Same here.
This has turned out like many firearms related discussions have when they take place after a very visible crime. The left wing jumps in and says we need more and stronger gun controls. The right wing says everyone should be armed all the time everywhere. Somewhere in between are the folks like Edisto who claim that we need common sense laws that control criminals while not punishing law abiding citizens.
Brad is lucky to be alive and he knows it. We are all happy that he is. Now he wants to add some safety equipment to his gear cache. Good for him. (For what it's worth I don't think a climbing helmet is the way to go but that is Brad's choice.) What got Brad into trouble was bad judgement, and he knows that too. PPE won't help that out one little bit but it won't hurt as long as he learns the big lesson that each and every tree needs to be looked at as a special tree that might have his name on it. Like they say, sometimes you just need a knock upside the head to make you start thinking differently. I've had mine and now Brad has had his.
Dude, I think you just might be projecting a little bit. This is not a firearms issue. This is not a liberal vs. conservative political issue. This is a whineyness & bad assumption issue...one of assuming no one else could be possibly be so enlightened as you and must be spending their days worrying about PPE but otherwise running around under widowmakers, improperly felling trees at night while drunk, and must therefore, because they are worrying about about PPE, be ignorant of all other things and that you must wade into the fray to set the poor misquided souls straight.
Or.... Perhaps this is simply a disscussion arising from a near miss--the kind many of us have from time to time--that has involved both methods (see my first post in this thread) as well as PPE that might have resulted in less bruising arising from the type mistake that can get any of us, no matter how careful we are most of the time.
No one argues that practice habits are not important as well, I think it just goes with saying for many of us. But it seems that when these issues come up, as sure as Old Faithful erupts forth its geyser, *certain* firearms instructor types (not all...most are pretty sharp fellows) come out of the woodwork to create a liberal straw-bogeyman and then paint those that are for PPE as unmanly since they themselves did it different in firearms school or when they taught. This is not guns and the world is not a firing range.
I have worked in many environments where safety, both practice & precautions are paramount, from industrial sites to labs to ballistic test facilities to boomers to tactical training ranges. I've had plenty of gun training, tactical and basic, for offensive and defensive use, in places like Pensacola & Moyock. And while there are folks like Ed Brown & Mossad Ayoob who've forgotten more than I'll ever know, I'd venture to say that practice is more important in firearms than PPE. It's kind of silly to project this on political viewpoints, since it can easily be turned around the other way (e.g. conservative precautions-oriented practitioners vs. armchair liberal academics). Or maybe it's just that the those who can, do, those who can't...well they go pulling out their stories about what they did when teaching one thing or another unlrelated to the topic of discussion.
If I was in a place where arms were my tool, I'd wear a kevlar helmet and body armor. Or in a place where there are flames, then nomex and a fire helmet, And if someone came out to point out the obvious--that good habits of not-getting-shot or avoiding being burned were the most important things, and that I need to stop worrying about having the best protective gear, then I would think them unusually obtuse, since for most of us, those things are kind of obvious.
If you think the safest things to do is to avoid dangerous situations where you might be imperfect in your actions, then you're right...that would be safest. Otherwise, if you're willing put on your metaphorical big-boy hat and undertake sometimes dangerous tasks and duties, then there's nothing wrong with trying to pick the absolutely best big-boy hat for you to do the job in. In some cases, that "hat" might be climbing gear, in other cases, body armor. In this case, the "hat" we are discussing is actually a hat. Well, a chainsaw helmet to be exact.
