Right up with my reticence to have cities prosecuting people who garden in the front yards, a story from the LA Times about a man who shot a young grizzly bear and now faces some pretty steep penalties. If the story is accurate, I hope the whole thing goes away fast. It’s understandable that you might be afraid for your kids when you are not sure exactly where they are. He didn’t shoot all the bears–just the one that seemed threatening.

I also understand not just waving it away, though. You don’t want people shooting endangered animals with minor provocation, and given how much folks in this area hate the ESA and the Feds, you should probably have a hand in enforcing.

To be sure, there’s part of me that wants to ask 1) ARE YOU CRAZY? GO LIVE SOMEWHERE WHERE BEARS DON’T EAT YOU** and where the weather isn’t going to try to kill you 7 months out of the year and 2) OMG six children how do you manage to shoot straight with how tired you must be?

But, hey, different strokes and whatnot.

Had they said the mother shot the bear she could run for president for the GOP. Just saying.

**Yeah, people told me all the time in Virginia that black bears don’t eat people. Horse hockey! The very spring that somebody convinced me to go camping (which was ghastly) there was an incident where a bear killed a child on a camp site. This doesn’t mean that I think you should go around shooting bears indiscriminately, but from their perspective, I’m slow, easy to peel, and good eating. I prefer to not provide that type of temptation to things with great big teeth and claws. Now I don’t go camping in places that don’t have a Sak’s right by the porta-potties.