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I’ll tell you one reason so many permits are being requested. Twenty years ago you could walk the woods of central Wisconsin alone without fear of anything more than a dead tree limb crashing down on you, or tumbling into a gully and breaking your own limbs.

Today, bow hunters sit in their tree stands wondering if an arrow will stop a black bear climbing their tree. Hunters with dogs wonder if the gray wolves staring them down will go after their dog or themselves. The occasional cougar sightings also have people on edge, though these are very rare, but likely to increase.

The days are gone when all you had to worry about someone finding you if you somehow became incapacitated in the woods. Now there are serious threats present, and the threats are growing. The wolf population continues to expand in size and territory, as does the black bear population.

As a result, a lot more people are considering holstering a pistol when they’re in the woods, even if they’re just picking blackberries (maybe especially if they’re picking berries, given the black bear’s interest in them.)

And, if I’m going to carry a holstered pistol, I might as well carry a concealed one if I’m going to go to the trouble to buy one and learn to use it properly.

I haven’t done so yet, but it’s moving up the priority list fairly quickly. Personal security isn’t the big issue around here...most people have a shotgun handy in case of a break in, and the potential thieves know it. The typical burglary usually consists of either a rash of break-ins of unoccupied hunting cabins, theft from relatives, or from their employers, not breaking into occupied, and usually armed, households.