According to Glacier National Park officials the deer approached the woman and she fired bear spray at it. When she realized the deer was too far away, she pulled out a .357 and shot it towards the ground. The hiker received a written warning.

I’m not a big fan of allowing firearms in the national parks. There are several reasons for this. For me, its easier to see wildlife in the national parks and thus easier to poach. personally, I have always found powerful handguns displayed on belts to be a bit much at tourist attractions. Let’s face it, this isn’t western-world anymore. If you have a gun, great. But the rest of the world doesn’t need to fear you. Obviously the exception here is law enforcement.
The final reason is that it is my intrinsic belief that guns cheapen life. Now this doesn’t mean that guns are “evil”, what it does mean is that it’s far easier to kill that rare animal far from its claws, its teeth and its eyes. We don’t get to feel the breath of it. We are removed from the process and this makes it easier when perhaps we should be putting a little more thought into our actions. We’ve already seen one grizzly bear death in Denali from the new gun law.

Death by grizzlies in Glacier are so rare that walking around with a .357 is a bit silly. Not to mention that bear spray works just as well.

Anyway, its good to be back. I missed this place. I hope to continue to push some of your buttons, to make some of you applaud, and of course to learn from you.

I was planning on a redesign but I’m still buried in big projects, and am currently planning a multi-park tour this summer across the west from California to Montana. The updates will be few to start with, but they will grow.