There is a current review of a lightweight rifle on the website.
Comments which experienced, long-term members of BPL posted objecting to the review of a fire-arm were deleted by Ryan Jordan – even where the posts included comments on the technical aspects of the rifle.
I have several problems with this website reviewing fire-arms:
1. fire-arms are illegal in most national parks around the world. For example, you cannot take them into Australia's national parks and I understand that is also the situation in the US. You certainly can't carry a weapon in most parts of Europe. So why did BPL review something you cannot take bushwalking in most parts of the world?
2. the review notes that the presence of fire-arms may disturb or concern other trail users and cites the fact that the rifle can be packed small as one of its advantages – given this admission that the carrying of weapons, even where legal, is likely to upset other trail users, why advocate their use?
3. this is (supposedly) a UL bushwalking website – in what way is carrying a weapon a part of the UL ethos? I see hunting as quite a different thing to bushwalking – if this site is to become a UL hunting website then let me know and I will quit. The claim that this rifle could help you walk UL by shooting meat as you go would founder on impractability – walking along a trail is not hunting and hunting is not walking: they are different activities. Unless you had the gun at point the whole time, you would waste a lot of time stalking, and that presumes you're in an area with game and that game can be legally taken.
4. given Ryan Jordan's concern about pro-gun/anti-gun debates it's clear that BPL recognises that a significant number of its – paying – members do not approve of fire-arms. So why post a review that is guaranteed to legitimately upset a large number of its members?
There is a final, and I think more worrying, aspect to this firearm review: taken in conjunction with the earlier article on how to build camp-fires, it suggests that BPL is not committed to a leave no trace ethos but a land-use ethos. Fine, but many people adopt UL in the context of environmental awareness and concern for the environment: as I said in the post which Ryan Jordan deleted, it simply suggests that BPL just doesn't get it.
