Police seek man who shot hikers on California trail

[Brewster]

Just saw this on Reuters. While I am a supporter of the second amendment, I do not own a firearm.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/23/us-usa-california-hikers-idUSBREA4M02820140523

 

[TCD]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/21/world/asia/taiwan-train-stabbing/index.html

 

[David Metsky]

Moderator Hat
We are not having a gun control discussion in this thread.

 

[Mike P.]

An unfortunate event involving a fellow New Englander and likely New England hiker.

A trailhead shooting would lead me to believe they were followed from maybe a breakfast spot or maybe getting gas. They called it a popular trailhead but the next people to wander by did so three hours later, sounds pretty remote. (What's the time you'd wait at PNVC, Franconia Notch or Appalachia? How many would hear a shot outside of 2:00 AM and during the summer, you may have a Traverse starting and someone close by)

If his gun is out, I can't see him waiting for you to draw yours, pull it from your pack etc.

While following someone apparently hiking will lead you to a possible secluded area (a good place to commit a crime) it's possible they pull into a PNVC or Crawford Notch with lots of people milling about. Maybe the criminal overhead them and knew the area would likely be empty?

 

[TCD]

Fortunately these events are very rare. But they are tragic, and add a fear element to hiking that it would be nice not to have. I remember the terrible AT incident a few years ago; and of course we all remember Garrow.

I'm all for cameras at trailheads; the technology is there to cheaply install good quality cameras and store as much video as you want. It would be helpful to have this when these things happen to have a better chance of catching the offender. Cameras may have a deterrent effect, too; but I'm am more interested in catching than deterring. There are not really very many people like this, and if we catch several, we can reduce the population significantly. We can never eliminate the risk of this, but we can reduce it.