A FEW WEEKS AGO, I wrote this column inspired by David Baron’s book, The Beast in the Garden, which is about the way romanticized attitudes about dangerous animals led to people being killed by mountain lions in Colorado. Since then, still more people have been killed by mountain lions, in California.

So it’s interesting to see this oped by an Alaskan, from the Los Angeles Times of all places:

I am puzzled now by the strange way people here are dealing with mountain lions — which is to say, letting them kill you. . . .

Why would anyone go into mountain lion country without the means to protect themselves from attack? I notice the police are armed. The wardens and rangers are armed. Indeed, anyone with any clue where they are would be armed.

The title: “Walk Softly and Carry a Big Gun.”

UPDATE: Reader Jeff Johnson emails:

I used to live in Orange County in the later part of the ’80’s and would go mountain biking in a wilderness park near the one where the recent maulings took place. At that time, 1989 to be exact, there were signs posted to warn visitors to be on the alert for mountain lions. Several years prior to then a small child was killed by a mountain lion and the park service was sued for not properly warning people. I don’t know what part of “wilderness” these people didn’t understand. Anyway, I always stuck a handgun in my rear bag when I rode out there. I figured it was a lot easier to explain to the police why I had to shoot a mountain lion than to explain to my wife’s parents why I couldn’t do anything while a lion was attacking their daughter. And since my Texas father-in-law was an avid hunter, I don’t think I would have been able to make him understand something like that. Besides, I’d be more afraid of facing him for not carrying a firearm than the police for carrying one.

The advice from my uncle who lives in Alaska was, “Always take a firearm into the woods that can bring down the biggest animal that lives there.”

Of course, that can be a pretty big gun. Meanwhile Boulder reader Tony Apuzzo writes:

It’s illegal to defend yourself against Mountain Lion attacks in Boulder, Colorado. Well, at least via a “weapon” or “firearm”.

He seems to be right:

Possession or discharge of a firearm or weapon, including paint ball guns, is prohibited on OSMP.

Why: Visitors with weapons jeopardize the safety of other visitors and wildlife.

You’d think that they’d be more worried about huge carnivorous animals, wouldn’t you?