This is why I wouldn't hike without a firearm.
A man who calls himself “Sovereign” was charged with attacking two Appalachian Trail hikers with a machete, killing one of them—just weeks after he pleaded guilty to threatening other trekkers and was set free, authorities said on Sunday.
James L. Jordan, 30, from West Yarmouth, Massachusetts, allegedly knifed an unidentified man and woman early Saturday morning in an isolated stretch of the 2,190-mile hiking trail that runs through Wythe County, Virginia. The man died and the woman was seriously wounded.
The Appalachian Trail Travel Guide site provides this explanation on carrying a gun:
I don't know how many camping trips I've taken over the past 25 years. In virtually every case someone in the camp had a firearm. It didn't "change the culture."
And if there's a maniac with a machete chasing campers through the park, I wouldn't care about "preserving" it. I'd care about preserving my life and the lives of my friends and family.
You're in the middle of nowhere and there is no help anywhere nearby. Advising people to go unprotected seems like really bad advice. But that's just me.
Always be sure to check the local laws for how to legally carry a firearm when camping or hiking.
Pete's Prep: Monday, May 13, 2019
- From Reason.com: "Bernie Sanders thinks Medicare for all would solve America's health care problems. It would make them worse."
- Meanwhile, Sen. Sanders is coming to Asheville for a campaign rally on Friday.
- WLOS reports: Local soccer players and their families are mounting a pressure campaign to have the City of Asheville quickly repair the soccer fields that got flooded for the second time in as many years.
- David French at National Review explains what the Georgia "heartbeat law" actually does - and does not - do.
- Bloomberg News reports: "The U.S. Supreme Court will likely take on the controversial issue of nationwide injunctions and put “serious limits” on them..."
- From the Guardian: "It is one of the best places in the world to be a woman, with a narrow gender pay gap, equal employment rights, universal nursery care, and some of the happiest female retirees on the planet. So it comes as a surprise to find, in a global survey of attitudes towards gender, equal rights and the #MeToo movement, that Denmark is one of the least feminist countries in the developed world."
- Footage from the Mars Curiosity contains... an interesting item.