Letters to the editor Aug. 6

Personal freedom

My name is Bayne French. I’m a physician in Whitefish. Not that it matters, other than it means I appreciate science. There are no true studies, just observational data about bear sprays effectiveness, and it’s robust.

I’ve been told that my spraying of a grizzly bear in 1992, saving myself from disfigurement, was the first use of bear spray in Montana. That was just one of many sphincter-testing encounters I’ve had in Montana, Alaska and British Columbia. With every one, I had bear spray in my right hand. I feel the efficacy of bear spray is overwhelming. It should be in a holster, unencumbered, available to your dominant hand.

Making the carriage of bear spray a law, however, makes me bristle, and is something I cannot support.

Who determines what is grizzly habitat? Can we not go out on an evening hunt if we’ve forgotten our bear spray? Do you see the problems here? I really don’t think that Friends of the Bitterroot or Gallatin Wildlife Association do.

Michele Dieterich states, “It’s just plain common sense to require carrying bear spray.” Taking that subjective notion and translating it to law is something I’d guess, and hope, most Montanans will rebel against. Oorah!

Clint Nagel of Gallatin Wildlife Association states “We’re invading their home.” Oh? Humans have hunted large mammals for 400,000 years. Our species, homo sapiens, has been in the Rocky Mountains for many thousands of years. This is science. I feel we have every right to explore, hunt and enjoy every nook of the wildest country that exists. Interacting with the ursine is an inevitability. How we choose to protect ourselves is our business.

Montanans, I urge you to carry bear spray. Do not give the Clint and Micheles of this world any governance over your choice.

— Bayne French, Whitefish

Do the right thing

We are longtime Montana Democrats hoping to stop Sen. Steve Daines’s chosen successor from filling the Senate seat once occupied by Sen. Max Baucus. We support Seth Bodnar to fill the seat. 

Bodnar is a former Green Beret who understands Montanans and their concerns. Like many Montanans, he is an independent. 

The Democrat in the race, Alani Bankhead, has insufficient support (in both votes and money) to win the race. Nor does she have the depth of understanding of Montana issues to represent this state. She lived here for very little time before declaring her candidacy.

Like Bodnar, Montanans have long understood the value of being independent. Idaho also has an independent running in its Senate race. Like Bankhead, the Democrat in that race, David Roth, did not stand a chance against both an independent and a Republican. Wisely, Roth withdrew his name from the ballot to devote his energy, resources and knowledge to down-ballot races. His party must be proud of him and his country grateful that he has put state and country ahead of personal ambition.

We encourage Bankhead to do the same: She too can do the right thing for the people of this state by withdrawing her name from a race she cannot win (but could hand to Daines’s surreptitiously-chosen candidate). We sincerely hope Bankhead listens to her conscience and the voice of thousands of Democrats, independents and independently-minded Republicans and withdraws from the Senate race before Aug. 10.

— Kiki and Bob Rydell, Bozeman