The Australian Press are just as anti firearms as the UK media. There is a ferocious fear of all guns. Anything more than a staple gun is a high powered, fully automatic death dealing machine gun.
When you're on the menu. What would you do?
- Thread starter Quixoticgeek
- Start date
The Australian Press are just as anti firearms as the UK media. There is a ferocious fear of all guns. Anything more than a staple gun is a high powered, fully automatic death dealing machine gun.
The BSES/Eton College expedition which ended in tragedy in 2011 had no need to rely on "harsh words or a knife" to deal with the risk of polar bear attack, they appear to have access to all the tools needed to ensure the safety of the group, they just were not functioning or deployed properly and the person responsible for the rifle that was eventually used to despatch the bear tried firing it with the safety catch on.
There are clearly situations such as this one (where bears had been sighted and fresh bear spoor had been seen near the camp) where an objective assessment of the risk (or the need to comply with local laws) require the use of firearms. My point is that if the risk justifies carrying firearms to protect against dangerous wildlife, do it properly, post a watch, deploy perimeter alarms, stay sober (not an issue in the BSES case) and ensure that whoever is carrying the rifle has adequate training to be able to deter or despatch the animal before it reaches the tents - trying to shoot anything already in or around the tents particularly one wrestling with one of your companions, possibly in the dark has the potential to make a bad situation worse.
If the risk is theoretical rather than real then sleep tight safe in the knowledge that you are as likely to return home to find you have won the lottery as to wake up on the receiving end of a Revenant style mauling.
I'm not sure whether you have fallen for a deliberate April fool's gag but looking at the inscription on the barrel at the extreme right of the picture, I'm guessing that no grizzlies were harmed (give or take some microscopic wear to the barrel) in the incident.
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Sorry Countryman, I chose my words poorly. I meant when shooting my Grizzly Win Mag auto pistol. The engraving of a bear being the nearest I've been to one!
Clearly I no longer have it or the L Horton 44 Special.
K
Clearly I no longer have it or the L Horton 44 Special.
K
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Making a bunch of assumptions here. Often these issued rifles are Mauser K98's. The Press at the time were saying the rifle was very old (or well proven as some might say) The flag safety on a K98 is unusual and might account for "complicated safety"
In the heat of this terrible situation if the assumed K98 and assumed flag safety was only half way the rifle could be emptied but not fired.
Need for rifle I hope accepted. Need for utter familiarity with said firearm and the risks associated with shooting in the environment you outline was really my earlier point.
Handing that rifle to just anyone "as a talisman" is a waste of time/ a tragedy waiting to happen.
You need the training and familiarity with the given system but it helps if you are not going to fall apart under pressure. Seen many a shooter get "Buck Fever" under far more ideal circumstances.
I'd love to have the confidence of Joe's indigenous people in back country where bears are present to never feel the need to carry a rifle but clearly I never will so I'll continue to pack a .300 Win Mag.
They tend to be either k98s (complete with swastikas) or ruger m77s. Both of which have 3 position safety catches (early m77 had a tang safety).
There were many failings and the lack of training was just one. It does indeed seem that the rifle was carried as a talisman to comply with the law.
Everywhere in Svalbard the risk is real and I'm amazed that no one was held to account over the catalogue of errors that resulted in this tradgedy.
the shootings at Port Arthur might have to do with that.....
but according to my friends statements its comparably easy to get a licence for a hunting weapon ( repeaters only); most of my friends out bush keep a shotgun in case of snakes etc.
Yes they even banned .22 semi auto rifles after that. Again though has not changed their firearms crime statistics but then it's not the guys who apply and are successful in obtaining a licence you have to worry about.
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no idea reg. weapon he used, but I remember reading somewhere that Schwab was trained as a sharpshooter during his national service who wanted to "" put his training to the test"".....
I'm not anti-firearm, my concern reg. weapons for tourists in Alaska for bear protection is only that they could end up in the wrong hands or in the hands of someone without training--- there is a risk that they either they won't get the bear or mistake somebody else for one.....
Like Countryman said, even experienced hunters can get "buck fever." so when adrenalin is high missing the bear is possible.
Regarding "getting into the wrong hands, criminals will always find a way to get guns.
A couple of observations from an Englishman, about America & firearms, its your country do what you want, & I've been there & never got shot or saw anyone get shot !.
Going again, in July sadly this time to New York, no offence to those who call it home, but no city appeals to me...
Rob
Going again, in July sadly this time to New York, no offence to those who call it home, but no city appeals to me...
Rob
Ironically NY along with Chicago have some of the strictest gun laws in the country. On the bright side, it's doubtful there'll be any threats from bears.
I've only had to shoot something in self defense once. I was scoping out potential deer hunting spots in Mississippi when a boar that probably weighed 150 pounds comes rushing out of the brush about 15 yards ahead of me. Honestly i cannot say i even aimed, I just pulled out my sidearm and unloaded on it.
You are quite correct and I think that in going for a catchy thread title, the OP missed the point that large wild or domestic herbivores present at least as great a risk (hence my reference to UK bovine fatalities) to someone hiking and wild camping as predators. In the highly unlikely event of me killed by an animal, I'm not bothered whether the culprit consumes all or part of me or just wipes my blood off its hooves and wanders off eating buttercups. IME, healthy, non-habituated apex predators with access to their normal prey are less of a hazard than female large herbivores protecting their offspring or males pumped up with testosterone during the mating season.
I'd define a "gun enthusiast" as someone who collects or carries guns in situations where there is no objective reason to do so. You have chastised at least one contributor to this thread and dismissed a respected bushcraft expert as not knowing what he was doing for not carrying guns when entering wilderness areas where bears or other large or predatory animals may be present. What I'm trying to work out is whether carrying guns when out in the backcountry is just a cultural thing (i.e. you feel happier carrying a gun, because your daddy and grand daddy did) or whether this is an appropriate response to a real risk to life and limb.
If wikipedia is to be believed then annual fatalities caused by bears in the US run at around 1-2 a year which is a bit less than the annual toll of people accidentally killed by hunters in New York State or a bad month on the streets of Okaloosa County. Given the obsession with bears every time a thread like this comes up, I had assumed that the annual death toll from bears would have been in the hundreds or thousands. What I am struggling to understand is whether the preoccupation with bears in the US is justified by the real rather than perceived risk they present to humans and whether there is any evidence to suggest that these numbers would be significantly higher if people were not carrying guns.
The only statistics that I could find online (without paying for a scientific theses) for fatal animal attacks in the USA suggested that dogs (around 30 fatalities annually) and bees (around 50) present significantly higher risks than bears, wolves, mountain lions etc. etc. Inevitably the number of people heading into potential bear country will be significantly less than the population as a whole but objectively, it appears that carrying a protective bee suit is more relevant to the risks presented by US wildlife than a rifle!
Given how twitchy you guys seem to be about your native wildlife it is probably just as well that the hair-brained scheme to introduce African hippos to the Louisiana bayou a century ago came to nothing.
http://www.heraldguide.com/details.php?id=16250
To give a little perspective for those who have posted information on how big and bad @ssed North American wildlife can be as justification for carrying heavy ordnance into the back country, they are all pretty junior league compared with these guys; big males weigh in at 3 tonnes plus (about twice the size of a bison, 5 times the size of a polar bear, and about 8 times the size of a grizzly), add in 20" razor sharp teeth, a 20 mph top speed on land (which is not bad for a mainly aquatic animal) and a belligerent attitude in both environments - they kill Nile crocodiles (think a bigger, badder version of an alligator) and trash small fishing boats for fun and if the human fatalities caused by hippos in Africa was transposed onto the US population, there would be nearly 1000 deaths a year. For all their size and attitude, hippos know when they are outmatched and step aside when elephants turn up.
On a recent thread, much was made of the hazard from US snakes which cause about 6 fatalities a year, if the annual snake fatalities in India were transposed onto the US population, you would be looking at over 12,000 deaths a year. Clearly a large and expanding rural population working barefoot or in sandals on farms which are encroaching onto the bush and rudimentary healthcare will distort the figures but hopefully you get the point. To put that figure into perspective, it is roughly the same as the annual figure for firearm homicides in the US.
Although I'm a country boy from a country with a comparatively benign climate and fauna, I've been lucky enough to spend a fair proportion of my life travelling and experiencing foreign mountains, deserts, oceans, cultures, wildlife etc. including time working in Africa - because of some of the places I've been to recently, if I wanted to travel to the USA I'd have to apply for a visa as the usual visa waiver scheme for UK citizens does not apply because the US authorities fear I may have become a violent jihadist! One thing that has struck me on my travels is the almost complete absence of Americans (particularly young ones) travelling other than small numbers in organised groups. In contrast, you can't throw a stick in some remote places without hitting Dutch, German and antipodean 20 somethings travelling independently often on a shoestring budget. I had always assumed that the reason that Americans are not big on foreign travel was simply because because the USA is such a great place with a vast range of scenery, climate and wildlife but the more I read threads like this, I'm becoming convinced that its because you guys see the world as a dangerous place and if you can't take your guns with you, you are not going.
Statistics can be misleading but trust me, there will be people reading this thread marvelling at how benign north American fauna is but shocked that a civilised country tolerates the level firearms deaths that occur in the US.
For me, a large part of "bushcraft" is about identifying the minimum amount of appropriate kit to safely enjoy the outdoors - trust me, I'm not an ultralight fetishist and its a constant battle to avoid throwing another shiney toy in the pack "just in case". If you are not hunting, 4-5kg plus of rifle and ammunition is a lot of deadweight to lug around as a "talisman". Staying safe to me is simply about identifying potential hazards, deciding objectively what risk they present and then using an appropriate control to manage the risk. Carrying a gun is one of the range of control measures and (as with polar bears in Svalbard), there are clearly situations where that is appropriate but 500 people die a year in firearm accidents so it appears that sometimes the solution can be more hazardous than the problem. The problem is that if you are a hammer…..
I can't match Joe tahkahikew's lifetime experience in bear country but have spent enough time around African wildlife to understand the difference between the potential hazard an animal presents and the actual risk. Perhaps the following gives an idea of the difference in attitude between first world and first nation attitudes. A while ago I spent a year living in a remote village in the African bush. One day there was a hyena hanging around in the bushes between my house and the neighbours. A spotted hyena is about the size of a mountain lion and despite its reputation as a scavenger is a highly successful predator with a bite which is supposedly more powerful than a lion (lions gnaw bones, hyenas crush them which makes their faeces whitish) and in general you should be wary of any species where the female is not only larger and more powerful that the male but also has a bigger d!ck - g00gle it if you don't believe me! This was not a particularly big one and although I was not worried about my safety, I wandered over to my neighbour to warn her to keep an eye on the young kids playing in her garden. Something got lost in translation and a minute or two later a small posse of kids (the oldest no more than 8, the youngest little more than toddlers) armed with an array of sticks, brooms and other domestic tools were despatched to chase the hyena away from the mzungu's (white man's) house!
Are hippos the biggest killer in Africa with 3000 deaths a year? Not even close! The real risk is from something smaller than the nail on your pinky. If sub-Saharan African deaths from malaria were transposed onto the US population then 100,000 plus would be dying annually and at the risk of straying back on topic, as malaria seems to be re-establishing itself in parts of southern Europe, perhaps a good bug net and repellant should be regarded as essential parts of her kit.
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You are quite correct and I think that in going for a catchy thread title, the OP missed the point that large wild or domestic herbivores present at least as great a risk (hence my reference to UK bovine fatalities) to someone hiking and wild camping as predators. In the highly unlikely event of me killed by an animal, I'm not bothered whether the culprit consumes all or part of me or just wipes my blood off its hooves and wanders off eating buttercups. IME, healthy, non-habituated apex predators with access to their normal prey are less of a hazard than female large herbivores protecting their offspring or males pumped up with testosterone during the mating season.
I'd define a "gun enthusiast" as someone who collects or carries guns in situations where there is no objective reason to do so. You have chastised at least one contributor to this thread and dismissed a respected bushcraft expert as not knowing what he was doing for not carrying guns when entering wilderness areas where bears or other large or predatory animals may be present. What I'm trying to work out is whether carrying guns when out in the backcountry is just a cultural thing (i.e. you feel happier carrying a gun, because your daddy and grand daddy did) or whether this is an appropriate response to a real risk to life and limb.
If wikipedia is to be believed then annual fatalities caused by bears in the US run at around 1-2 a year which is a bit less than the annual toll of people accidentally killed by hunters in New York State or a bad month on the streets of Okaloosa County. Given the obsession with bears every time a thread like this comes up, I had assumed that the annual death toll from bears would have been in the hundreds or thousands. What I am struggling to understand is whether the preoccupation with bears in the US is justified by the real rather than perceived risk they present to humans and whether there is any evidence to suggest that these numbers would be significantly higher if people were not carrying guns.
The only statistics that I could find online (without paying for a scientific theses) for fatal animal attacks in the USA suggested that dogs (around 30 fatalities annually) and bees (around 50) present significantly higher risks than bears, wolves, mountain lions etc. etc. Inevitably the number of people heading into potential bear country will be significantly less than the population as a whole but objectively, it appears that carrying a protective bee suit is more relevant to the risks presented by US wildlife than a rifle!
Given how twitchy you guys seem to be about your native wildlife it is probably just as well that the hair-brained scheme to introduce African hippos to the Louisiana bayou a century ago came to nothing.
http://www.heraldguide.com/details.php?id=16250
To give a little perspective for those who have posted information on how big and bad @ssed North American wildlife can be as justification for carrying heavy ordnance into the back country, they are all pretty junior league compared with these guys; big males weigh in at 3 tonnes plus (about twice the size of a bison, 5 times the size of a polar bear, and about 8 times the size of a grizzly), add in 20" razor sharp teeth, a 20 mph top speed on land (which is not bad for a mainly aquatic animal) and a belligerent attitude in both environments - they kill Nile crocodiles (think a bigger, badder version of an alligator) and trash small fishing boats for fun and if the human fatalities caused by hippos in Africa was transposed onto the US population, there would be nearly 1000 deaths a year. For all their size and attitude, hippos know when they are outmatched and step aside when elephants turn up.
On a recent thread, much was made of the hazard from US snakes which cause about 6 fatalities a year, if the annual snake fatalities in India were transposed onto the US population, you would be looking at over 12,000 deaths a year. Clearly a large and expanding rural population working barefoot or in sandals on farms which are encroaching onto the bush and rudimentary healthcare will distort the figures but hopefully you get the point. To put that figure into perspective, it is roughly the same as the annual figure for firearm homicides in the US.
Although I'm a country boy from a country with a comparatively benign climate and fauna, I've been lucky enough to spend a fair proportion of my life travelling and experiencing foreign mountains, deserts, oceans, cultures, wildlife etc. including time working in Africa - because of some of the places I've been to recently, if I wanted to travel to the USA I'd have to apply for a visa as the usual visa waiver scheme for UK citizens does not apply because the US authorities fear I may have become a violent jihadist! One thing that has struck me on my travels is the almost complete absence of Americans (particularly young ones) travelling other than small numbers in organised groups. In contrast, you can't throw a stick in some remote places without hitting Dutch, German and antipodean 20 somethings travelling independently often on a shoestring budget. I had always assumed that the reason that Americans are not big on foreign travel was simply because because the USA is such a great place with a vast range of scenery, climate and wildlife but the more I read threads like this, I'm becoming convinced that its because you guys see the world as a dangerous place and if you can't take your guns with you, you are not going.
Statistics can be misleading but trust me, there will be people reading this thread marvelling at how benign north American fauna is but shocked that a civilised country tolerates the level firearms deaths that occur in the US.
For me, a large part of "bushcraft" is about identifying the minimum amount of appropriate kit to safely enjoy the outdoors - trust me, I'm not an ultralight fetishist and its a constant battle to avoid throwing another shiney toy in the pack "just in case". If you are not hunting, 4-5kg plus of rifle and ammunition is a lot of deadweight to lug around as a "talisman". Staying safe to me is simply about identifying potential hazards, deciding objectively what risk they present and then using an appropriate control to manage the risk. Carrying a gun is one of the range of control measures and (as with polar bears in Svalbard), there are clearly situations where that is appropriate but 500 people die a year in firearm accidents so it appears that sometimes the solution can be more hazardous than the problem. The problem is that if you are a hammer…..
I can't match Joe tahkahikew's lifetime experience in bear country but have spent enough time around African wildlife to understand the difference between the potential hazard an animal presents and the actual risk. Perhaps the following gives an idea of the difference in attitude between first world and first nation attitudes. A while ago I spent a year living in a remote village in the African bush. One day there was a hyena hanging around in the bushes between my house and the neighbours. A spotted hyena is about the size of a mountain lion and despite its reputation as a scavenger is a highly successful predator with a bite which is supposedly more powerful than a lion (lions gnaw bones, hyenas crush them which makes their faeces whitish) and in general you should be wary of any species where the female is not only larger and more powerful that the male but also has a bigger d!ck - g00gle it if you don't believe me! This was not a particularly big one and although I was not worried about my safety, I wandered over to my neighbour to warn her to keep an eye on the young kids playing in her garden. Something got lost in translation and a minute or two later a small posse of kids (the oldest no more than 8, the youngest little more than toddlers) armed with an array of sticks, brooms and other domestic tools were despatched to chase the hyena away from the mzungu's (white man's) house!
Are hippos the biggest killer in Africa with 3000 deaths a year? Not even close! The real risk is from something smaller than the nail on your pinky. If sub-Saharan African deaths from malaria were transposed onto the US population then 100,000 plus would be dying annually and at the risk of straying back on topic, as malaria seems to be re-establishing itself in parts of southern Europe, perhaps a good bug net and repellant should be regarded as essential parts of her kit.
Rant much?
All the above (in fact I often carry the very gun my Daddy and Grandaddy carried) not to mention all the meals it furnishes.
There's a profound difference between a death from bee stings and a death from bear attack.
Your family may not have a whole lot of your remains to bury from a bear kill.
Soft on the outside, crunchy in the middle.
Then again, if/when you live with a horrible disfigurement from a damn good mauling, you're not news-worthy
and you don't make the mortality stats.
Personally, I find it practical to search for several things during the course of each trip up some mountain logging road.
Sand, slate, pyrite crystals, grouse, maybe some berry picking, suitable wood and stone for carving are the usual examples. Rock hammer & chisels, shot gun, all with me.
Your family may not have a whole lot of your remains to bury from a bear kill.
Soft on the outside, crunchy in the middle.
Then again, if/when you live with a horrible disfigurement from a damn good mauling, you're not news-worthy
and you don't make the mortality stats.
Personally, I find it practical to search for several things during the course of each trip up some mountain logging road.
Sand, slate, pyrite crystals, grouse, maybe some berry picking, suitable wood and stone for carving are the usual examples. Rock hammer & chisels, shot gun, all with me.
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