Authorities confirmed tonight it was a stranger who stabbed and sexually assaulted a woman in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park earlier today.

Full story. (h/t Unc)

There was much uproar a couple of years back when it became permissable to carry concealed weapons in national parks (so long as you still had credentials and obeyed the local laws).

Folks wondered why in the world would you need a gun in a national park?

Let’s ignore how much of our national parkland is used for the drug trade and wandering into a marijuana farmer’s camp is probably one of the most unexpected and undesirable things that you could do.

Let’s ignore the reality of wild animals and that your stumbling upon a baby bear will not elicit a warm hug from the momma bear.

And now, we have a stabbing and sexual-assault.

It wasn’t like the woman was in some remote area of the park either. She was on the Gatlinburg Trail, which is “frequently used by joggers, walkers, and bicyclists.”

“Things like this don’t happen everyday. It is definitely a rare incident,” Melissa Cobern with the Public Affairs Office of the National Park Service said.

That may be true. But just how much comfort should the victim take in being told “but it’s a rare event you were brutally stabbed and sexually assaulted”? Statistics are of little comfort when you’re the anomaly.