Mike, I hear you and I agree completely that Fuji was pushing the envelope too far. I'm all in favor of keeping our NPs as serene as humanly possible - after all, visiting these parks around the country is my personal passion. My experience with guys like Fuji is that there is no counter-argument that they'll listen to. It always breaks down in to a shouting match, which is really what they seem to want. Personally, when I get a whiff of that kind of attitude, I just ignore them - which is the worst possible frustration for them.
I was just concerned that the topic - which is really of importance to all of us who spend time on federal lands - was spiraling out of control and discouraging others from posting their opinions. And possibly tempting Doug to shut it down, which I always hate seeing.
I realize I did a lot of posting on that thread, but most of it was replying to comments/questions directed to me after my first couple of responses. I really don't have a dog in this hunt either, since I'll never carry one of my firearms into a park or on a trail. My whole purpose in jumping in was to point out that the alarmed, wild-west, slapping-leather concerns of the locals could be moderated if you just took a look outside your own state where handguns are the norm.
If there's going to be an armed yahoo-related problem with this law, look for it in Great Smokey Mountain National Park first, not Yosemite. The Smokies are so far and away the most visited national park in the country, it's beyond the point of comparison. It's also in the heart of Second Amendment territory. I can assure you, law or not, a great many visitors to the Smokies have always been armed. Aside from the different mindset (and permissive local laws) about guns, the bears are not nice there and have been known to attack people - especially children.
I live just a 3-hour drive from the Smokies, and hike there fairly regularly. To my knowledge, the preponderance of firearms in the area around the park (and in it, illegally up to this point) has not resulted in anything like the fears and concerns that are being expressed by Californians regarding open-carry in Yosemite. My point was just to ask why anyone expects Yosemite to be different - and I was not being tongue-in-cheek about it. Maybe there's an x-factor at play locally that I'm not aware of that would result in different behavior - but I guarantee you we have plenty of FujiGuys in our backyard as well. Oh, do we!
