camping tent gunfire
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Sounds like something written by Gersh Kuntzman

It was a calm, pristine evening, Venus rising above the trees, the sound of the creek after a long, congested drive as restorative as a Vivaldi concerto — until the guns started firing.

By bedtime we were pinned down. At almost every other campsite, it seemed, except for ours and the one across the road, people were armed and shooting their weapons. It sounded like an NRA convention had taken up residence, with members flexing their firepower on behalf of the Second Amendment. The veteran across the road, who was camping with his two boys, said the gunfire was all too reminiscent of his two tours in Iraq. He ordered his sons to stay in the camper and not to go outside without him, even for a quick pee.

– Jane Parnell for Adventure Journal, Opinion: Just Say No to Camping with Guns

Seems totally legit.

H/T goes to @TacticoolMemes

97 COMMENTS

    • Pinned down by crickets and tree frogs more like. Another fake news quote from some moron who feels their morally superior to whatever they disagree with. Why can’t these people move to the Venezuelan paradise they so desire and leave us and our freedom alone.

      • I dunno. This is a one and only experience in many years of camping: This past summer, in a fairly wild but popular area, some small arms fire started up shortly after dark. It sounded like pistols maybe a half mile up the mountain coming from some large and rowdy group. Not too worrisome, except that the reports seemed to indicate that they were firing in all directions. They had no way of knowing what was beyond the target – more so given the topography.
        Then the explosions started. I’ve been on the firing line with 50 BMG. My range allows tannerite… this was not that. The shock wave was like being near large professional fireworks only we were further than that.
        Now that the time to bed down had come this became bothersome enough to consider hollering or even putting a few magnums into the hillside; and I may have if I didn’t think it would just egg them on.
        I guess the point is that some people have no more business camping than others have with firearms. You know?

  1. “This camper shall protect us!”

    What really happened;
    Parnell heard a campfire log pop, immediately soiled himself, and hunkered down inside his urine-soaked sleeping bag until morning.

    • Or, perhaps, one drunk idiot took a pot shot at something moving in the dark outside the circle of their camp fire with a .22. I’d buy that.

      For what it’s worth, I’ve camped frequently all my life. In primitive camp grounds, in the woods, on the beach, at comfort spots like KOA. I’ve dealt with drunks staggering over to piss close to my tent, people seemingly zonked out on something heavier wandering through my site, people making loud happy noises humping in the woods, and all kinds of other ignoble behavior. I’ve dealt with bugs, bears, possums, raccoons, and other wild life. But I’ve never (not once) woken up to people popping off with guns even near camp sites, especially in the dark.

      So, I’ll add my voice to the calls of BS on this one.

      • “perhaps, one drunk idiot took a pot shot at something moving in the dark outside the circle of their camp fire with a .22. I’d buy that”

        Oh, OK … that would be perfectly fine, no problem there, no danger. Just a silly snowflake complaining about drunks shooting into the dark at a public campground.

        They should just say to themselves “just another responsible gun owner exercising his Second Amendment rights” rollover and go back to sleep.

        Are you serious?

        • Still at it Eric? Banned from the files and you’ve come over here to be our resident libtard. Welcome snowflake!

        • From an article on the liberty gun safe site regarding ammunition in fires.:

          “The velocity of expelled projectiles ranged from 58 ft/s to 123 ft/s. The only exception was the .270 cartridge where the bullet velocity was 230 ft/s.”

          I wonder what would happen to an individual’s cornea, lens, vitreous humor and retina if a jagged piece of brass case zipped into their eye at 100 ft./s?

          Yep, it’s OK to gamble with other peoples’ safety as long as you’re having a good time throwing your live ammo in the fire.

          To argue that it is perfectly safe to throw live ammo into a campfire is asinine.

        • A snowflake bringing up some sort of irrelevant point.
          Miner49r or whatever his name is is literally mirroring the point of the post. A liberal making a big deal of nothing.

          Thanks for being pointless.

    • “This camper shall protect us!”

      That’s the really sad part. Those things are usually made of very lightweight materials, like aluminum.

      A .22lr will zip right on through.

      That camper won’t protect them for shit…

      • This whole story was a lie. If you truly felt threatened, especially with your kids along, you would have bugged out.

        Lies. Like the snowflakes that claim to be afraid of a citizen with a gun but don’t hesitate to confront that citizen.

        • I’ve had people circle me in their car in a parking lot while I’m buying or selling a gun just so they can yell at me and say I’m a threat. I even had one call the cops. Somehow you can be a threat but at the same time safe enough to tell at and circle like a vulture. Sort of similar to how Trump is both the dumbest person in the world and also at the same time some Russian agent mastermind…They can’t fight their opposition on merit so they fight with feels. sjw snowflakes think that not towing the good Marxist line is a threat. They really are just that dumb.

        • @Chadwick

          I’ve called people out many times on exactly this line of reasoning. They say to me that guns and gun owners, which they know I am, make them feel unsafe. I tell them that they are either a liar or a fool. If they truly feel that I am a threat to them, they would not remain in my presence unless they are a fool. If they are not a fool, then they are lying about feeling threatened.

        • Or Christians, for that matter. I often hear how hostile, intolerant, and even violent Christians are supposed to be. Yet nobody of that opinion seems at all restrained or apprehensive about sharing their view with those very same allegedly hostile, intolerant, and violent Christians. Curious, that.

        • @My Name

          A thousand years ago and far less than the results of the Islam conquests that preceded it. Not excusing, but one must consider the context.

        • whats funny is that the Islamic world considered the Crusades really a sort of minor nuisance and mostly unnotwworthy for most of history until white leftists apologists informed them that we were sorry and should feel bad. If you look at the historical records from the Islamic side, they were far more concerned with other things going on in their massive empire at the time, like the goddamn Mongolians cruising through like a dark age biker gang and sowing destruction. Considering it spanned from North Africa, Spain, through the ME and all the way through India to the edges of the Chinese empire, the loss of a tiny swath of the Levant here and there for a century or less in total really was small potatoes.

  2. Well, I’ve been to a lot of NRA Conventions. No gunfire there.

    A couple questions:

    Was someone in the campground shooting or was said plinking going on in an area where it is permitted?

    Is the author certain someone wasn’t just shooting off fireworks?

    I did a quick search of Parnell and Adventure Journal- I don’t do Facebook so it was limited. What I’ve seen so far does not suggest either a “gun friendly” or “gun knowledgeable” publication. Also no indication how large its circulation. Anyway, I doubt Ms Parnell would like gun fire at a dedicated range. Maybe someone else can fill us in.

    • Oh- and forgot to mention: it may have sounded like “Iraq” but thank God it didn’t sound like Chicago on a normal weekend- then someone might’ve really gotten hurt.

      Wish that damn edit feature would show up again.

  3. He might have heard one or two rounds from someone shooting a yote, or kids playing games throwing .22s in a fire..

    But to liken it to Iraq? Lmao.. yeah ok dude..

    Embellished, or outright made up stories are the lefts tactic time and time again.

    • Since forever. Venus rises in the evening when it’s orbital position has it trailing the sun, and rises in the morning when it’s leading the sun. Orbital mechanics is not the part of this moron’s highly embellished story that should be picked apart.

      • May be someone just threw a fistful of .22 ammo into their camp fire? This scares the crap out of ignorant people who know nothing about internal ballistics and the relationship between pressure and the linear regression rate of propellent grains.

        • Well, that would be responsible gun ownership, throwing live 22 LR into a campfire. Nope, no chance of someone being injured, perfectly safe to have red hot 22 cases flying around at 1000 ft./s. And folks wonder why average citizens think gun advocates are crazy.

          And in my state it’s illegal to fire a gun within 500 feet of a public roadway, was this a public campground with public roadways to service the campsite? If so it’s more irresponsible gun ownership, especially Shooting after local sundown.

          I think I’m going to side with Jane on this one, she had every right to be concerned over such irresponsible and probably illegal behavior that endangered her and her children.

          And for those calling BS on this story, perhaps you would share with us what evidence you are using to come to this conclusion, to refute the eyewitness testimony of the individual reporting.

        • “Nope, no chance of someone being injured, perfectly safe to have red hot 22 cases flying around at 1000 ft./s.”

          *chortle*

          1,000 feet per second, you say? You are an idiot.

          Firearm ammunition in a fire has a very low chance of injuring someone, *unless* they are close enough to the fire to burn themselves.

          You *only* get a velocity of 1,000 FPS if the ammunition is chambered in a firearm designed for it. Velocity is in the *tens* of FPS when ignited and not chambered.

          This video explains the concept in a way that even a fuckwit like you, ‘Miner49er’, should be capable of understanding :

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SlOXowwC4c

        • Eyewitness testimony of some one claiming to be afraid for themselves and their kids and what did they do? Call 911? Bug out to protect their kids? No. Nothing that a normal person would do if the situation was anything but lies.

          M49. Like you she’s nothing but a sub par troll.

        • From an article on the liberty gun safe site regarding ammunition in fires.:

          “The velocity of expelled projectiles ranged from 58 ft/s to 123 ft/s. The only exception was the .270 cartridge where the bullet velocity was 230 ft/s.”

          I wonder what would happen to an individual’s cornea, lens, vitreous humor and retina if a jagged piece of brass case zipped into their eye at 100 ft./s?

          Yep, it’s OK to gamble with other peoples’ safety as long as you’re having a good time throwing your live ammo in the fire.

          To argue that it is perfectly safe to throw live ammo into a campfire is asinine.

          And no one wants to address the illegality of such a dangerous action at a public campground or near a public roadway?

        • We’ve addressed the issue, m49. The bullets in the campfire was just a guess which you’ve made a reality in your attempt to discredit gun owners.

          How about you address the issue of the folks feeling threatened but keeping their kids in the danger zone? If this happened, and I believe it did not, then cps needs to get those kids away from parents that obviously are more concerned with making a point than protecting their kids.

        • JWN, I didn’t suggest it was .22lrs being tossed into the campfire, that was a Mr. Crawford, followed by several folks claiming there was zero danger from a live 22 round being thrown into a campfire. Everyone was ridiculing Jane for being concerned about such a ‘harmless’ prank.

          Again, no one wants to address the illegality of discharging rounds near a public roadway or in a public campground, clearly irresponsible gun ownership.

          Rather than condemn the crazy firearms owner discharging their weapon after dark in a prohibited place, but everyone is ready to condemn Jane because she didn’t flee fast enough.

          So in this case you’re saying Jane had ‘a duty to retreat’, interesting perspective.

        • We only have janes word that shots were fired,m48. And since she, like you, are obviously making up crap as she goes along I’m going to just label her a liar. Anybody supporting gun control has to be a bit lacking in the iq department.

          We need a better class of troll around here.

        • As I have done a lot of camping as a child, and as an adult. Another item found in nature that can also pop, sounding much like a 22 round being tossed in an open fire, is a Pine Cone from a Pine tree. There are many things in nature than can pop/explode when placed in a fire. Not to mention that a can of items such as WD40, cooking oil, that contains a propellant will also pop, and sound much like a ammunition round going pop.

      • Not quite so, Stinkeye. Venus is closer to the Sun than we are, so from our perspective they rise and set together. It varies which goes first, but the rising is in the morning and the setting is in the evening. Always.

      • No celestial object rises in the west. For it to do so, the earth would have to reverse its direction of rotation. Everything rises in the east, crosses the sky and sets in the west. If Venus is visible in the evening, it’s been up all day and is close to setting.

        I can’t understand why this silly bitch didn’t call 911 and request a deputy or ranger to deal with the misbehaving campers. Hugging the ground in her tent wasn’t going to save her from a stray round. Ditto for the father who kept his sons inside their camper. (I suspect he didn’t want them out by themselves for fear they would be attracted to the shooting.)

      • 1. The writer makes it more or less plain that he is speaking of the time after sunset.

        2. Celestial bodies rise in the east, and set in the west.

        3. Venus never gets more than a few degrees from the sun. If the sun is setting (as it tends to do in the evening), then Venus is also setting.

        My point is that the author has a very fuzzy view of things. If you don’t find this to be significant then I’m sorry, because I really don’t care.

        Charlie

  4. The original opinion piece:
    https://www.hcn.org/articles/opinion-caught-in-the-crossfire-at-a-colorado-campground

    So all sorts of illegal behavior were going on and these two ladies decided the best answer was to pick up their ice axes and go confront the nearest offenders? There’s a whole lot of stupid in that idea.

    About that illegal activity, the writer claims there was cell phone service. So why didn’t they call 911 to report all that criminal activity? Cutting down trees in a national forest? Bonfires during a campfire restriction? What the hell sort of a citizen just ignores crime to complain long after the fact to a newspaper that can’t do anything about it?

    Wimpy lazy ass no account snowflakes, that’s what kind.

    • I have spent many, many nights of my life outdoors in the Colorado Rockies and I simply don’t believe her. I often do some plinking while out camping, but never at night, and have very rarely heard so much as a single shot after dark.

      The fact that she says this occurred near Aspen, and the fact that she says she had an ice ax with her would indicate that she was aiming to do some technical climbing in the Elks range. If that is the case, dispersed camping near, but not in the Forest Service campground she mentions is a bit of a weird choice for a bivouac – not impossible, but a bit odd. Typically, if one is heading out into a range like the Elks to do climbing that requires an ice ax, one is pretty likely to be backpacking into a wilderness area and in such a setting one does not find campers and chain saws. Also, if as she claims, they were along side a FS road and in the vicinity of a formal campground, it is likely that a FS camp host (with direct contact to the FS ranger station) was within ear shot of the shooting and, given that shooting after dark is prohibited in the National Forest (not to mention felling of live trees), a FS ranger would likely have showed up. Also, the extremely ‘rednecky’ behavior she describes is not really the norm in Pitkin county. Is it possible that this account is accurate? Yeah, possible, but I really doubt it.

      • I don’t buy it. She says she has an ice axe for climbing a 13,000 foot mountain at the “height of tourist season”, aka middle of summer.

        There’s little if any snow or ice at the top of 14er’s that time of year. So what does she have the axe for? Anything she might argue that the axe would be useful for at that time of year is something a hiking pole would do better.

        She get’s a throbbing headache after not sleeping for a night? Earplugs are useless for gunfire that’s taking place a few hundred yards (or more) away yet somehow work for the people doing the shooting? People were intimidated by grandmothers with ice axes when the supposedly intimidated people have guns and chainsaws?

        The only parts of this that are remotely believable are the aspen trees, which could have been dead, and therefore potentially legal to harvest, and the veteran that overreacted. I only say these things are believable because I’ve seen both happen out in the area around Red & White as well as out beyond Terryall Reservoir.

        • Yeah, the ice ax bit is really suspect. There are climbs in the Elks technical enough but, like you said, to 13, in the summer, nah.

    • Who cuts down a live, green tree for a campfire? Green wood doesn’t burn that well. That is why you season firewood.

  5. Nawh…it was the local ‘Quatches. Somebody gave them a case of Party Poppers. ‘Quatches LOVE those things…probably some other lib-idiot was playing guitar and singing “Kum ba yah”…’Quatches HATE that and use the Party Poppers to fool libtards into thinking NRA guys are shooting guns randomly in Campgrounds at night. Happens all the time.

  6. There are way too many idiots out there. This sort of thing does happen:

    Changes coming to shooting range near Buckeye where woman was killed 1 year ago
    https://www.azfamily.com/news/changes-coming-to-shooting-range-near-buckeye-where-woman-was/article_d865a704-193f-11e9-bef2-bf7793c57b77.html

    I know this area well, been shooting there many times. Gave up on it though a couple of months before this incident. It had just gotten too popular, too over populated with morons and weekend warriors. Used to be you could go out there and setup any sort of range time you wanted with a solid backstop out to a couple of hundred yards. But it got to the point where hearing bullets zing and zip overhead was too frequent.

    So a 24 year old pregnant woman died in front of her family. They were out there shooting like others did. Set up a temporary range, folding tables and shade. Shooting into an excellent backstop of a hill hundreds of feet high. Very responsibly, doing everything right. Some shit for brains sent bullets their way.

    Now a thousand acres of public land is closed and the future of that land will not be friendly to gun owners.

    Morons. That’s why we cannot have nice things. Fu_king morons.

    • It pisses me off that they close land because of criminals. If someone shoots someone that’s the only person who is responsible. I feel like we are losing the gun rights issue completely. We can’t get pro gun politicians and we lose more every year. I wouldn’t even consider national reciprocity a win if we got it. There is no public land or ranges to shoot on in my state. You have to pay a fortune to shoot at private ranges or clubs and they have insane rules because they are afraid of being held liable.

      No one wants freedom everyone wants to tell others how to live. It never ends. I feel sick from talking to anti gun friends lately and people I know lately.

    • Many more acres are lost to public use thanks to irresponsible use (and associated death and injury) of ATV’s and dirtbikes.

      I was at a publicly posted shooting range a few years back when some asshole rode his dirtbike across the range about 400 yards out from us.

  7. There are a lot of @zzholes in our society, and some of them own guns. We’ve all probably met a few. Educate them if possible, definitely avoid them otherwise.

  8. People shooting guns in the air on the 4th of July? It happens everywhere, even in the city–not that it should.

    • Even in the city? Who knew? I would think the woods would be significantly less dangerous, being less – congested.

      Had a client with a manufacturing business in Orange County, CA, single story “big box” type building in corporate park surrounded by residential of the middle or working class level. Had to go on the tar paper with fine gravel roof to examine A/C units, asked re the various patches that could be seen, was told that EVERY holiday, incl. 7/4, and New Years, etc., there’s a rain of bullets from the sky falling on their flat roof from celebratory eejits acting like they’re in Mexico or Venezuela or Iraq or whatever. And, occasionally, someone in those residences gets hit. Totally shameless and inexcusable shit.

  9. Its so great that an iraq vet just happened to be next to these campers to confirm that ‘uh, its like iraq like out there, so stay in the tent because if we cant see the bullets then like we are safe right’.

  10. Oh hell yes, where’s that campsite at, that kinda shit is right down my alley. Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms baby, KC Strips on the grill

  11. The event happened almost # Friggin YEARS ago, and she wrote about it 1 year ago.
    I’m calling BS on the whole story.

  12. If you’re scared of gunshots & guns stay in your condo or apt. , if you were being shot at you would know it., two tours in a combat zone & you can’t tell your a target? If that’s true, you must have been in the rear surrounded by real soldiers, & good job freaking your kids out about guns…

  13. I don’t buy this.

    That said, I have done night shooting while camping to see what the muzzle flash of various guns was like and to try to get pictures of it (an M44 nagant is impressive) with various ammo. But it was a shot at a time in a safe location with a backstop hundreds of feet tall out in an area where camper vehicles can’t get to and there might have been five other people in a three mile radius.

  14. If you’re not familiar with ‘High Country News’, that’s the obvious tip off you’re dealing with Little Old Lady environ-mental (self described as LOL) liars. I’ve had my share of experiences listening to their exaggerations and denials of fact. Yes, I’ve had an experience or two over the decades with white trash and guns in campgrounds. They exist. A shot, once a revolver emptied on New Year’s. More likely just noisy, unruly behavior. But short of a video and a formal complaint to the Forest Service (which these types would never hesitate to do) this can’t be believed. Sounds more like a Liberal version of a Sasquatch hunt.

  15. Fake News Story by an Unemployed Lib TARD Journalist with a degree in “Gender studies, identity politics, and LIBERAL Arts…As THEY say in on YouTube !!! Learn to code !!! SJWs !!!

  16. I was there at that same campground on the Fourth of July also. The only noise I heard was the sound of our AK-47 s when we got all drunk end up and lit them up into the sky for a couple of minutes. No one else around us started firing their guns. I swear we only shot 20 or 30 times and only for a couple of minutes. I don’t know where she comes up with anything else. She must have been smoking some pot or something.

    • I thought you went down in that chopper. A few years before that, though, I did meet you in Aspen – at Arthur’s.

  17. Only one of the above commenters got it right. I’ve been to a number of NRA conventions. Never heard a shot fired. Obviously made up story by a lefty that has no idea what they are talking about.

  18. I think the question that needs to be answered here is, why the fuck were people in a public campground or any other campground in the dark in the first place? I stopped camping in the late 1970’s for basically this very reason only then it was uncourteous rude behavior buy some of the other campers who didn’t give a shit about others they were sharing the same space as they were. Now it appears those same type of people have taken it a step further.

  19. “By bedtime we were pinned down. At almost every other campsite, it seemed, except for ours and the one across the road, people were armed and shooting their weapons. ”

    She left out the part about the sappers coming through the wire, and driving them off with the makeshift fougasse she and her friend whipped up from a jar of organic hummus they’d packed for lunch.

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