
These asshats will learn that my God Given Rights are more important than there fear of guns.
Snakes, rabid skunks, rabid raccoons are all out there. I blow my whistle unless they keep coming forward!These groups are major asshats!!
@DannyTheMan: Don’t forget the growing numbers of coyotes, not to mention their diminishing fear of people. A pair of coyotes killed a 19-year-old woman just north of Acadia in Nova Scotia last fall.
Interesting comment about “not wanting the culture to change.” As an historic trail that connects hundreds of early hunting trails, game trails, go-to-market trails, etc., I’d say that the “culture” of the Appalachian trail has been rife with the carry of weapons – clubs, bows, muskets, and Kentucky rifles – for hundreds, if not thousands of years.
Out west you identify grizzly scat through its inclusion of small bells and because it smells faintly of pepper…
I’ve always worried more about two-legged varmints than any of the four-legged ones when I’m in a wilderness area. By definition, it’s pretty much without any law enforcement presence.
My father loved Acadia National Park, and when he passed away, it was one of the charities that we asked mourners to donate to in lieu of flowers. To see them supporting this now is a real kick in the teeth.
It’s frankly not a matter of whether or not there’s danger on the trail or how great that danger is. This is just another example of “why do you need to carry there?”
“I don’t usually carry a gun to anywhere in particular, but I do go places and do things. And I simply carry, wherever I might be.
While MS is rushing to change their state law to remove the prohibitions on guns-in-parks there.
I must say I’m more inclined to go national-parking in ME than in MS … but what the heck.
What kind of support is there for turning ME state parks into crime-free defense-free zones?
But I thought it was officially not about culture?