After the publication of my Fire Island Q News article “FINS Officials Attend CCGAI Meeting &, Addressing Meat Rack Citations & Other Issues, Hew Firmly to Party Line,” about meeting and speaking with Fire Island National Seashore officials, following the July 20 Cherry Grove Community Association, Inc. meeting at the Community House, and after in-person conversations about the encounter, a community member emailed his reaction to me, with full permission to use his words and fully attribute these words to him. A photo, which has achieved wide circulation, of Rangers crossing the dunes, which we always tell visitors not to do, as an illegal act, endangering the environment, also came to Fire Island Q News with permission to use it.
The following email was sent to me, as FIQN Editor, after I mentioned that I had used the term “victimless crimes” in conversation with Acting Chief Ranger Duane Michael, referring to “public lewdness”—that is, public nudity and sex—and that he had dismissed it as not a legal term:

[S]ending you this "Letter to the Editor" in case you want to print it re FINS:
I am writing in response to the FINS article, and have to wonder aloud where Duane Michael received his legal training when he denied the validity of the legal concept of a "victimless" crime. 
Surely he must know that in libel and slander actions, the accused cannot be held guilty unless the defamed party can show actual damage; in other words, produce an actual victim.  If there is no damage, there is no victim, and there is no crime. That is one of many examples, most of which exist in our nation's case law.
In an April 2011 criminal cockfighting case in Oklahoma, the 10th Circuit Federal Appeals Court wrote, "The only issue is whether there is federal jurisdiction for a victimless crime, perpetrated by a non-Indian in Indian country ... the answer is clear. There is no jurisdiction." (Langford vs. OK.)  The Court acknowledged and used the term; in fact, its decision relied in part on the term.
On the other hand, the US Supreme Court, in Paroline v. United States, decided on April 23, 2014, specifically held that distributing child pornography was not a victimless crime, and permitted prosecution to go forward; the point here, however, is that the Court acknowledged the term and the concept of "Victimless crime," and made the decision that it did not apply in this case.
In Reber v. Utah, however, the US Supreme Ct (in 2002) affirmed the finding of the Utah Supreme court, writing that "the Utah Supreme Court correctly held that hunting is a victimless crime," thus validating the positive existence of the concept.
Any effort by a Park Ranger to dismiss discussion based on the notion that "victimless crimes" does [not] exist as a concept in law is ignorant of the very law he probably believes he is upholding.
Thom Simmons

See more of Thom’s thoughts on his blog at http://www.MilburnCreek.blogspot.com and in particular in his posting http://milburncreek.blogspot.com/2014/07/fire-island-rangers-break-law-trample.html, which he said “received 1,000 hits in two days.”