Parks and Guns

[Tim May <tcmay@got.net>]

I've seen a couple of comments about my point about state-run parks not
allowing guns in, which would seem to be an interesting case of the state
limiting Second Amendment rights on territory it controlled.

(I won't push this much further, as the state may also limit firearms in
courthouses, in Federal buildings, and so on. Jusitifiably, I might add.
But this does make the point that the state-as-employer or
state-as-property-manager may do things that seem to directly limit
constitutional rights.)

Anyway, several comments have focussed on _little_ parks, those little
patches of grass and winos and spent syringes in the nation's cities.

What I was talking about were the biggies, like the Forest of Nisene Marks,
right next to my house, starting on the ridge on the other side of the
valley from me. Tens of thousands of acres....hundreds of miles of hiking
and biking trails.

Get caught with a gun in that park and face jail time. Of course, hikers
and bicyclists sometimes get mugged, raped, and murdered in this park, so
carrying a gun in one's fanny pack makes a lot of sense. "Better to be
judged by 12 than carried by 6," as the famous saying goes.

Interestingly for newcomers to the list, it was putting out this piece of
common sense opinion that got me a threatening phone call from the Santa
Cruz County Sheriff's Office in the summer of 1995. Seems that someone read
my opinions and contacted the authorities...a Sheriff's Deputy called to
warn me that my opinion verged on the illegal (oh yeah?) and that he might
send a "vehicle" out to my place to have a chat with me and check out my
state of mind.

When I said something along the lines of, "Fine, but call in advance, so
I'll know it's your boy," he flipped out, started furiously typing on a
keyboard (I could hear it), and said something like "That comment has been
entered in your file as a threat against a law enforcement officer."

At that point I told him that there was then no point in talking to him
further, if my truthful comments were to be declared "threats."

(I guess, as some have argued here recently, I was supposed to have said
something like, "Thank you, officer, for pointing out the error of my
opinion that hikers and bicyclists ought to take steps to defend
themselves. I understand now that weapons are not to be owned or carried by
citizen-units, and that a woman facing rapists on a mountain trail should
simply dial 9-1-1 at the nearest payphone and wait for the police to
arrive. I am sorry I expressed an opinion in these Beknighted States.")

--Tim May

The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
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Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
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