when boondocking do you bring a weapon ?
we will have our dog,,,who doesn't miss a trick and will cause a problem IF she needs to protect,,,but I was thinking of carrying a shotgun too,,,any problems doing that ?? I have a NY pistol license ...
Forum Discussion
luberhill wrote:westernrvparkowner wrote:
Not that anybody wants to, but if we return to the original theme of the thread there is another issue with weapons and boondocking. When you boondock, you have no more right to be there than anyone else. You don't have a defined area that is "yours". If you actually get into a confrontation and shoot someone that is going to be a legal tidbit that is going to cause you a whole lot of grief.
I no longer feel comfortable traveling the back country of Montana's great national parks. The law has been changed and now people are allowed to carry firearms in those parks. My concern is someone who has never been in the back country is going to hear a sound, automatically assume it is a grizzly and begin to fire randomly into the bushes. If that sound came from me and my horse walking a trail, that is a problem.
A weapon in a situation where you are unfamiliar and uncomfortable doesn't suddenly make you familiar and comfortable. It just adds fuel to a potential fire.
Ok MY use of the gun would be this: someone knocks on the door at night,,,,dog goes nuts,,,I ask what they what,,,they say open up,,,I say pls leave,,,I am armed and my dog will bite,,,they break the door open,,,,,I get to leave,,,they do not !
Sounds like you already decided to bring a gun - so why ask the question in the first place? If 10 people posted No and 1 posted Yes, would that have changed your mind?
Rather than start the pro-gun, neutral-gun, anti-gun argument, why not just do what you're going to do and be done with it?
If you want to carry a shotgun because it makes you feel safer, then carry a shotgun. As to whether the risk is there - well that depends on your definition of risk and your risk tolerance.
One thing to remember about boondocking is that you boondock to get away from people - the odds that your location is going to have some nut case hiding behind a tree just waiting for you to appear so he can come at you is pretty minimal. Most of these crimes are crimes of opportunities - to be an opportunity, the nut case has to be in your specific area at the exact time that you are there - with the size of our national forests, BLM and COE lands, those odds are really darn low.
