>>497682>I have >25 years of backpacking experience in the USofA>>496673 here.So, according to you, a backpacker can't be a "true backpacker" unless they only hike without a gun. Thanks for clearing up the fact that your opinion is based purely on fallacy. That makes it easier to dismiss.
Just so you know, the narrow scope of your experience may be limiting your opinion on this topic. Outside of California, it is very common for backpackers - I'm not talking about overnight hikers, but people going out for more than 3 nights - to carry a gun with them. Even if you don't see it being openly carried doesn't mean that it's not there. Many people who see my gun will often share about the gun they have in their backpack.
It's one thing to not carry one because you have thought about it and decided that carrying a gun is not essential to your goals. Where logic fails is when people have a preconceived aversion to guns. Without even considering their usefulness, some people just have already made up their minds that guns are bad; bad people carry guns; and therefore, they won't carry a gun. It's an exercise in anti-intellectualism, to be honest. You go from the conclusion first and then try to justify it after the fact.
A gun has an extremely high level of usefulness to a backpacker, and no this is not something you are hearing out of a "hurr mall ninja." I've been backpacking for about 20 years myself, and I did not always carry a gun. If you really have backpacked as much as I have, then you would probably understand this, but just because you can create a good plan, and just because 99.999% of outings may end without serious external issues, doesn't mean that those 0.001 of outings where a large animal decides to stalk you, or drunk rednecks decide to target-shoot in your general direction, do not happen.
It only needs to happen to you once, and you'll know immediately that your little can of pepper spray doesn't have nearly enough "fuck-off power" as you need.
