I've repeatedly stated that guns are not a magic talisman and are no substitute for common sense and awareness of your surroundings. So here's a scenario for you. You are asleep at night in your tent in a campground, and you wake up to hear a bear rummaging through your ice chest. Do you:
- a) roll over and go back to sleep, knowing that you moved all the food from the ice chest into a bear-proof canister before going to bed and thus the bear is going to go away in a bit,
- b) grab a couple of pots and pans, unzip your tent, stand up to look tall, and start clanging and shouting in an attempt to scare the bear away, or
- c) grab your .45 ACP and a flashlight, and charge at the bear yelling at him "Go away or I'll shoot you!"?
So anyhow, this dumbass managed to get a bear killed due to his stupidity. I hope he feels proud of himself, 23 stitches and all.
-- Badtux the Bearly Penguin
Your average Second Amendment freakazoid nutjob has no more idea of how to use a gun than I do of how to perform neurosurgery (and probably a whole helluva lot less, come to think of it). He should concentrate on his right to bare arms.
ReplyDeleteHe's some rare form of idiot, this guy.
As vs. the right to arm bears ;).
ReplyDeleteSo anyhow, one of the lessons I learned from my daddy growing up was this: Guns are for shootin', not for wavin' around like magic talismans. If you ain't gonna shoot the damned thing, leave it in the holster. And if you're gonna shoot the thing, shoot to kill -- that's the whole purpose of a gun, to kill things. If you ain't gonna shoot to kill, leave the damned thing at home, 'cause whatever you shoot at will just take it away from ya and ram it up your ass.
Now, good ole' Daddy was a salty dog (ex USN) but didn't *quite* use the language above (heh!). But thing is, he was right. A gun is for killin', not for waving around like a friggin' magic talisman. Ascribing magic to a gun is just a way to end up having the thing rammed up your ass shortly before you're very, very dead.
- Badtux the Rude Penguin
I don't ever plan on pointing a gun at another human but if it should come to be it's going to be business I guarantee you.
ReplyDeleteThis bear did not have to be killed.
Last year what I considered one of our bears entered a home through an open window. Next day the wardens were around and one of them told me that same bear entered the same house and they got him and two others not far away that were just hanging out along the creek.
The sonsofbitches baited that bear because rich fuckers were complaining. That's wrong and much of the time this is the problem as well.
Beaver Creek White Trash Causing Bears To Be Killed
Being as I go camping at least once a month I know a bit about this. Of course anymore I camp in a 5th wheel but maybe that's beside the point.
ReplyDeleteI still tent some also if I don't feel like taking the camper, when I do I put my food and cooler in the truck at night.
As for a gun, I pack one all the time when camping but I grew up in the mountains of Idaho I would start pulling the trigger as soon as a bear looked cross ways at me.
I bought a new pistol a few weeks ago, with a ten shot clip, it'll stop any of the puny little bears around here but I've never had a problem with one of them.
BBC, a .45 automatic or .44 Magnum revolver *might* stop a black bear but it's an iffy thing. They have hard sloped heads that steel-jacketed bullets tend to ricochet off of and their hearts are protected inside a lot of blubber. You don't want to go hunting a blackie voluntarily with anything smaller than a .30-06.
ReplyDeleteAround here, if you leave food in your car, the bear will simply smash the window in with his paw, then rip the door off to get at the food. You need to store your food in a bear-proof container in the California Sierras or it will be bear chow. Just how it is, we're trespassing on their territory, not the other way around, and failing to put your food into a bear-proof container eventually ends up with a dead bear. Unless you're idiotic enough to try to take the food back from the bear after the bear has already taken it -- like this moron with the .45 who was waving it around like a lunatic and rushing at the bear trying to scare it away -- at which point you get whacked by the bear and possibly become bear chow yourself.
- Badtux the Barely Penguin