They know they can’t be trusted with them.
Joshua Tree National Park is named for the type of tree that grows exclusively in the Mojave desert of the United States, the Joshua Tree or Yucca brevifolia.
The trees in the park are protected. During the shutdown, some assholes have gone in and damaged some of the trees.
According to the National Parks Traveler:
“There are about a dozen instances of extensive vehicle traffic off roads and in some cases into wilderness,” Smith replied when asked about the damage in the park. “We have two new roads that were created inside the park. We had destruction of government property with the cutting of chains and locks for people to access campgrounds. We’ve never seen this level of out-of-bounds camping. Every day use area was occupied every evening.
“Joshua trees were actually cut down in order to make new roads.”
“We had some pretty extensive four-wheel driving around the entire area to access probably our most significant tree in the park,” Smith said. “We have this hybrid live oak tree that is deciduous. It is one of our kind of iconic trees inside the park. People were driving to it and camping under it. Through the virgin desert to get to this location. That would probably be a quarter-mile or so around the rock formation that is there.”
Joshua Tree National Park is a climbers paradise and apparently many of the illegal roads were for climbers to get to more remote locations. There was also some illegal four-wheeling in the park.
As someone who enjoys off-roading, this disgusts me.
There has been pretty much universal condemnation for the the individuals who have taken advantage of the reduced patrolling of the park to do damage.
These people should be investigated, found, prosecuted, and punished.
Then there are the wackos on the Left who want vigilante justice for the trees.
Barbara here is a Left wing economist who writes about evils of capitalism.
It’s a good thing that she doesn’t have a gun then. Notice how she is prioritizing killing the people who cut down some trees. Then she wants to kill the rest of us for… reasons, I guess.
This is clearly an unhinged woman who believes she can write all of what she sees as wrongs, by just shooting enough of the people she thinks are a problem.
Alone, that’s frightening, but her followers just pile on.
So these people believe it is morally justifiable to commit murder over some trees.
In the words of gamer and socialist, Tony Highwind, absolutely.
Nothing says socialism like putting people against a wall and shooting them.
This is why these people are so anti-gun so much of the time. They know they can’t be trusted with guns, and they believe they are the good guys who are smarter and better than the rest of us, so clearly if they shouldn’t have guns than the rest of us definitely shouldn’t.
I’m all for throwing people in prison for cutting down protected trees in a National Park. Vigilante murder over trees is wrong.
But, for some reason, the idea of the death penalty for murderers and rapists is disgusting to them.
So it is ok to shoot an idiot that cuts down trees in a National Park, but wrong to have the means shoot an idiot that attacks my family? Really, that’s what these critters believe? At least now I understand why they don’t trust the rest of us to handle firearms safely and sanely.
JKB,
I think you have a good point. They are afraid of guns, because a dozen times a day they want to kill some poor schmuck who accidentally cuts them off in traffic or is holding up the line at the supermarket. They know if they had a gun, they would soon be arrested for murder, because they have no self control!
And while reading the review of the “What Men Want” movie, it seems to prove that the fair sex often wants to kill about 40 bastards a day.
So, if I read you right, the idea is, since they have no self control, they can’t imagine that we gun owners are cut from a different bolt of cloth.
I believe that humans habitually make the mistake of projecting onto other people the thoughts and fears and motivations that drive their own selves.
Now I understand why they hate guns so much. They can’t believe that we firearm owners aren’t just itching to mow somebody down.
And non-gun-owners who have become good friends are mildly surprised to learn that I’ve been carrying for 37 years, and I’ve never had to even think about using my pistol.
Like Miguel says, avoidance and de-escalation should be our watchwords.
When a neophyte accepts my invitation to the range, they don’t get to shoot until they know the 4 rules and can recite them and explain them. And they are pleasantly surprised at how much fun it is watching the steel plates fall!
Most conservatives I know have at least a modixom of respect for the environment.
I have to wonder, given where Joshua Tree is located, what the average park vandal’s political affiliation is.
I love that park. The rear entrance is nearly across the road from the Marine base at 29 Palms. We spent a lot of time out there hiking and rock climbing. There isn’t a dungeon deep enough for the scum that destroy that place.
This says far more about the people who destroy the park than it does about the shutdown and need for park rangers – which is how the media is framing the story. These are barely civilized, barely even housebroken people. It’s surprising they even waited for the shutdown to do this stuff.