On Tue, 21 Jul 2009 09:30:45 -0500, "William Wixon"
wrote:


"Don Foreman" wrote in message

OK, but I think what's struck rangerssuck and me is not the likelihood
that
those people are all nuts...it's the fact that you *wouldn't* think they
could be nuts. That reflects a serious cultural difference. g Here, we
can't do it legally, but if someone had a permit and did carry a pistol
while mowing the lawn, most of us probably would think he was nuts.

Hm. That is indeed a cultural difference. I do know one guy (in a
different state) who carries (concealed) while mowing -- and about
any time he's awake including at home. He is a very bright man,
definitely not nuts, a very personable guy and a good friend.

Until they catch this nutcase, at least, I'd carry something light while
on
your hikes, even if he isn't in your neighborhood. My pants have enough
trouble staying up as it is, with cell phone, pocket knife, keys, wallet,
insulin pump, and change, so the .45 and the Colt Officer's Model .38 Spl.
are out. d8-)

I know exactly what you mean about stuff and pants. I guess maybe I
will start carrying a cellphone and a lightweight pocket .380 on my
hikes. I don't usually carry either but I guess it can't hurt. 446
per 100K per year is a considerably larger number than I would have
expected here, and certainly far more than one in a million nutcase
events.


how about a can of pepper spray? lightweight, cheap, doesn't need a permit.
maybe a can of pepper spray would've helped the lady in the link you posted.
i know someone who bought 15 cans of pepper spray cheap off ebay and gave
them out to all the women he knows.
we recently got some rail trails here. it was only a matter of time before
some kook started stalking women along the trail.

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbc.../NEWS/90719014


b.w.

As a former deputy...pepper spray, Mace etc etc doesnt always work on
every person. And the "spray back"..the chemical you get when you use
your irritant up close and personal may effect you worse than the
criminal.

Bullets have no spray back. And they always work, no matter how drugged
up the recipient is.

Gunner

"Lenin called them "useful idiots," those people living in
liberal democracies who by giving moral and material support
to a totalitarian ideology in effect were braiding the rope that
would hang them. Why people who enjoyed freedom and prosperity worked
passionately to destroy both is a fascinating question, one still with us
today. Now the useful idiots can be found in the chorus of appeasement,
reflexive anti-Americanism, and sentimental idealism trying to inhibit
the necessary responses to another freedom-hating ideology, radical Islam"

Bruce C. Thornton, a professor of Classics at American University of Cal State Fresno