Why public lands must remain in public hands | Hacker News Reader

Why public lands must remain in public hands

fieldandstream.com

237 pointsdiebir179 comments

When you get into hunting/sportsman's issues, you might find yourself surprised at how politically...moderate it can be. I was.

My wife's extended family is really into hunting so I ended up taking a gun safety course to get my hunting license. A LOT of gun safety is preached there. Don't brandish your weapons or your prey publicly; keep them to yourself. Always assume a gun is loaded. When carrying a loaded gun, hold it a certain way. When walking with a loaded gun, don't point more than 15-20 degrees in either direction if someone is standing next to you. Lock your guns separately from your ammo. And so on.

There are a lot of environmentalists (preservationists?) working for the state in this field as well. Managing deer population levels, preventing forest fires, not littering, that kind of thing.

So while I was a bit surprised to see a 'red state' kind of company advocating for federal control of these lands, I suppose I shouldn't have been. There's a lot of room for nuance in this country.

If you want to see where this comes from, I'd recommend reading a Teddy Roosevelt biography (e.g. Morris).

He became one of the first powerful conservationists because he saw, in just a few decades, the impact that development was having on the West.

Inside almost every hunter or fisherman, there's a desire to see someone else enjoy it as much as you. And that can't happen if one leaves the land poorer after they use it.

> When you get into hunting/sportsman's issues, you might find yourself surprised at how politically...moderate it can be. I was.

> My wife's extended family is really into hunting so I ended up taking a gun safety course to get my hunting license. A LOT of gun safety is preached there. [examples]

The gun safety doesn't surprise me at all. But it's a bit unclear to me, are you saying that's to do with it being politically moderate?

I guess the picture painted of the pro-gun folks is often the extreme end - open carry, walk around college campuses with assault rifles to protest their rights - so it was perception-altering to see instruction along the lines of "don't display your gun in the car window" or whatever, and then to look around and realize that most people act that way.

I'll see plenty of stories about gun deaths via carelessness (Dad leaves a gun cabinet unlocked, six-year-old shoots his sister by mistake, that kind of thing), and the commentary/agenda around that tends to be "and this is why we need more gun control", and then you get arguments against that from the other side. So perhaps in my mind advocacy for safety was conflated with advocacy against guns, so it was mildly surprising to see that not only is rigorous safety taught, but it's also practiced by owners of firearms.

In other words, perhaps I read too many comment sections on partisan platforms! Pretty much every time I get out into the real world I see that people are never as extreme as their online counterparts.

Ok, I understand now

> I guess the picture painted of the pro-gun folks is often the extreme end

Glad you got to understand what REAL law-abiding gun owners are like. We are maniacs over safety and responsibility.

Don't let the press demonize such things. The legal ones aren't the ones to worry about.

And everyone I know in Texas who carries in a medium-to-large size city is still doing it concealed. Out of sight, out of mind.

Conservationists. There's a distinction made between conservation and preservation - skipping the details I mostly don't remember, on average conservationists want to use resources "wisely" (sustainable forestry, low impact mining, controlled hunting) where preservationists believe more in the intrinsic value of the land, and frequently be more against logging at all, or mining at all. In my experience most environmentalists like or at least agree with hunting, but most of them are also conservationists.

Also, somewhat off topic: the need to manage deer populations is a direct result of killing large predators, and our tendency to break up large local biomes into smaller fragmented ones. No wolves + lots of edge habitat = lots of deer.

It bugs me that "conservationist" and "conservative" are two entirely different words (with entirely different meanings).

It shouldn't be like that at all.

As a conservative & conservationist, I feel that they mean much the same. I want to conserve, preserve & improve nature for our benefit, and I want to conserve, preserve & improve our culture and government for our benefit as well.

You are partly right about the need to manager deer populations but the key problem is that the cat is out of the bag, in regards to sprawl and large predators. The basic fact is that we are never going to reverse that unless there is sweeping and catastrophic changes to society. Also that leaves a HUGE reason to manage deer populations, hunting itself. Many people use hunting to supplement their normal meat supply and without some form of Government management wildlife would be quickly destroyed. See the American Bison as an example, though just one of many.

Wholly agreed. Given where we're at, hunt away.

WRT to bison, their population is depleted specifically because of the US government's Native American eradication program. The US military provided bullets to hunters. The iconic image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bison_skull_pile-restored... this was policy. And in fact, the USG still works to limit their population - http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/ find themselves regularly in conflict with... BLM, I think. Some federal group(s), at any rate.

Fewer than 20% of gun owners are active hunters [1]. I wouldn't be surprised if it's as low as 10%, and more than a few of those hunters are pretty casual about gun safety and conservation, in my experience.

A little off topic, but...my experience is that many gun owners (maybe most?) are far too casual about gun safety. I'm a 2nd amendment supporter and lean libertarian, BUT I'm also a pragmatist. I think it's absolutely ludicrous that we don't have strong national standards and licensing requirements for acquiring, owning, and carrying firearms. I'm a pilot, and the amount of effort I had to put into being able to fly a small airplane is orders of magnitude greater than that required to walk into a store and walk out with a weapon designed to kill people. I think you should be required to go through initial training, safely store your firearms, and go through refresher training every 2 years. At minimum.

1. http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/us-gun-owners-outnumbere...

Whilst I agree with you about the need for people to know gun safety rules, your requirements seem unrealistically reactive.

Most gun owners in the US barely if ever shoot their guns, and the number of accidents or deaths that result from unsafe handling is negligible. You would save more lives by requiring training every 2 years for an license to buy aspirin.

For anybody else curious about actual numbers...

In 2013 it was 505 deaths due to negligent handling (vs 11,208 homicides and 21,175 suicides).

I'm not able to find any numbers for accidental Aspirin overdose specifically. NSAID use in general kills about 16,500 people yearly, but that number includes drugs other than Aspirin and doesn't differentiate accidental overdose vs suicides or complications from use as prescribed.

Those numbers suggest that the two problems are in very much the same ballpark.

Conservative estimates suggest that 1 in 3 Americans own guns.

A mandatory training every other year would be an approx $2Bn program annually. (Based on $50 per person per class including administration, which seems very conservative to me)

It seems obvious that if you had $2Bn per year to spend on preventing avoidable deaths, this would be an extremely low priority.

You are neglecting the medical costs of treatment prior to death and also treating those who are injured by guns but not killed. I don't know the exact numbers but I have to imagine that $2bn worth of gun safety courses comes pretty close to paying for itself when all costs are included.

It's absurd to suggest that it costs $2bn to treat 500 people who die of their injuries.

If you don't have numbers to back up the idea that that injuries soak up the rest of the expense then I'm just going to call it and say your imagination is flat out wrong.

Most gun related deaths are not accidents, and wouldn't be presented by safety classes.

That would then become a defacto gun owner registration system. Good luck getting that passed!

Why just owner database?

Such registration would create two classes of citizenry, current gun owners who have guns without having cleared the tests, and another class of people that are first time gun buyers who can't buy guns without first clearing the test.

To make it fair to first time gun buyers, then the process would become a "gun round-up, education, certification and reclaim you gun" process.

Good luck passing that!

I was curious about the NSAID number. Doing some quick research I came across this quote:

"Mortality reported with NSAID use is generally linked to NSAID-associated GI bleeding, and the reported incidence is quite variable. Much of the literature reports 16,500 deaths annually as a result of NSAID-induced GI bleeding. However, it is important to put this number into perspective. This estimate was published in a 1999 observational study evaluating data from the Arthritis, Rheumatism, and Aging Medical Information System (ARAMIS).5 The database captured 19 NSAID-related GI bleeding deaths; the authors then extrapolated this number to the overall US population with arthritis. The 16,500 deaths has been considered overestimated or inaccurate because it was based on a small number of actual deaths and extrapolated inappropriately.6,7 A much smaller number was reported by Tarone and colleagues.7 They reported 3,200 deaths annually as a result of NSAID-induced GI bleeding based on US mortality data reported in the 1990s."

Unfortunately I can't access the sources right now.

https://www.practicalpainmanagement.com/treatments/pharmacol...

Also: I'm curious how reliable that 2013 figure is. 2014's was misreported:

https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/fatal.html

> walk into a store and walk out with a weapon designed to kill people.

1. KitchenAid (or Wusthof, if you are well off) 2. Ford (or Ferrari, if you are well off)

Ability to kill is limited by your imagination only. I don't want to help, but do the exercise yourself, sit down for five minutes with a goal of hurting a faceless non-existent person and count how many ways you can come up with. Whether the tool is designed for that purpose has nothing to do with it.

> I think you should be required to go through initial training, safely store your firearms, and go through refresher training every 2 years. At minimum.

Real life, legal, gun needs are more urgent in nature than that. In gang infested areas, one could go through an event during evening grocery shopping run that would make that person buy a gun.

Your "Let me feel good with there being a 2 week gun training course" is actually stopping a real life person from protecting themselves in a real life situation.

I am fine with the course being a highly recommended thing that people should attend, but it shouldn't be required qualification for a gun purchase.

Guns are much much easy to operate than planes. Yes, safety is important but self-preservation is even more important.

I have seen this lately, existing gun owners are quite fine with new ardent restrictions on new purchases. If we say, everyone must deposit guns at armory first, take a course and then pick up their guns from armory, then we would get an immediate push back from existing gun owners. I got mine, now others should be thoroughly checked before they get their. I don't think that is fair to someone who needs a gun for personal safety immediately. Personal safety situations can't be planned for unfortunately, it creeps up on you when you least expect it. Last thing you want is some "let me feel good and righteous" has trimmed your rights to bear arms.

>1. KitchenAid (or Wusthof, if you are well off) 2. Ford (or Ferrari, if you are well off)

There's a difference between "it's possible to kill a person with this" and "this is designed to be good at killing people". It's much easier to kill a person with a gun than a KitchenAid mixer. Also, most US states make one pass a test to prove that one is capable of operating an automobile to some minimum standard of "not killing people".

> In gang infested areas, one could go through an event during evening grocery shopping run that would make that person buy a gun.

Things people who have actually lived in "gang infested areas" know: The union of "gang infested area" and "grocery shopping opportunities are available" is approximately zero (c.f. food deserts).

>"this is designed to be good at killing people"

You are trivializing it. If you talk to a specialist they can tell you all about stopping powers of various calibers and round capacity of a gun.

And, yes, it is designed to be good at killing people and I am glad for it. I don't want to threaten an aggressor with a dull letter opener, hardly qualify as a deadly force. When it is used, it better serve the purpose, lives depend on it.

I firmly believe there are more good people than bad in this world. I would rather have my fellow human being, my neighbor, armed and able to help, than wait for cops to arrive.

I think prolific gun ownership can be an answer to honking and road rage. :-)

>Things people who have actually lived in "gang infested areas" know: The union of "gang infested area" and "grocery shopping opportunities are available" is approximately zero (c.f. food deserts).

You may chose to not arm yourself, perfectly fine by me. When you say others shouldn't be armed either, that is when you are bigger enemy than the criminals.

Do you even believe that people have right to defend themselves, or should they let the crime unfold and then let the law take its due course?

> I think prolific gun ownership can be an answer to honking and road rage. :-)

You think that escalating a frustrating but not dangerous situation with deadly force is an "answer"?

It escalates because people think that it is safe to escalate.

If one makes a threatening move that has full possibility of being responded with serious force, people will not be so fast to escalate.

May be we will come up with an app for the "connected", electric vehicles where some permissible form of digital flipping can be conveyed to the drivers around you.

There is a flip side to this. If someone is a complete asshole to me, I should feel comfortable to express my displeasure with their behavior. That isn't escalating, that is communicating. But if I have to fear that the other person has a gun, it silences my legitimate right to communicate.

That's why I can't take any gun rights advocate seriously.

I am serious enough to give that situation a thought.

Check my other answer if you care... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14256900

> Do you even believe that people have right to defend themselves, or should they let the crime unfold and then let the law take its due course?

I don't think it is simple as that. To be sure, guns might provide positive outcomes in some situations. But does that benefit outweigh their downsides. Downsides like deaths caused by accidents with firearms. Downsides like mass shootings that would be difficult to accommolish without easy access to firearms.

As for the benefits, how often do firearms prevent homicide? It's a hard thing to measure. I'm skeptical they prevent much at all.

For one thing the type of "gang" style homicide you are imaging is not a very common variety. In 2011, the FBI only identified 11.7 percent of homicides as being carried out by a stranger to the victim. Just by the numbers, getting killed by your spouse or coworker is more likely. I imagine the protective benefit of firearms is far less in these situations.

Another point is that even carrying a firearm isn't protection against an unexpected attack.

>Downsides like mass shootings that would be difficult to accomplish without easy access to firearms.

They were easy to accomplish because they targeted places that they knew for sure where the people would be unarmed, our laws ensured it. An attempt against local gun club or police station is not going to succeed, is it?

People who want commit crimes don't care if the guns they use were acquired legally. They can acquire a gun from black market. And just like with drugs, making it illegal ensures that there would be a thriving black market.

We made those events possible by making gun-free zones.

I hope we collectively would come to senses and trust our fellow human being, instead of treating everyone as psychopathic criminal.

>Downsides like deaths caused by accidents with firearms.

Less than 600 deaths in 2013. but 16,000 deaths related to Ibuprofen. You may say one accident is too many. I would say one person stopped by us collectively from protecting themselves against an aggressor is one too many.

You are thinking about group. I care about individual. And Gun Access must be looked at through individual rights lens.

> Another point is that even carrying a firearm isn't protection against an unexpected attack.

I am not asking for complete guarantee of safety against attack. BTW, do you think cops can provide that?

I am asking for opportunity to defend myself without being preemptively disarmed, that's all.

People launch startups knowing that most will fail. They appreciate the opportunity to try.

Gun Access is an opportunity to try, if you want to take it, no one is forcing it on you, just like no one is forcing everyone to launch a startup.

One may feel secure in capabilities of police to keep them safe. One may feel secure in corporate job instead of a startup. But, one must have an option to start a startup if one so desires. One must have an option to defend oneself with guns, if one so desires.

But acquiring guns on the black market isn't going to be an option for many types of shooters. Like the mentally challenged killer in the Sandy Brooke shooting.

Here in Japan, there is of course a black market for guns. But basically the black market is so prohibitively expensive. This eliminates a huge swath of the population, mainly everyone that isn't rich.

And again, I don't dispute that there are other ways to kill. Only that most of them are vastly less efficient, reducing the possibility of sprees like those we see in the US.

Also 600 deaths is nothing to scoff at. Hard to know, but my intuition is that 600 deaths is higher than the number prevented by guns.

We can't draw a line on a plot chart and say see that's why we shouldn't have guns.

By that measure, given the car accident deaths, we shouldn't be driving around.

Because someone was dumb, I shouldn't be allowed to defend myself with guns? that doesn't make sense.

> They can acquire a gun from black market

and if they are caught with such a gun, they can face serious consequence. A BM gun is illegal every step of the supply chain.

> I am asking for opportunity to defend myself without being preemptively disarmed, that's all.

If someone with a knife or cosh gets you unexpectedly from behind, they now have a gun. A failed startup won't cause other startups to fail.

>If someone with a knife or cosh gets you unexpectedly from behind, they now have a gun.

You are trying to ensure a certain outcome in a situation where you have no control.

I am only trying to make sure that I don't stop a person from having an option to defend themselves using guns.

I can't guarantee outcome, neither can you.

I am with the victim's right to defend herself/himself using guns, if they chose to do so.

You are with criminal to ensure that potential victims would be unarmed.

God, I am so happy that I don't live in the US. Citizens having guns does not increase the security in your society. When will you understand that your high rate of people getting killed by guns, compared to other western countries, is caused by your way of thinking that more guns is the solution to all problems?

> God, I am so happy that I don't live in the US.

Whatever floats your boat. Enjoy.

> Citizens having guns does not increase the security in your society.

It is not a mechanism to address a communal goal of increased security of our society. It is a recognition of individual right to defend themselves.

>your way of thinking that more guns is the solution to all problems

Solution to all problems? We do understand that it is not a solution to all problems, already.

> It is a recognition of individual right to defend themselves.

It's a recognition of the individual right to feel defended. Statistics (and the results of every other developed country in the world) suggest that feeling is wrong.

It's binary, not statistics.

Would you grant that there has been at least one case where gun was used successfully to defend oneself?

If so, then for that person, that option was worthwhile and exercised successfully. All statistics be damned. And I for one, doesn't want to revert the outcome of that event because of statistics.

It is highly individual decision to exercise an option available to them. Success or failure of that option has nothing to do with it, hence statistics of outcome of the event doesn't have a bearing on the option being available.

Should I not have right to give $20 to a homeless person? Statistics may say it would most likely get used for drugs. Does that mean society should outlaw donating money to homeless persons? You may publish stats and provide alternative means to help homeless, but individual decisions to donate to homeless can't be outlawed, can it be?

http://moralmachine.mit.edu/

What may be moral as group goal as seen by outsider bystander, may be immoral when seen from individual perspective.

People are not statistical samples, people are individuals. I associate myself with individual first, before group. I prefer individual safety first, I value it more than some perceived group benefit.

>Also, most US states make one pass a test to prove that one is capable of operating an automobile to some minimum standard of "not killing people".

I think that's generally only for operation on public roads. I'm pretty sure that you can go buy a car, have it transported to your private property via trailer, and then drive it around your property all you want without a license.

Also, see https://www.quora.com/Can-you-buy-a-car-without-a-drivers-li...

Or you steal a car.

I can't fathom this fascination with law-abiding criminals.

> It's much easier to kill a person with a gun than a KitchenAid mixer.

KitchenAid makes knives as well.

> Also, most US states make one pass a test to prove that one is capable of operating an automobile to some minimum standard of "not killing people".

How many car thefts are there per year?

What makes you think that that process you describe for a test to prove one is capable of operating an automobile ensures that car won't be used as a weapon? If anything, it ensures that person with such intentions is properly trained at using the car up to the point of using it as a weapon.

Even if those test do somehow check for "minimum standard of not killing people", Why do you think someone who just wants a car to be used as a weapon would put herself through those tests instead of stealing one?

You must grant that stopping people from committing crimes is an unsolved hard problem. It's OK to work on that problem, what's not OK is to act as if it is a solved problem. Till the problem is solved, we must allow people to have an option to defend themselves with guns if they are so inclined.

Why can't we make statistical decisions about tools based on the sort of capabilities that they provide and the trade offs that come with those capabilities?

Because communal goals can't trump individual freedoms.

Communal goals must maintain freedoms that our battle tested constitutional rights guarantee.

I am fine with such analysis. But, we must keep above guidelines in mind when looking at pros/cons that the analysis reveals. You may say 500 accidental deaths are not too many and we should take away rights.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States

Each homicide is where the victim could have availed the option of defending self with guns. Whether such attempt to defend was successful or not, doesn't matter. What matters is that we as society didn't stop that person from having that option. 4.9 homicides per 100k people, that's 16,170 opportunities where a person could have used that option but failed. Then there are incidents where threat of gun stops a homicide. Is 500 accidents are OK as a cost? First of all, I don't agree that gun accidents are a cost that we are paying for having gun rights, there could be knife accidents or bow/arrow accidents if guns are banned. I look at it differently, imagine if you can go to each of those homicides as it is in progress, hit stop button on the time machine and tell the victim that please realize that you use to have an option to defend yourself in this situation with a gun, but we intentionally took it away because few other people were careless in their use of guns. Do you find it ethical to do that? I don't. And therein lies my stand on this.

Play it little differently, imagine each successful use of gun to defend oneself or their loved ones. Using time machine, do you feel comfortable going back to each such incident, take the gun away from the victim and ask them to use the phone instead. If you go back enough in time, then there wouldn't be phone, you would have to ask them to fight with frying pan. Can you do that? If not, how is the situation different today? How can we ask someone to not defend themselves and face a more powerful adversary with bare hands? Are you ok with people dying or being raped or looted where they had used guns successfully to avoid those outcomes? If you are ok with it then how are you not the enemy of those people?

Yeah, modifying the Constitution is the way to really get it done.

As far as whether I am okay designing policy using statistics, even if there are two sides to those statistics, with horrible anecdotes on the side the policy impacts negatively, the answer is yes.

Welcome to Eugenics!

Do you think this is a good argument?

I didn't say that policy should exclusively consider statistics, I just meant that one sided anecdotes don't invalidate statistics.

I think it was a very valid argument, otherwise I wouldn't have made it. You can take time to re-read and think about it more.

Let's try one more way...

We may know all the statistics of every baseball player that make up both teams.

But, we can't declare winner based on stats alone. We still have to go out there and play the game.

If we ban guns based on stats, then it would be equivalent to asking baseball players to not use bats during the game... because stats!!! What's the point of taking bats to the game, you are going to lose anyway. Right?

I may not take on a professional baseball team, my decision.

Someone may decide to do just that, they may succeed, they may not. Should they not play because of stats? Should they not carry bats to the ballpark because of stats?

Should the society stop the game from happening, outlawing it but declaring winner at the same time, because of stats?

That is the equivalent of society banning guns from citizens. You declare the criminal who carries gun anyway an automatic winner, you don't let the citizen have a chance at the game, you use force (police) to stop citizen from attempting to play.

Sports leagues have competition committees. They do things like look at statistics related to specific rules and, as they see fit, make changes to the rules.

So for instance, professional baseball players play exclusively with wooden bats, they don't allow the very best bats that can be constructed because it changes the game in ways they don't like.

Sports league controls the environment of a game completely. And, even at most professional levels, you still get doping and deflate-gate.

You don't control the events in the world with its full complexity.

Are you claiming you can control what weapons criminals can bring to my house?

What should be your punishment if you fail at maintaining that control?

I can't see how you can keep the promise of maintaining control over guns used by criminals. I see you as someone who is trying to limit my options while having no means to make situation any better for me.

I hope you can see why gun control supporters get seen as enemy to personal well being, not just a nuisance, by the gun rights advocates.

Yes, the idea would be to limit your options, with people accepting the negative consequences of that rather than accepting the negative consequences of easy gun ownership.

It's not that I don't understand your position. It's that it's not the one that is best for society.

lol

And I wholesale reject your idea.

You have stated a preference. A wish for world to be a certain way, with no proof that the world behaves that way, all the while world is behaving exactly opposite of how you claim it to be.

I am a law abiding citizen. You are affecting my chances of survival. You intend to use police force to negatively affect my chances of survival. You intend to outlaw basic right to fight for survival, updated to work with modern era weaponry and challenges. I see you as detrimental to my well being without proper cause or ethical reasoning.

I reject your idea and your preference. Feel free to try again with a better version, if you like.

Where have I stated any intention to use force?

There's a difference between stating what I believe would be best for society and having any belief that society will actually choose that course of action.

>Where have I stated any intention to use force?

here...

> the idea would be to limit your options

Your proposed options are more restrictive than my options now, while not giving ethical/moral reasoning for it being more restrictive.

If I don't agree with the options you propose voluntarily, you will make new laws and use police force to stop me from buying a gun or limit kind of gun I can buy etc.

I didn't do anything wrong and I don't intend to do anything wrong.

Making a law that targets me is a threat to use force (criminal/civil court proceedings and law enforcement) against me.

> Because communal goals can't trump individual freedoms.

They can and do, and in ways I'd be willing to bet you support. The entire function of government in society is to restrict individual freedoms in favor of communal goals:

- the freedom to harm others in body or property

- the freedom to keep your entire income earned in the United States

- the freedom to move across political boundaries without restriction

- ...

Everything a government does can be framed as "restricting individual freedoms in favor of communal goals". In the case of guns, I happen to be convinced that one of the essential functions of a state is to maintain a monopoly on the use of force [0].

> Play it little differently, imagine each successful use of gun to defend oneself or their loved ones

I can tug heartstrings too! Let's imagine each successful use of a gun to hurt oneself or someone else. How about each instance where a woman was raped at gunpoint, or a child killed himself or a friend with their parents' gun, or somebody killed themselves on a whim (it frequently is, when guns are accessible). How am I not an enemy of those people if I say "It was ok for those people to have guns"?

Let me clarify, I'm not really in favor of a total ban on guns, I'm just not willing to rule out restricting them in the same way we restrict the other dangerous things our society has created.

[0] https://www.britannica.com/topic/state-monopoly-on-violence

Does one have freedom to enslave another? Do I have freedom to get into a slavery contract (sale myself into slavery) with another person?

Do I have freedom to commit crime without repercussions?

Of course not. I have freedoms as long as they don't impede on freedoms of another fellow citizen in broadest sense, and fellow human being in restricted sense, in their pursuit of happiness and liberty.

Freedom to protect oneself from aggressor is basic human right. Guns is an extension of that right in modern era. Of course, nukes are not OK as individual weapon of choice. Without guns, basic human strength plays a disproportionate role in ensuring individuals right to self preservation against aggressor.

>Let's imagine each successful use of a gun to hurt oneself or someone else.

Let's.

Improper use of a tool hurt people and bystanders all the time. Guns are no different than cars, book shelves, swimming pools, knives, electricity and chemicals in this regard.

>How about each instance where a woman was raped at gunpoint

What's your point? Is he criminal in your mind because he has gun or because he is raping someone? Can you ensure in your gun-free world even criminals won't have guns? I don't understand this obsession to stand up for law abiding criminals. Ha raped her, but at least he wasn't at gun point. Whew! that was close.

>child killed himself

A gun hating friend of mine has a Shepard dog that my friend openly says is for protecting house and house members. The dog has hurt couple of kids but that's fine in his book, but a gun, oh, no, we must say no to guns. If guns have to go then all dogs above one feet height must go as well, each car must drive at 5 miles an hour and must come with padded cushions on the outside, each knife must be wooden, no metal knives.

>I happen to be convinced that one of the essential functions of a state is to maintain a monopoly on the use of force [0].

Which state isn't? The right to bear arm by common citizenry is hard fought and hard won right. I am not willing to outsource it to government because it makes it feel good. You could depend on police to save you in each and every situation, your call, I won't force you to own guns. But, you saying no one else should be able to defend themselves either is attack on those who want to. You are worse than the criminals who attack their victims.

For abortion, the right wing makes same arguments. They don't want to avail abortion in any situation and they want to remove that as a option from all other humans beings as well.

I am for abortion and for guns. Let people, individuals, decide what they want.

I don't know how common the personal safety situations you mention are, but if they are anything more than complete anamoly, then our society is in sad shape indeed.

Other developed countries in Europe and Asia have much lower intentional homicide rates. Why are we such a murderous bunch in the US?

If you count gun violence only, that may be true.

That is to say we use civil methods to attack one another.

In Asia, if bare fists and feet aren't enough (most of the time they are) then stones, sticks, ropes, iron rods, dull knives, acid or kerosene serve the purpose. Criminals don't really need to carry guns, because government ensures that citizenry is disarmed.

I think a granny with stick and a goon with stick, stick is not much of an equalizer. Granny with gun? now she stands a chance, if she wants to take it.

US killed their goons in the streets, posse, sheriffs, bounty hunters, armed shop keepers, business owners and homeowners. West developed that way and I sincerely think is better because of it. Goon cultures in most of Asia would be suffocating to bear for most US westerners. Trust me you don't want it here.

No, it is not just by gun violence. Regardless of method, other developed countries have a far low rate of intentional homicide than the US.

Of course many countries, like Russia or Brazil have a much worse rates of intentional homicide than the US. But when compared to other developed countries like Japan, Germany, France and so on, the US is much higher.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

Japan and Germany are far more homogeneous societies. Not same number of conflicts or cultural pressures as USA.

France may be little more tolerant of abuse than us. I would rather have a violent confrontation than long term abuse.

There are racial and demographic components to that question that are not politically correct to answer.

If one were inclined to dig into the FBI's statistics they would find a large portion are of a certain minority who are killing other members of that same group. These groups are also in low income areas with little prospects for good jobs. They also, ironically, seem to inhabit areas with very strict gun laws.

Often when I see this topic come up I think the violence is not caused by weapons but by an environment that doesn't have much opportunity for them.

People can take time to come up with solutions to problem of lack of opportunity. And take time to implement those solutions.

People shouldn't stop others from having an option to arm themselves while these solutions are being envisioned and implemented with some success.

We don't have strong national standards because it's not in the purview of the Federal government to regulate gun sales or licensing. It is explicitly up to the states to do within the bounds of the Second Amendment.

Flying a plane is not a Constitutional right (I am finishing my PPL now, actually!), and is under the Federal government's regulatory authority.

In 2010, the SCOTUS found that the right to bear arms (the Second Amendment) is incorporated by the 14th amendment against the states: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald_v._City_of_Chicago So states have restricted power and authority to regulate or restrict your freedom to bear arms.

Now, regarding flying... If we ignore the machine used to travel / the mode of transportation (be it a plane, a car, a space saucer, etc) -- the basic question we're asking here is: do the people have a travel freely within their country regardless of what machine or contraption they use to do so?

A basic analysis of the constitution would reveal that the right to travel freely (using whatever contraption or machine to do so) was something so obviously a right, that it did not require to be explicitly stated as a protected right (and likely implicitly covered under the 9th).

Imagine states in 1800, requiring licensing (i.e. government approval) before you could ride a horse. There would've been an uproar.

The specificity is important. I am talking specifically about operating general aviation aircraft. A good portion of GA flight is not travel from A to B but sight-seeing/recreation. The question isn't whether travel is a Constitutional right. The question is whether it's a violation of your Constitutional rights to require training and licensure to operate a single-engine piston aircraft. It's not.

> Flying a plane is not a Constitutional right (I am finishing my PPL now, actually!), and is under the Federal government's regulatory authority.

Which enumerated power in the Constitution grants the United States the ability to regulate intrastate flight?

By the same reasoning that the federal government can regulate crop production even if the specific product isn't sold between states (Wickard v. Filburn). I'm sure the same argument could be crafted that intrastate flights affect interstate flight prices, surely this is how the argument would be framed.

I'm well aware. That is unrelated to how I think it's crazy.

As for percentage of gun owners who hunt please keep in mind more than 1/2 of all tags sold for big game are for Archery.

As for knowing those who aren't conservationists I think, based on my experience, it is very much a regional thing. People from back east don't have a strong a tie to conservation as most of their land isn't public land or land they have easy access to. Most hunting out east, and in Texas, is owning land or knowing someone who owns land. As you move further west most hunters use public land and they are more inclined to focus on conservation. Please keep in mind these are my observations having lived and hunted all over the US, it is by no means a sweeping detailed study.

You cannot be an environmentalist and also for prevention of forest fires, however given the mismanagement of the forests we're now in a very dangerous situation where the forests are too dense and fires will be too hot so recovery from a fire will take a very long time instead of being the productive and beneficial activity that forest fires once were.

This is due in large part to the Colbert effect. The only source for what liberals believe conservatives think comes from sources like Colbert or Stewart.

It's part of a much broader issue that has lead to the "the sky is falling," "fascism is just around the corner" hysteria since Trump won.

You are making the same mistake. One poster here says they are surprised that all gun owners aren't like Ted Nugent. You blame it on the "Colbert Effect". Where do you get your impression that liberals all think that the poster you are responding to?

As someone who loves to spend weekends in the outdoors hiking, hunting, and fishing, moving to Texas really highlighted the importance of keeping these lands public. As the article mentions, Texas sold nearly all of the federal land it was granted and as a result is currently about 95% privately-owned.

For most hunters, this means that you either have to lease private land, which is becoming increasingly more difficult and expensive (think thousands of dollars annually), or hire an outfitter for exorbitant fees. This has priced many people out of hunting and will continue to do so as populations and land development continue to rise. I, personally, have been looking for a hunting lease within a couple hours drive of Austin for the past three years and have not been able to find one - and that's with a budget of over $3k/year.

Without transfer protections that mandate keeping the land public and accessible perpetually, I don't know how any outdoorsman could be for this "transfer".

I agree with how sad it is that Texas doesn't have more public land for hunting and shooting. Imagine if we had 100,000+ acres out past Fredericksburg for outdoor activities.

Honestly, I didn't know how people hunted or shot weapons outside Texas. I assumed it was all private business and expensive deer leases. I still don't get it! You're telling me, in Utah/Colorado and other places, that I can just go to federal/state land with a gun and a license, and get food?

Yes, if you have a license, follow the limit rules and hunt in-season.

In some states, like NH, the default is that you can even hunt on other people's (privately-owned) land, unless it is posted. As a landowner, you are encouraged to allow free, recreational use of your land by others.

"I still don't get it! You're telling me, in Utah/Colorado and other places, that I can just go to federal/state land with a gun and a license, and get food?"

Yes.

Setting aside seasonal limitations and quantity limits, you may do just that.

Further, at any time of any day of the year, you can enter a national forest in Colorado, set up a target, and start shooting.[1][2][3]

In fact, I am fairly certain that you can just go live in the national forest provided that your encampment/structures are completely mobile and temporary.

It's the "Land of Many Uses".

[1] I recommend a lot of sanity checks, however. In addition to scouting the entire area for any other people and ensuring proper backstop, I would also give a courtesy call to the local forest service office and the local sheriff and give them a heads up. About half the time they would respond by telling me that I was not able to do that and I would politely inform them that they were wrong and to have a great day.

[2] Also note that just because you are legally able to do this and are "in the right" doesn't mean local LE can't come arrest you and seize your firearms and sort it out in court anyway. If you're remote enough and nobody is there to complain it's not really an issue.

[3] Do not do this in popular areas with hikers and kids and where there is little or no tradition of shooting in that place, etc. Don't be a dick.

I think most National Forests and BLM have a 14-21 day limit on being in one camp. A lot of fulltime RV'ers get around this by simply moving to another camp.

Not sure if you're being serious with your last sentence. But I live on the edge of the grid near the Gila National Forest... and it's exactly like that. 3.3 million acres of public land to hunt and fish on. The trout fishing is amazing, and elk meat is hard to beat! For NM residents, hunting tags are very cheap and 1 large elk is enough to feed my family for a year.

My last sentence was half serious, in that I understand, but that it's completely foreign to a Texas native.

I grew up near the LBJ grasslands and hunting and fishing were as easy as crossing a green gate.

Texas has the opposite problem than we have in Alaska. Less than 1% of Alaska is privately owned. Despite seemingly having so much space there is suprisingly few desirable lots available for sale. And even fewer at reasonable prices.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/43/65/bf/4365bf0b3...

For that kind of money you should start looking at doing out of state hunting. Both NM and CO have good options for the non-resident hunter.

Yep, that is definitely something I am actively looking into - this was my first year applying for a muzzleloader tag for the Colorado elk season.

P.S. I'm also a BHA member and huge supporter of what they are doing to preserve public land access (http://www.backcountryhunters.org)

Without making this too political, there would be far less pushing by the states to get this land back if the federal government hadn't gone on a (ahem) roughly 8 year spree of turning it into enormous national monuments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bears_Ears_National_Monument#D...

Turning federal land into national monuments greatly limits the traditional uses of these publicly held lands -- restrictions on livestock grazing, hunting, camping, etc.

Obviously there needs to be responsible land stewardship, but abusing the antiquities act to carve out enormous not-parks-but-not-free chunks of land isn't the best way to get everyone working together there.

Designating an area a national monument ties the hands of subsequent governments to do with it as they please.

On the other hand, every other way of losing public land also ties the hands of subsequent governments to do with it as they please. Suppose that you sell it for a song to your friends, or allow resource extraction in an environmentally sensitive area... A decade down the road, you can't wave a magic wand, and undo that damage.

The fact of the matter is that once public lands are lost, they are gone - forever. Every election year, we must fight to keep public lands public - we only need to lose once, and then its over. Can you really blame someone for seeking a more permanent solution to this problem?

Yeah, but allowing cattle to graze on land they've been grazing on for 100 years keeps states from starting campaigns to take it back. I'm not suggesting that selling to the states is a good idea. I am suggesting that taking _away_ traditional land rights is causing states to push to take ownership of the land.

The BLM has not traditionally been enemies of the people using the land. The antagonism is a very new phenomenon.

I looked for information on the national park you linked to. This says that grazing, hunting, fishing, recreation, etc., would all still be allowed[1]:

>The monument designations maintain currently authorized uses of the land that do not harm the resources protected by the monument, including tribal access and traditional collection of plants and firewood, off-highway vehicle recreation, hunting and fishing and authorized grazing.

It's apparently also an important deal for tribal sovereignty[2]:

> Under the Bears Ears Monument designation, an intertribal coalition will partner with the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to manage the area — which is slightly bigger than the state of Delaware — ensuring that tribes have access to food supplies and firewood.

This[3] says that existing grazing is usually grandfathered in, but that new grazing is limited. I get the impression that there's a lot of disinformation out there.

[1] https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/secretaries-jewell-vilsack... [2] http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/01/09/508586040/bea... [3] http://www.npr.org/2017/02/05/513492389/utah-representative-...

I'd like to point out the difference between national parks and national monuments.

Creating a national park requires an act of congres, creating a national monument only takes an executive order[1]. I can imagine states are much more worried about executive orders as opposed to acts of congress.

[1] https://vault.sierraclub.org/planet/199611/nationalpark.asp

I've met with the BLM folks out there and helped them repair trails. The BLM isn't anyones enemy.

They have gotten a lot of guns pointed at them by people who are upset that they can't ride ATVs in an area with lots of sensitive Anasazi artifacts, though.

The BLM gets along just fine with many ranchers. There are a few bad apples out there that think that because they were the only ones using the public land for a while that they should keep it. Ranchers in general get a pretty sweet deal from the feds. Be skeptical of claims that they are getting screwed. The prices they have paid are extremely low.

> Ranchers in general get a pretty sweet deal from the feds.

See, this is the problem mindset, and the reason people are protesting. The mindset should not be "oh, it's all owned by the federal government, and everything they choose to give you you should be grateful for"

The land is literally supposed to be held in trust for the public, and free to use. The BLM prevents abuse, but it's not supposed to be making a profit from the public. For the vast majority of the country's history, fees to use public lands were token, because it was land owned _collectively by the people_

Now that a small minority of the country actually uses the land, because people have moved to the cities, nobody notices that this contract is being slowly changed, to the detriment of people who have relied on this public access for a long time.

> The land is literally supposed to be held in trust for the public, and free to use. The BLM prevents abuse, but it's not supposed to be making a profit from the public. For the vast majority of the country's history, fees to use public lands were token, because it was land owned _collectively by the people_

The BLM doesn't make a profit. Actually they (rather, the Dept. of the Interior) don't charge enough for things like mineral extraction. Think of it this way. You and I and everyone else owns those minerals. The US should make sure that we as taxpayers are getting our fair share of their value. It is the same thought process behind the FCC and spectrum auctions. When there is a public good involved, the government needs to make sure it is being put to the best use for all of the citizens. Not just the first people in the door or the well connected.

>Now that a small minority of the country actually uses the land, because people have moved to the cities, nobody notices that this contract is being slowly changed, to the detriment of people who have relied on this public access for a long time.

This is an erroneous statement. Where did you read this?

More people are using BLM land, especially in the Bears Ears area than ever before. This is because of population growth and increased awareness of BLM land. In the past, it was just ranchers and hunters using the land. Now people go hiking, ride ATVs, ride horses (for fun, not work like in the past), etc.

What about "oh, it's all owned by the federal government as a proxy for your fellow citizens, and every shared resource your fellow citizens let you use for private gain instead of public good you should be grateful to them for"?

There is a major difference here between publicly held renewable resources and non-renewable resources.

For renewable resources, all that needs to be done is preventing a 'tragedy of the commons' and keeping the land open to most people.

However, for non-renewable resources, whomever gets it is effectively taking it from the public. It is then important that the public is compensated for this loss.

>>The land is literally supposed to be held in trust for the public, and free to use.

I'm not sure where it says it has to be free to use. In fact, the Supreme Court has stated numerous times that the authority of the Federal government over public lands is "without limitations."

http://www.lectlaw.com/files/con30.htm

BLM grazing fees for 2017 are $1.87 per "animal unit" per month. An AU is a cow and calf, a horse, or five sheep or goats. That is roughly 1 acre in terms of area.

https://www.blm.gov/press-release/blm-and-forest-service-ann...

I was amused to visit Capitol Reef National Park and enjoy a tour of a small canyon where a boardwalk lets you see the names of some 19th century folk carved into a cliff face. Along the way were signs warning you of the criminal prosecution that would result if you carved your own name into the cliff.

I have seen significant preservation efforts regarding a name scratched on a hillside near the Grand Canyon. The author was still living down the street from me, but the scratching was 50 years old.

The abandoned houses across town are blight, but the one in Yosemite is a national treasure. My child's mud hut is a safety hazard, but the one up the cliff is a sacred Anasazi artifact.

On the other hand, I have seen a small local wilderness area turn from a fun spot for a family Easter egg hunt to a regional ATV attraction so crowded the local Boy Scouts could no longer camp there.

Balancing the past, present, and future is always a subjective thing. When the BLM actually does its job, it does land management. But that is a hard job. It is often easier to just close everything down and not let anyone in. That is not management. But when pressure on a wilderness grows from a couple hundred visitors a year to a couple hundred visitors a day, a policy of "anything goes" is also not management. Management can be expensive.

The people in the best position to observe and propose solutions are always local. But BLM struggles to build local partnerships. They try to manage through a multi-layered bureaucracy that ultimately makes decisions from Washington, D.C. The result can often look like the United Airlines video--constructing and enforcing a policy in a manner that doesn't fit the local situation. There are any number of ideas that could get the job done cheaper and with more sensibility.

> I was amused to visit Capitol Reef National Park and enjoy a tour of a small canyon where a boardwalk lets you see the names of some 19th century folk carved into a cliff face. Along the way were signs warning you of the criminal prosecution that would result if you carved your own name into the cliff.

That boardwalk is called the "Petroglyphs Trail", and it's there for ancient Native American art. Fixing the names of some people that carved their names near it would cause harm to the petroglyphs, so they opted to leave them instead of repair them. I feel like you're being intentionally misleading in completely omitting the fact that the boardwalk is there specifically for Anasazi Petroglpyhs.

> The abandoned houses across town are blight, but the one in Yosemite is a national treasure.

Care to share which house this is? Only information I could find was on the Bodie Ghost town, which is a historic mining town. Again, there's obvious cultural significance to an old gold rush town that is not present in some abandoned craftsmen in the inner city.

> My child's mud hut is a safety hazard, but the one up the cliff is a sacred Anasazi artifact

Really? Do you really not see the difference?

> On the other hand, I have seen a small local wilderness area turn from a fun spot for a family Easter egg hunt to a regional ATV attraction so crowded the local Boy Scouts could no longer camp there.

Which is exactly what a National Monument designation protects.

> Balancing the past, present, and future is always a subjective thing. When the BLM actually does its job, it does land management. But that is a hard job. It is often easier to just close everything down and not let anyone in. That is not management. But when pressure on a wilderness grows from a couple hundred visitors a year to a couple hundred visitors a day, a policy of "anything goes" is also not management. Management can be expensive.

This is literally the opposite of what National Monument land does. They're not "closed down." They're actually far more accessible for generations, just not by way of vehicles that cause massive destruction.

> The people in the best position to observe and propose solutions are always local. But BLM struggles to build local partnerships. They try to manage through a multi-layered bureaucracy that ultimately makes decisions from Washington, D.C. The result can often look like the United Airlines video--constructing and enforcing a policy in a manner that doesn't fit the local situation. There are any number of ideas that could get the job done cheaper and with more sensibility.

Can you cite some sources for that? Let's look at Utah, which is at the center of the National Monument controversy. Yuba Lake, a state park, is an absolute disaster of motorhomes, ATVs, and speedboats. Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, Arches and Zion, all federal land, have all maintained a large percentage of their natural beauty and cultural significance. What exactly would the state do better with those lands?

Edit: I also want to bring up Goblin Valley, one of the more popular state parks in Utah. It's $13 for day-use access to 3500 acres. Grand Staircase, on the other hand, is 1.8 MILLION acres, free day use, and arguably far more fragile and spectacular.

I frequently visit the area of the future (present?) Bears Ears National Monument. It is interesting to hear people say "traditional uses" of the land out there. Each person has their own definition. The problem is that non-native people didn't live out there until relatively recently. For example: how can cattle grazing in a desert be considered traditional if it has only happened for 100 years or so? It is a desert, after all, not a lush grassland.

Also, the propaganda that calls this a "land grab" is misleading. The land was already owned by the federal government. They aren't taking anything. Yes, they are placing restrictions on use (which will negatively impact me, btw), but the popularity of the area has exploded just in the last few years. I don't think the current "free for all" (which is fun) approach can continue forever.

The only thing that concerns me about national monument status is that they might try to make it into a Disney Land experience like the other national parks. It would be ruined in my mind if they created giant paved RV campgrounds with flush-toilet bathrooms.

Find a copy of the book "Desert Solitaire" for a better written summary of the issues out there. My views track pretty closely with the author's.

The designation as a national monument seeks to protect the status quo, including any recreational or low-intensity commercial use, as long as those are sustainable.

The states actually have a far worse record on providing public access and use for land owned by them. While the federal government is bound by law to allow, for example, hunting or hiking, states tend to seek avenues for monetising their land, often charging for access or leasing to mining/drilling/farming operations which in turn prohibit public access.

Those national monument designations were also, in turn, just a reaction to the "drill, baby, drill" chorus echoing through the last few Republican campaigns.

The actual economic impact of exploring the remaining natural resources is uncertain at best, considering the low market prices and the practical reasons why these deposits have remained untouched so far. That creates the impression that this is an emotional subject, meaning that parts of the political spectrum would gladly drill a well and pump oil right into the next Alaskan creek as long as it sufficiently enrages liberals.

There's emotion on the other side as well, without a doubt. But those lucky bastards somehow get to trigger their opponents by protecting the Orange Oregonian Owl.

Looking at the HN comments, I think the key problem here is in individual tastes.

Whatever you do, the land has to be managed. "Managed" can mean a dozen things to a dozen people. Some folks want it completely untouched. Some folks want to manage it as perhaps a farmer or rancher would. Some folks want a place to ride ATVs and raise hell.

Political systems exist for political reasons. That is the only reason they exist. Lately, any political system in the States is going to gravitate towards one group throwing mud at another group.

So, to address your first sentence, I do not believe there is any way for this not to be political. Perhaps the key question instead is this: at what level of politics should these decisions take place? Should everything happen at the national level? If so, why? Personally, I'd prefer a limit of thirds between national, state, and local governments. That way any one political group doesn't start monopolizing all the power. It shouldn't be possible for us to have a single election at any level of government and decide how to treat huge sections of public land. For that reason alone, I'm against the current trend of federalizing everything.

It's not because I want the land to be commercialized. In fact, I want just the opposite. But those are my tastes. I understand others have their own views. Let's stay as far away as possible from more winner-take-all political structures.

Between the viable options, I'll say that at least lobbying for unfair largess from the federal government is more expensive and takes more finesse.

Some of the giveaways from state legislatures boggle the mind.

They boggle your mind. But they represent the will of the people.

I live in a small desert community that was largely agricultural in my youth. Today, most of the water rights have been sold away and most of the farm land has been developed for other uses.

I think it is unfortunate. Sometimes I think the remaining farm land should be protected from development. But I do not own the land, and I did not do all the work to turn it into farm land. I believe the owners of the property have the right to do as they decide for themselves.

So, if I really want the land to be preserved, I can try to raise millions of dollars and buy the land from the farmers. But I can't otherwise just block them from selling it to a developer.

If you think state officials mismanage public lands and would prefer the feds to mismanage it, the feds should buy it from the state. This should not be a forced sale, either.

If a state has willingly sold its land to the feds... well, I guess they can't complain. Can you tell me how the federal government came to own 80+% of Nevada? Ask the Sheahans [1] and the Bundys [2].

Edit: Corrected typo

[1] http://origin-stage.reviewjournal.com/news/military/family-f...

[2] http://www.bizpacreview.com/2014/04/16/why-does-federal-gove...

I was referring to something like this [1]. I imagine there's a lot of mining, oil, and forestry state contracts that look the same way.

Private land is private land. If farmers want to sell it to condo developers they (albeit sadly) can.

My problem is that state government is largely unprofessional. Say what you want about the revolving door in DC between public and private, but state governments make that look downright respectable: generally instead there's kickback + sneaking an agreement in at the last moment + underfunded local news not noticing = public gets screwed and someone gets a cushy private sector job next year.

[1] http://www.myajc.com/news/opinion/opinion-lease-deal-leaves-...

"They boggle your mind. But they represent the will of the people."

How much can you actually say that. Were there polls done? Was it done by referendum?

I fail to see any logic in that at all.

"The Government is taking our public land to make it public forever but limited use! I know let's sell our public land so it's never public again! That will..... fix it?"

It's hard to feel sorry for people who want public lands to be accessible but who, as a bloc, keep voting for politicians who want to privatize everything.

You can vote for a party and still disagree with some of their policies.

You can vote for one of two near-identical parties but the vote will be decided by Facebook.

Sad but true for most Americans.

You can exert some effort to solve the two party system by getting your state to implement ranked choice voting.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/03/us/maine-ranked-choice-vo...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theo... "Although Arrow's theorem is a mathematical result, it is often expressed in a non-mathematical way with a statement such as no voting method is fair, every ranked voting method is flawed, or the only voting method that isn't flawed is a dictatorship."

That theorem says that no voting system is perfect, for a certain definition of perfect. It does not say that all voting systems are equally bad.

I'm Dutch, so no. Discourse is the only tool I know I have here.

The reason I'm invested in the U.S. political system is that it produces something resembling international jurisprudence ("if the U.S. is doing it, we should too!"), because it influences our policies through trade agreements and the U.N., and because many U.S. companies are very influential internationally.

That, and Trump's climate policies affect every conscious being on Earth.

There will be resistance, though. Here in Maine we passed RCV via a referendum, but the legislature is still pushing back and trying to find ways to prevent the change from coming into effect.

I assume that part of the problem is that we don't have politicians with whom these people agree on most topics other than privatization who also don't want to privatize everything. When you have a binary choice of politicians in a multidimensional space, you're likely to have to elect someone with whom you disagree on a lot of things.

If everyone agreed on this universally, why is nothing being done about it? You would find candidates who do the single-issue thing on reforming the electoral system and you elect them, because you know in advance nothing else matters until you have actual representation.

Then perhaps privatization is more important than they thought, no? And perhaps maybe that should be their single issue until they dislodge their representation?

The problem is that these same jerks aren't against privatizing YOUR stuff; they're just against privatizing THEIR stuff.

This is a common theme among the right wing of the US political system right now.

I am quite sure there is no such thing as a politician with whom everyone agrees.

It is all about compromise.

Agreement with politicians is not a binary, and what we're trying to do is maximise the agreement between the most people and the most politicians.

In fact, when designing a good voting system, we're literally trying to minimise the amount of compromising that voters have to do, when voting for their representative.

It doesn't take rocket science to realize that the reason our politicians are so unpopular and that faith in our institutions quite low is because the people you refer to have no legitimate representation. Maybe they want hunting and public lands, but one "side" clearly wants guns and hunting to go, while the other "side" clearly wants to sell off public land. The key thing to realize is that "lesser of two evils" really is a choice between evils, and that until people can feel that they have a choice between "the most decent of two goods" things are just going to get more and more wild.

> What could hunting and fishing look like should our public lands fall under state control? Turn to Europe

... where plenty of nations have Right to Roam over private lands for their citizens? Can't see that ever happening in the US. Hunting isn't widespread in Europe, sure, but hunting isn't the only thing that you can do on the land.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam

Why do you think hunting is not widespread in Europe? IMHO it's quite common and the delicious meals that result are common too!

Agree. Hunting is not uncommon in Europe. I spent time in Southern France recently and on weekend mornings frequently heard guns going off as hunters went after birds, saw their cars and dogs, etc.

Large parts of Scotland are privately owned and run purely for hunting - grouse moors and deer forests (although not many trees in a Scottish deer forest).

Mind you, we do have the "Right to Roam" so we can wander about all of that land and camp where we want (main exclusion being that you have no right to use powered vehicles).

Admittedly not European myself, and I know that there is some hunting in Europe (and used to work with a Polish guy whose family hunted pigs), but it doesn't seem anywhere near as pervasive as hunting in the US.

I think you would be surprised, and if you are into hunting, pleasantly so by the level of shooting that goes on in Europe.

Outside the US the stereotype about America goes the other way: that all the shooting is of people. In case it's not obvious: I know this belief is incorrect.

FYI, in Finnish we have a very comprehensive "right to roam" legislation called "everymans right" but hunting is one of the exclusions in addition to camping to that right and I think correctly so.

http://www.nationalparks.fi/hikinginfinland/rightsandregulat...

Camping is allowed under Finnish everyman’s right (as your own link indicates), but a camper is supposed to stay at any one site for no more than one night.

Right to roam would be a nice thing for the US. There are so many wide open areas that are completely closed off by fences for no good reason. At least there should be a rule that you have provided a certain number of paths through the area.

I don't know about all of the USA, but here in Maine we have something similar. Most of the land in New England is privately held (because people settled here so long ago compared to the west), but people are still more or less free to roam about it. So long as you're actually out in the woods and not chilling in somebody's back yard, you're in the clear. Landowners can prohibit certain uses - hunting, foraging, etc., or even any trespassing - but the default is for land to be open, any restrictions must be clearly posted, and I believe that there are tax incentives for keeping the land open.

Curious question. About half of states have voted a constitutional amendment specifically calling out a right to hunt and fish.

F.ex., Georgia's reads "The tradition of fishing and hunting and the taking of fish and wildlife shall be preserved for the people and shall be managed by law and regulation for the public good."

Could a state resident sue their government for transferring state land to private ownership under the clause?

I would bet if they could prove that that sale materially harmed the preservation and management they could possibly sue successfully. That said, there are states where the public grounds that allow hunting and fishing suck due to mismanagement, and people go to private bodies of water and fields instead. Just because it's public doesn't mean taxpayers actually get what they're owed.

True. Which harkens back to the active or effective management vs passive or ineffective.

I was just struck that it would seem logically difficult to make a case that sale of public land (able to be hunted or fished) to a private party is "for the public good" in the sense of "preserving the traditions."

I wonder how long this will matter. When we're all living in shared studio apartments in car-free megacities, will there still be interest in going places whose whole appeal is being out of mass transit range? Will we still own camping and hunting gear?

Maybe the support will be there to maintain public lands and National Parks, but what about the roads and necessary roadside businesses (gas, motels, restaurants, etc) leading up to them?

Will rental cars be economical when leisure is the only remaining use of the automobile?

Human's that acquire more leisure time are going to want to stay in the city more and more? I feel the opposite trend will happen. I live in a outdoor industry bubble in Boulder Colorado so I have blinders on perhaps.

I live in an apartment, in a Megacity[0], and none of my friends have cars[1].

I see no reason to suspect that city life diminishes interest in nature. If anything, it's more of an experience because it's different. Come summer, my Facebook feed is filled with nature, and I've personally crossed the Alps on bicycle, usually camping the forests at night.

Upkeep of a few roads isn't actually that expensive, and to some degree costs are proportional to use. Take a look at a map of Australia to see many roads that may only see a few cars per week. Even if a National Park were only accessible by gravel road, I'd argue it'd enhance the experience.

With regards to cars, I get the sense that the most realistic future is no longer mass-transit only, but includes self-driving electric car-sharing. That allows people to continue enjoying the benefits of individual cars (privacy, carrying stuff, direct point-to-point, use of existing infrastructure worth billions) while still enabling the kind of transformation previously attributed to mass transit. For example, autonomous driving and car-sharing reduces the need for parking spaces and allows parking spaces to move to less-desirable areas, freeing up 1/3 of your typical city street.

[0]: Using a rather technical definition of ≥1 Million inhabitants

[1]: Yes, I have friends.

I'm having a hard time seeing autonomous vehicles significantly undercutting the price of existing rental cars, which is definitely something that keeps me from getting out of town on a regular basis.

Sure, renting for a long weekend is still significantly cheaper than actually owning a car, but compared to other costs (taking a walk to the closest inner-city park, cycling to a larger one, or just having dinner or board games with friends) it's actually a pretty high threshold.

What I am looking forward to is the night heating feature that allow electric cars to function as a makeshift "hotel room" for overnight accommodation. Once I have access to that via carsharing, that should lower the cost of a weekend trip enough to do it on a regular basis, with no camping gear required.

Alternatively, I would like to see some sort of workable car-sharing solution that would allow me to head out to the wilderness and hike for a few days without having to pay rental fees for the time my car sits unused at the trailhead. I only need the car for 8 hours or so (4 hour drive there and back) but have to pay for 96 hours of use.

Yeah, that should be much more feasible once the car can drive back to a more populated area for rental use there, until it takes off to pick you up from the trailhead again. I like this line of thinking as well! Higher mileage but also a higher degree of utilization, hopefully leading to less cars being needed overall.

> With regards to cars, I get the sense that the most realistic future is no longer mass-transit only, but includes self-driving electric car-sharing.

I see this as likely too, but I also can see the downsides to it, because people suck. Just think of how mass transit looks like in your city, and how people treat rental cars, rented housing, etc - and apply that to shared vehicles.

Though to be honest, we could make a better comparison today to things like Zipcar; I've never used one, so I don't know how often - if at all - one climbs into a car only to find it beaten to hell and back with vomit in the seats? Then again, such services aren't ubiquitous in all cities, so fewer people use them, and they might be more expensive so that those with a worse sense in using other's property are less likely to use the service?

I just know that with rental cars ("drive it like you rented it") and rental properties - it's hit or miss whether the renter(s) are going to be careful with the property and upkeep of it, or if they are going to utterly destroy it (usually, it's probably somewhere in-between, tending toward taking care of it). You'll always have those outliers I guess.

For now, though, I am keeping my vehicles, and paying the price. For one, I can't easily rent what I own (both vehicles are four-wheel drive and designed for off-roading), and one of those vehicles is a fairly rare machine (only about 5000 were sold in the United States). There are times, though, that I have been thankful I could rent a vehicle or take a cab or similar; sometimes you have no choice, or it's the better thing to do for the purpose at hand. In the future, with self-driving shared vehicles, this will be welcome for many purposes - but there will be downsides (likely, the first person to get the "destroyed vehicle" would decline it with a reason and it would be sent back to a depot for refurbishment).

I agree completly. Not having a car or space for camping gear is a huge barrier to getting outdoors.

Imagine two groups of people: 1000 suburbanites with SUVs and garages, and 1000 urban apartment dwellers with no car at all.

Which group is going to have more hikers, hunters, campers, fishers, ect?

Places like REI, where one can rent camping equipment for a reasonable price, exist.

Sure, but it's another barrier. Every time you put a group of people though a barrier, you lose some.

Once you've rented camping gear, what do you do with it? Remember, the plan is that neither the REI nor your apartment would have any parking. Haul it on the bus?

The long term trend for national parks over the last 100 years has been increasingly upward: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-national-parks-have... -- it seems like the only dips in visitation occur during times of economic depression or war.

The most extensive survey I could find on outdoor activity (http://www.outdoorfoundation.org/pdf/ResearchParticipation20...) seems to indicate that, while popularity of individual activities varies, the participation rate seems to have been roughly the same overall for a decade, at least.

Maybe hunting and camping will decline a little bit in importance, as it seems to be doing over the long term on this survey.

But others might take its place. On this survey, it seems like day hiking, kayaking, BMX biking, and trail running / adventure racing made some significant gains over the last ten years, for instance.

The main thing I can see autonomous cars doing is improving the park experience overall, by easing the traffic congestion in the most popular parks.

The federal government owns quite a bit of state land. I would like to be able to purchase some on the cheap like they did when they were trying to develop new territories in the 1800s.

This will probably come out like crap:

State, FederalOwned, TotalAcreage, Percent Nevada 59,681,502 70,264,320 84.9% Utah 34,202,920 52,696,960 64.9% Idaho 32,621,631 52,933,120 61.6% Alaska 223,803,098 365,481,600 61.2% Oregon 32,614,185 61,598,720 52.9%

https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_land_ownership_by_state

Alaska has less than 1% private land ownership. https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/43/65/bf/4365bf0b3...

If you are interested in supporting an organization that is dedicated to defending public land I strongly encourage you to join or donate to Backcountry Hunters and Anglers (BHA) www.backcountryhunters.org. I know having "hunters" in the name may scare many here but they are core conservationists out west and are fighting hard to maintain our open spaces that we are so blessed to have.

Public is different (or should be) from State-owned.

A land is not public anymore if the State owns it. Even though the State claims to be a "public" institution, owned by everyone, it is not, it is a separate organization that works with certain bizarre democratic rules, but still a separate organization, much like a "public" company.

Then what's your definition of "public"?

Land not owned by anyone.

Land not owned by anyone is land that can be claimed by anyone. Which means that anyone can build a hut there and then legally claim the land as their own private property.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_nullius

Maybe in your crazy legal system.

Then what's to stop me from plopping an oil well on it?

Let us know if you find it.

What do you suggest how we organize ourselves as the people other than through a government?

How do you organize your family "as the family"? How do you organize your company "as the company"? How do we organize ourselves in this website "as the HN commenters"?

When you say "as the people" it seems to imply that "we" ought to have some general agreement between all residents of this arbitrary territory limits known as the US.

>When you say "as the people" it seems to imply that "we" ought to have some general agreement between all residents of this arbitrary territory limits known as the US.

Yes, we should. It's odd in this day that I can't tell if you're a radical liberal NWO kind of person, or a college libertarian feeling out the philosophy of border ethics.

Horseshoe theory

That sounds like a great arrangement, as long as I get to be be patriarch, the boss, or the moderator who has dictatorial authority over who stays and who goes, and what the rules are.

Sound good?

Is your family like that? Sorry.

Your family or employer isn't? Your internet forum... oh, wait...

Yes we have that agreement. It's our constitution and laws that build on it. In fact your company and even your family build on that. Your company is in essence a giant pile of paperwork that make up the agreements the company is build on. Your family is not as different as you might think. Beyond the sentimental part there are again contracts and laws that make you a family and you either implicitly or often explicitly agree on then. The commonty of people living in the US and your state even dictate what "family" even means.

When I was much younger I was appalled by this and tried to refuse to accept this, but that's how it is. Otherwise as soon as things get hard everything falls apart. It also helps us beat the tragedy of the commons and make collective decisions more effectively. It's not ideal and there is lots of room for improvement, but there general approach works works pretty well and is at the heart of every society I know of. Sometimes it's more explicit than at others.

For many, the question is which public hands should hold the public land. Why should the federal government bring staffers from Arizona to manage the Everglades? Why is the Grand Canyon "governed" by Vermont? Why can't Bears Ears be managed by the state of Utah, or perhaps better yet, San Juan County?

Is a hot spring in Arkansas really so remarkable that it should belong to the people of California?

huh? Are we all not citizens of the United States?

Huh, I didn't even know they started selling public land. Last I had heard, the federal government tried to give back land to the states, but the states didn't accept. The reason being that the federal government was paying the states to preserve the land as if the states were making money off of it. So the states didn't want their free income gone.

They haven't started selling. This is in response to the failed attempt you mentioned for federal government to give control of the land to the states.

However, that was a bill in Congress that withdrawn after a very bipartisan outcry. This issue has brought together hunters, sportsmen, and snowmobilers on the right with environmentalists on the left.

The concern is that once the states have control, they will simply sell off most of it (as the article show precedent for).

The more interesting question is whether the federal government has the constitutional authority to set aside and control state land:

http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/05/07/federal-land-owne...

For anyone interested, I did some review in to somewhat related information (the review of national monuments since 1996) last week:

https://justinhorner.github.io/national_monuments.html

In Utah, my understanding is that the primary purpose of state owned lands is to generate revenue for the state. Utah uses them to make money, not to protect them. This includes mineral leasing for oil, gas, coal, etc, and grazing, but in some cases, like the "SITLA" School Trust lands, the state will literally auction off land into private hands. This is ostensibly to raise money for public schools. I strongly support public education, but this way of removing beautiful tracts of Utah desert from the public is very final. You can hike around an oil well, and eventually sort of clean them up, but outright selling off limited resources like lands is frustrating. Compared to normal revenue sources, like taxes, these land auctions raise such a small amount for money for the school system it's even more tragic.

The outdoor recreation industry in Utah is growing rapidly, largely part due to the National Parks, Monuments, and other amazing public lands we have to recreate on. Our 5 national parks (Arches, Canyonlands, Zion, Bryce and Capitol Reef) are some of the most visited in the country. This isn't hunting recreation, like the Field & Stream article is about. Most of this is mountain biking, climbing, hiking, rafting, etc. (Think family vacations and young web developers in Vanagons, not gun toting hunters in big trucks.) On top of the burgeoning hospitality industry supporting this tourism, outdoor companies like Backcountry.com, Petzl, Goal Zero, Black Diamond, Altra, Kuhl, Scott, etc have large presences in Utah now. By some counts, outdoor recreation is one of the largest economic drivers in Utah. And between the aspirational outdoor photos people in the city like on Instagram and generally affordable travel, this visitation trend will only continue upward.

In response to Utah's politicians passing resolutions and endlessly promoting "taking back" Federal land into State hands, the outdoor industry that relies on public land access has started to fight back. To make a stand against these anti-federal politics Patagonia, Black Diamond and some other large retailers threatened to boycott the "Outdoor Retailer" trade show, held in Utah. In response, there was a call with the Governor and he basically gave the outdoor industry the finger. They are moving the trade show to another state now - more symbolic than actually hurtful to Utah's economy, but an interesting development nonetheless. After the ceaseless "jobs" and "pro-business" rhetoric from red states like Utah this antagonism towards one of it's largest and fastest growing industries is frustrating and puzzling. I can't tell if my politicians really see using public lands for finite oil and gas extraction as a better plan than protecting them for generations of future vacationers - or if they just get better campaign contributions from those extraction industries. Either way, as someone who likes mountain biking and who has high hopes for solar energy and electric cars, there is nothing positive to me about these state attempts to control my Federal lands. (I do vote, but I will probably not be able to affect Utah's red state politics for a long time.)

On the other side of the coin, states are generally much more favorable to OHV enthusiasts than the BLM is.

Bikes too. Mountain bikes are currently banned from Federal lands. There's an uphill battle right now to open it, and I fear that e-bikes are going to kill it.

Bikes are banned in federal wilderness areas, not all Federal lands.

Because OHV vehicles absolutely terrorize the landscape when they're taken off the designated roads, which it seems like 75% of all OHV drivers insist on doing.

There is also nothing worse than camping somewhere peaceful, and then having some townie roll in at 11pm, leave their generator on all night, and then ride around on dirt bikes at 5:30am.

I've never met an OHV enthusiast that is a good human being. Please feel free to prove my experiences to be in the minority.

I don't get his outrage, one side will always complain. Depending on the state they could lose or gain rights if the feds transferred it.

But the feds and states are quite separate when it comes to taxes, budgets etc so why shouldn't both own land too?

By law federal public lands are multi-use, e.g. hunting, fishing, camping. States have no such proviso.

I'm a huntsman, but I disagree: those federal lands are essentially a subsidy paid for by everyone but which I get to enjoy. I have no problem with them being given to the states and/or sold to private owners. Indeed, I think that the expiration of the Homestead Act was a very sad thing for our republic: the idea that someone could move to public lands and set up his own home is very freeing.

But the idea that any individual can wander out into publicly-owned wilderness and enjoy endless acres of public land is less freeing?

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