While those on this thread advocating arming themselves while railfanning do so with some extremity, they are not the right-wing nut jobs many of are making them out to be (for the most part). Having spent a significant amount of time in the back country, I have encountered many unique individuals. Most, even 99.9%, of these are very personable, someone who you would not worry too much about. However, that small percentage are in fact dangerous. There have been multiple times when I have changed plans or become far more cautious because of someone I met on a trail exhibiting sociopathic tendencies. I have railfanned in both urban and remote areas and encountered all sorts of people. The need for protection might be rare, but it is real in all environments.

As for the poster claiming the Second Amendment as a collective right, rather than individual, I have to strongly disagree on clear and established historical grounds - not just the Supreme Court's decision which agree. It is not just in "Heller" do we find rights established as individual, rather than collective. In U.S. v. Verdugo-Urquidez (1990), the Court found the First, Second, Fourth, Ninth and Tenth Amendment's use of the phrase "the people" to be defining an individual right. The idea of collective rights would in some degree be exactly the opposite of what the drafters of the Constitution and Bill of Rights intended. We only need to look at the process ratifying the Constitution, which was in no way guaranteed, so see the intent of individual rights manifest. During the convention, the anti-Federalists argued against the Federalists' claim that state constitutions secured "the fundamental rights of individuals" as sufficient[1]. This why they insisted upon a Bill of Rights, to not only secure the rights of individuals at the state level, but at the federal level as well. The arguments for the Massachusetts Compromise centered around the need to secure individual rights - not collective ones. Nowhere does one find the viewpoint of a collective having these rights, it is always a group, especially when looking at the Second Amendment. One only need to read what many of members of the convention wrote regarding this right, all showing it to be individual (examples include Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, or George Mason). In the Miltia Act of 1792, the same group of legislators who defined the Bill of Rights defined what was meant by the term "militia." It was "all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and ... under 45 years of age."[2] The concept of an organized or collective body of the Militia (the National Guard - or state militias) was not codified until 1903, and this was done as a subset of "the Militia" [3]. Coupled with the writings of the amendment's writers (Madison especially), it is clear the intention of this amendment was to protect an individual's right to keep and bear arms, not to give the states the right to organize a militia, as such was not done for many years later.

The need for protection is often very real and some may feel that need more than others, while many others place more trust in those they encounter. Either way, each has an individual right to protection. To limit such would violate one of the basic and foundational tenets upon which our nation was founded. I personally do not own a gun, but like I said have sometimes felt the need for one. When railfanning in the backwoods or in the urban jungle, you can run into many sorts, some of which are not the nicest folks. So take the advice of those on this forum as you want, but lets not take away their right to protection or their right to speech in its support.

Notes
[1] Bruns, Roger A.. "A More Perfect Union: The Creation of the U.S. Constitution", National Archives, [www.archives.gov]
[2] 10 U.S.C 311
[3] 32 U.S.C 102