This has been noted in the comments already, and I figured I’d open up the conversation here:
Yes, most regional burns ban firearms. They also ban swords, axes, bows, and any other outright weapons. No, nobody has stopped me from carrying around a camp knife on my belt, or using a hatchet or machete to do camp preps. Hell, I keep a 6″ Damascus steel knife on my belt at all times – sure I could use it for defense, but I mostly use it to cut ropes and canvas and such.
Someone here has already said that this makes a burn a “victim zone.” I’m not going to argue vociferously here. Yeah, if someone decided to show up and start shooting into a crowd at a burn, the likelihood of anyone having a gun to shoot back is close to nil.
It’s going to sound hipster as fuck, but: if you can’t feel safe without a gun on you, you probably shouldn’t be at a burn in the first place. The atmosphere at a regional is one of trusting strangers without cause, of open friendship and happiness. Keeping a gun on you is antithetical to the concept of a burn. Also, put simply, I can defend myself without a firearm. I’ve done so dozens of times in the past. Radical Self Reliance and all that shit.
Finally, this is a place where a lot of people are probably on drugs and booze. People will offer said things to you. You may even accept. And that’s not a place you want to take a firearm.
If you can’t have fun without a firearm on your hip… I don’t know what to say. I’m a pretty big gun nut, and yet I still have no problem going to concerts, conventions, and regional burns where I can’t keep my pistol on me. I still have fun. And hey, it’s okay if you don’t go to these venues for that reason. I’m not being condescending – if you seriously have a mental need for a pistol on you at all times, then you already know that your entertainment options are limited. Don’t like the few rules they have? Don’t go to a burn.
And now: FUCK YOUR JOURNEY.
Sounds reasonable because drugs and booze can cause people to behave differently then they would normally. Hell I live in Arizona and we are an open carry state, but I still feel that only sober people should handle firearms. The barkeep (bartender) can have a gun, but the drunks falling off their arses do not need a gun. As an aside: The polite and reasoned discussions offered by everyone has made me want to own a gun.
However, even in the wild west of Arizona if you fire a gun to defend yourself be prepared to fight in court. The heavy burden is on the person that fired a gun to prove the other person(s) were a threat. It is easier to prove someone was a threat if they break into your home than if the reason to shoot was a bar fight that started because someone was talking sh$t.
Sorry for the public service announcement.
Motor vehicles
Aircraft
Moving water
Deep water
Live ammunition
Power tools
All things that do not mix well with alcohol.
By the way, I have to wonder what it is with people called James Grant.
If you come to a burn with the intent to do violence and aren’t mellowed by the cloud hanging heavily like a victorian london fog, the burn is doing it wrong.
“I came here to kick ass and chew gum. And I’m all out of… Saaaay, is that Kona Gold they’re smoking over there..?”
I’m with ya…no need for everyone in a bar to be armed. Not a lot of difference.
I can certainly agree with the assertion that drunks shouldn’t be carrying (it is rather like DUI after all).
That said, not everyone who goes to bars (or restaraunts that serve alcohol) intends to consume alcohol at all, much less drink to impairment.
Intent is not always actual occurrence because alcohol (in any amount) begins to impair judgment. Faster in some than others. Best not give Murphy the opportunity.
Same rule I use for drinking and driving. If I’m going to drive, I don’t drink. If I’ve drank, I don’t drive. Only exception is I’ll take one “man, this is good, here try this” sip of beer or wine (but not liquor) per night. Drinking is not a light switch; 0.07 BAC isn’t “cold sober and unimpaired”. This is even aside from the fact that alcohol lowers inhibitions, by the time you think “I should stop if I’m going to drive” you’ve probably had too much.
Does this limit me sometimes? Absolutely; hell, in the last 3 hours there’s been a beer I wanted to try, but didn’t because I drove. It also doesn’t guarantee I won’t fuck up some day with either a gun or a car; using either of those includes that risk. What it does mean is that if I fuck up, it won’t be because of something as stupid and preventable as “I was drunk.”
“It’s going to sound hipster as fuck, but: if you can’t feel safe without a gun on you, you probably shouldn’t be at a burn in the first place. The atmosphere at a regional is one of trusting strangers without cause, of open friendship and happiness. Keeping a gun on you is antithetical to the concept of a burn.”
I can certainly understand that argument to a degree, especially on paper. In practice though, when I go camping I typically carry. More than people, nature can be extremely unforgiving: I’d rather face a bear/coyote/rabid dog with a pistol than with a knife. There’s also the fact that firearms can be used as an emergency signaling device (the sound of a gunshot has far more range than the human voice). Theoretically, ammunition can also be broken down and gunpowder used as a fire starting aid.
At a Burn, the bears and such are going to be hauling ass in the other direction. Even a rabid animal will run screaming from a sound camp, and critters REALLY hate fire. Emergency signal? Yell for help, and one or more of the several hundred (or several thousand) people within a few hundred feet of you, will help. Fire starters? Dude, at Burns, I use a BLOWTORCH as a barbecue lighter.
If someone did want to do a mass-shooting at a Burn, he’d probably face retaliation by flamethrower.
This description made me laugh. And not because I think you’re exaggerating. (I play in the SCA, which can also be described as “fairy princess camping,” for some similar and some very different reasons.)
Bingo. Cooper’s Lake / Pennsic has a “No Firearms” policy. Of course, in practice, that’s “no OUT-OF-PERIOD firearms”. My profile pic is from a class tent where I was teaching Evolution of Firearms a few years ago. And of course, there’s our fun-n-games up on the hill.
Oh, camping? Always. When we camp, I usually keep my Mossberg in the car trunk at the campsite, and my .357 somewhere much closer at hand.
But a Burn is not camping, strictly speaking. One such burner called it “fairy princess camping”, a description I find apt. Wild animals tend not to go anywhere near these things.
Ok, google didn’t help me or Mick, and I need some help. WTF is a BURN?
A potsmoking convention?
A “controlled burn” clearing of the forest floor of debris, combined with a potsmoking convention?
Look up burning man. It’s the most known burn and, if i’m not mistaken, the granddaddy of them all.
Check this out.
Hah, there’s nothing “controlled” about this kind of burn…
What Dwerg and J said.
Think Art, Craziness, and Pyromania. Like, this weekend I’m going to Home Depot and snagging some chipboard. It is then going to get turned into planks, notched so they’ll go together like Lincoln Logs. In three weeks, I’m hauling them up to an event in Pennsylvania, called Frostburn. I’m assembling an art project, roughly resembling this sketch. On Sunday evening, 16 February, it goes up in flames. Along with everything that people will Sharpie or paint or tag on the walls, for which they want closure. Saturday the 15th, there will be a wooden snowman burned.
I agree that firearms and intoxicants do not mix. Any place where people use intoxicants is probably an imprudent place to carry. The odds of Omar picking up a contact buzz at some point, even if he can handle his alcohol, are pretty high, if you’ll pardon the expression.
I find myself having to move up-wind a lot, at Burns.
RE burns: I simply don’t get the appeal. But, I’ll gladly celebrate differences and your enjoyment of such things. Party on!
The notion of drunk, naked people on drugs ranging from dope to things that haven’t even got a name yet, waving guns simply makes me think of Hunter S. Thompson. Thompson alone was a handful. The thought of 1000 HST’s rampaging on federal land makes even me consider jumping to ludicrous speed to get the hell away.
Speaking of high-intensity celebrations and weapons though. Does anyone know if Desert Blast (like a sober Burning Man with extra explosives) is still going on? I’ve been dying to check it out someday.
Burning Man is 50,000 to 68,000 people as crazy as HST, which is why they lock up the drugs. For that matter, at Frostburn next month, Bat Country will be camping right next to the group I’m with. Since I’m in charge of first aid, I view this as a good thing, since my introduction to being a Burner Medic 3 years ago, was patching up a bunch of scorched Bats.
D’oh. Lock up the GUNS.
I gotta admit, at first I was gonna start in with the “rabble rabble guns are a safety thing” and then I realized… When I’m camping I can have a firearm on me. A burn is NOT camping. There is a significant probability of being drunk and/or high enough that a firearm on your person is a BAD idea. AND While YOU PERSONALLY may be a safe gun owner, not all people who own guns are safe/smart in their operation. Besides… If you are a smart CCW holder, nobody would know you were armed in the first place. It’s not like they’re wanding you as you enter. Keep it concealed, and nobody will even know you had it unless it was a necessity. Then they will be too glad you had it to make a big deal out of it.
I camp with a medieval group. We have swords.
And chainsaws. 🙂 Kingdom of Atenveldt, getting ready for Estrella. But I would hazard a guess that despite the “no modern guns” policy that there are more than a few that are on any site.
And whether you realize it or not, and whatever the policy—guns, too.
Heh. Note my profile pic };-D>
Yes, but I meant the naughty modern ones which are what the organizers/property owners meant when they formulated their policies. They are illicit, but they are still there.
This is just “gun control laws make criminals out of law-abiding citizens” writ small.
And the argument that “no one needs a gun here” is just the larger “no one needs an assault rifle” argument writ small.
All I’m saying.
I think they would garner more respect if they were more honest with themselves and others on the notion of the gun ban: “We realize that alcohol, illicit drugs, and the emotional states they induce in people, do not mix well with firearms, so we ask everyone to leave their heaters/gats/sidearms at home.”
I remember a Pagan group that tried to ban guns from their campouts solely to get at a member who was a police officer. That was really stupid and obnoxious behavior.
Seem to remember a Burning Man where sum dood got frisky with a broadsword. People got hurt, but not croaked.