Instead of talking sh#t here at super doo-doo write a letter of reference.

You realize that Dan Horner who was the Chief Criminal Investigator...

I'm in no way in favor of legalizing BASE in the national parks, but decriminalize it.

I'm in no way in favor of legalizing BASE in the national parks, but decriminalize it.

I would argue that anyone on the wall when that old bird flew to the deck was injured.

EMOTIONALLY INJURED

What a crap way to top out after seeing that. Just saying.

You say you are a friend to Ammon and the monkeys but no friends of the monkeys would ever bash another monkey. Monkeys support each other through and through. In my opinion, you are no friend of Ammons.

Rules are rules- some are good, some are questionable. The way to change a rule is through an intelligent presentation of your argument. Flaunting the rule is usually a bad strategy.

Most don't want colorful chutes in front of the famous cliffs. Impacting thousands of people's experience so a handfull of people can do their sport isn't a trade off the park service is willing to make.

If it was going on all the time, then maybe I could see people complaining.

The victim of BASE jumps in the eyes of the NPS are the thousands of other people whose experience is degraded by base jumping. They are there to view the natural beauty and take photos of it. Most don't want colorful chutes in front of the famous cliffs. Impacting thousands of people's experience so a handfull of people can do their sport isn't a trade off the park service is willing to make.

IF this your point then climbing needs to be banned. Cliffs are littered with climbers and portaledges ect...

I was under the impression a taser was NOT considered deadly force.

Back to El Cap, in 1980 the park experimented with allowing skydiving. Some people who wanted to legalize and promote jumping off of EL Cap convinced the USPA to establish legal jumping with the NPS. Reasonable guidlines were set up like permits, liscense requirements, time of jumping, probably similar to what is happening now with hanggliding. This lasted about 2 or 3 months. There were a lot of problems such as people leaving trash and damaging the environment and not following the requirments.In general many people were not behaving responsibly. There were a few rescues and minor landing injuries but no fatalities of major injuries. While all this was happening 'the as#@&%es' decided that they didn't want to hike all the way to El Cap so they drove there truck up an old logging road as far as they could. This must have been from Big Oak Flat. The Park may have arrested or cited them, but the USPA thought It would help our image if they took action against them and expelled the people involved. Then these people sued the USPA claiming they had no business regualating base jumping. The USPA decided to drop the whole thing. The NPS outlawed base jumping in national parks. Skydivers and base jumpers did not make a very good impression with the NPS and base jumpers alienated the USPA. Now back to the present. In 1993 a base jumping organization tried to convince the park to allow base jumping and was not succesful. I think that it would take an organization such as the USPA to convince the NPS to allow base jumping. There is little chance of this happening because of the past incident in yosemite and the liability it would place on the USPA.

...police officers that mix it up sometimes wind up on temp or permanent disability, very costly to the tax payers.

As an outsider, it does seem like the sport has matured. At some point, I could see someone working WITH NPS might be able to bridge the topic of 'giving the sport another try', and re-opening the possibility of legal BASE in the park. Unfortunately, every "F*@# the Rangers" comment or post takes one giant step back from that option.

Matches what I heard anecdotally from the guy who was the Judge during that period of time.

He told me recently that as a former paratrooper, he initially supported allowing BASE jumping in the park, but recognized that in order to manage that use along with all the others there would have to be certain rules put in place. They set up a trial period, and the BASE jumpers 'blew it'. Those were his words, and he shook his head with frustration (maybe disgust?) when he said it. The BASE community managed to alienate a powerful supporter right off the bat. Now, he said, he doesn't care. Something about 'getting what they deserve.'

Eventually, his father agreed to represent him, and his father proved to the prosecutor that they couldn't charge him with "illegal hang-gliding" because the base rig had no frame. The park service then changed the charges to "illegal Parachuting".
David's father then discovered that the parachuting law (at the time) stated that it was illegal "to parachute into a national park from a place originating outside of the national park" - that presumably being an airplane. David's father was sure they could get the case dismissed, since he had jumped from inside the park.
Shortly thereafter, two other base-jumpers were arrested, so they made the case against all three on the same day. The judge threw the case out of court because all three jumpers had made the jump from inside the park, thus the law, as stated, was not applicable (at that time).

As they were getting ready to leave, the judge asked to see the 3 base-jumpers in his quarters. They thought for sure they were going to get an a$$-chewing, but when they got inside, they got a surprise.

The judge was an ex-smokejumper, and told them he approved of what they were doing! They all shook hands, and left the judges quarters.

http://www.latalkradio.com/Players/Hardknocks-082810.shtml

Who's park is it? the NPS or ours? the public

And I can tell you that while seeing a jumper looks totally insane, an actual terminal velocity jump like El Cap is without a doubt the most surreal and visually beautiful experience that I can imagine. You don't feel like things are whizzing by quickly. Time dilates, it all slows down, and at least in my case, your mind achieves total clarity. Then you toss your pilot chute, get things squared away, and go into absolute escape mode.

In June 1994, a non-firearm version of the Taser was developed, allowing it to bypass federal and state laws that only apply to firearms, and a tracking system (the "anti-felon identification" or "AFID" system) was created. This enables the Taser to disperse confetti with serial numbers when it is fired and links the specific Taser to the scene where it is used.
In 1998, the company adopted its current name, intending to emphasize the company's international expansion. In the same year, the company began marketing the weapon to law enforcement agencies and police departments, in addition to the private buyers who had bought Tasers for personal self-protection in prior years.

Somebody needs to grow up on the LEO end.

What harm in base jumping? In the worst case scenario, a failed base jump from El Cap would be equivalent to trundling, which, we all agree, is a no no and quite a danger to those below.