BAD ISSUE FOR FLEXING ELECTION-YEAR MUSCLE
NPCA Blasts NRA, Administration Over Guns in National Parks Issue
By Bill Schneider, 2-22-08
As a follow up to last Thursday’s Wild Bill column, I contacted the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) for their comments on the gun issue, and a few hours later, the group sent me a press release blasting the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the Bush Administration for yielding to election-year political pressure, which more or less echoes what I wrote last week.
Prompting the announcement was a letter sent today by Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne to Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) saying the Department of the Interior would “update” regulations governing guns in national parks and wildlife refuges.
“Today’s action is alarming,” NPCA President Tom Kiernan said in the release. “Overturning Reagan-era rules that struck the right balance between the rights of gun owners and the safety of families and wildlife is a blow to the national parks and the 300 million visitors who enjoy them every year. It is truly unfortunate the National Rifle Association has chosen this issue to flex its election year political muscle.”
The total text of the press release follows.
NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION SAYS N.R.A. EFFORT TO WEAKEN REGULATIONS RISKS NATIONAL PARK VISITOR, WILDLIFE SAFETY
Under Pressure, Administration Reopens National Park Regulations Requiring Guns be Unloaded
WASHINGTON, D.C. (February 22, 2008): America’s leading voice for the national parks, the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), today expressed profound disappointment that the Bush Administration, responding to intense political pressure orchestrated by the National Rifle Association, has decided to re-open 25-year-old regulations governing firearms in the parks-risking the safety of visitors and wildlife. These reasonable regulations, updated during the Reagan Administration, provide that firearms carried into a national park unit where hunting is not permitted be unloaded and stowed.
“Today’s action is alarming. Overturning Reagan-era rules that struck the right balance between the rights of gun owners and the safety of families and wildlife is a blow to the national parks and the 300 million visitors who enjoy them every year,” said NPCA President Tom Kiernan. “It is truly unfortunate the National Rifle Association has chosen this issue to flex its election year political muscle.”
In December, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne received a letter spearheaded by the NRA and signed by 47 members of the U.S. Senate, demanding that firearm rules that apply in national parks and national wildlife refuges be overturned, and that state firearms laws be applied instead. The letter misstates current law, erroneously stating that the regulations violate Second Amendment rights by prohibiting people from carrying guns into national parks, when in fact all they require is that firearms in a visitor’s possession be unloaded and put away while within park boundaries. Four additional senators signed a letter to Sec. Kempthorne in February. As a follow-up to the senators’ letter to Sec. Kempthorne, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) filed an amendment and later introduced a freestanding bill directing the Secretary to overturn the regulations. The issue was also raised when Sec. Kempthorne testified before the House Natural Resources Committee this month about the Administration’s 2009 budget.
Originally written in the 1930s to prevent wildlife poaching, the parks’ firearms regulation was carefully revised during the Reagan Administration to be as narrowly restrictive as possible, while also assisting park personnel to prevent unlawful killing of wildlife. NPCA believes the current regulations strike an appropriate balance between the rights of individuals to possess firearms under state and federal laws and hunt in areas of the National Park System where it is permitted, and the safety of national park visitors and wildlife. NPCA will express its views in the public comment period, but highlighted a few of them today.
Park safety and enjoyment: We believe that enabling individuals to carry loaded guns in national parks will alarm families visiting the parks, and heighten the possibility for deadly visitor conflicts.
New responsibilities for overtaxed park rangers: In a post-9/11 environment, where the safety and security of our national parks and visitors is pre-eminent, park rangers will now have to be alert to the fact that individuals are carrying loaded guns in the parks. The potential for conflicts to become deadly could increase, and park rangers would likely view visitors with loaded weapons suspiciously. Moreover, burdensome new enforcement responsibilities will be added to an already strained ranger corps and budget.
Increased opportunities for wildlife poaching: A genesis for the Park Service’s original firearms regulations, wildlife poaching is still a serious concern in our national parks, causing the decline of nearly 30 species. Poachers could operate with impunity because rangers would lack the authority to question individuals about their loaded weapons.
Deferring to state laws creates confusion: The Federal Government has a unique responsibility to set the rules for and manage our national parks. This is to ensure the safety, protection, and enjoyable experiences of nearly 300 million visitors annually. Deferring to divergent state laws, some of which permit loaded weapons and others that do not, will result in confusion for rangers, and visitors who travel to the parks from every state in the nation, and from countries around the world.
The Bush Administration today announced that it would publish its draft, revised regulation by April 30, 2008, in the federal register.
“The existing regulations were adopted after a thorough review, and we will be diligent in insisting that any proposed change undergoes the same thorough, legal procedural review and allows for public input,” said Kiernan. “We are convinced when the review process is complete, it will show the existing regulations are not unduly burdensome but are limited, reasonable, and necessary to enable park rangers to carry out their duties of protecting the millions of families who visit our parks every year, and the wildlife that inhabits them.”
Just how does a defensive firearm, unloaded, in a backpack contribute to safety? And what prevents a criminal from taking a gun so stored, and after loading it, use it to poach?
Humanity has the inherent right of self-defense. I've spent many hours in the wilderness, in National Parks, and aside from an encounter in Alaska with a bear, was never in fear of the native wildlife.
The human wildlife, on the other hand, has demonstrated it's willingness to rape, rob and kill.
Why does your organization seek useless, feel-good measures that won't stop poaching, but do endanger humanity?
Any gun one would carry concealed under a shirt in an IWB holster, ankle holster or shoulder holster would be totally inadequate for poaching. But it is exactly those arms that would be best for self defense against human predators.
A CCW permitee who has spent the time money and backround check to gain that permit is not going to jeopardize it poaching or violating the rights of others.
Why are you so scared of legal gun carrying law abiding adults with guns yet do nothing at all to keep criminals from carrying guns, which are good for poaching, and used to defend their illegal drug enterprises?
How many must die on the alter of gun control in so called gun free zones before you get it? CCW permitees are not the problem, but they can be part of the solution.
Leave the law abiding alone make laws that only affect the criminal - aint that the real problem?
Tom Gunn
Disarm the public and you turn them into victims, ripe for attack by the first criminal looking for a helpless target. Look at the statistics on how many rapes, robberies, attacks, and disappearances happen in our so called "safe" public lands. The real reason the numbers are not even higher is the dirty little secret that when faced with a choice of obeying a senseless and harmful law many of the sensible public realize that it's called concealed carry and if you do it right no one knows what you may have ready to defend yourself with.
It's really a simple question: in a country of free people who should be afraid, the citizens or the criminals?
George Washington Parkway, in Virginia, is National Park Service land.
How many otherwise law-abiding carry permit holders have driven down that road, not knowing that by doing so they were committing a federal crime?
If it's legal for you to carry outside the park, it should be legal for you to carry inside the park. The National Forests have operated under that rule for as long as we've had National Forests, and it's caused no problems at all.
There is no reason why National Park Service land should be treated differently.
I am at a total loss to understand anyone thinking the world is safer with only lawbreakers and criminals having guns. I feel safer without a gun if I know that thosse who obey the laws have them, not jsut the bad guys.
Liberals have a funny view of the world if they think keeping law abiding folks from having guns is smart. As has been pointed out the small guns carried by CCW folks are not big enough to poach anything, but it will back off someone with a knife.
The NPCA people need to put on their big girl panties and deal with reality. As a Jewess in the US, may I remind everyone that America wasn't won wiuth a registered gun? And that criminals are stopped by FIREARMS, not by talk? That is why all REAL Americans put our 2nd Amendment FIRST!!
Comment By Politics of FEAR, 2-24-08The politics of fear continue.... Be afraid for your life in National Parks, playgrounds, old folks homes, restaurants, etc.... That cup sounds not just half-empty but pretty much dried out.
Comment By Binky Griptight, 2-25-08Let's not make the rangers job anymore difficult than it already is.
I'd bet the rangers and scientists of the National Park Service are almost unanimous in saying that this rule change will lead to greater loss and poaching of wildlife. A park is for protecting the wildlife, not for a bunch of hot-headed, loaded-for-bear yahoos.
Binky, anything small enough to be a CCW isn't big enough to shoot bears, and anyone who tried woudl be bear poop in short order, so don't lose sleep over it.
Comment By Jeff Dege, 2-25-08"A park is for protecting the wildlife, not for a bunch of hot-headed, loaded-for-bear yahoos."
How many permit holders do you know? What actual evidence do you have to support your characterization of them?
The usual word for prejudice founded in ignorance is "bigotry".
the law as it is works quite well. If we give in to the NRA on this one, they will be back. Next we will all be packing Uzi's around town...wouldn't that be fun?
Comment By Jeff Dege, 2-25-08"the law as it is works quite well"
Right. There's no criminal violence in our National Parks, nope, nosiree!
"Next we will all be packing Uzi's around town...wouldn't that be fun?"
And we're back to the bigotry.
When the flag goes up, who comes out to play?
I gotta wonder, though, what's next for the NRA squad? Guns in schools? Guns on planes? Guns in court? Guns in church? Will there be sanctuary anywhere?
"Will there be sanctuary anywhere?"
If you want a place to be gun-free, you need to control access and to check everyone who enters. Only in a place with metal detectors at every entrance and a full-time security staff will you ever be able to be gun-free.
Without metal detectors and a security staff, you can't keep out guns, all you can do is keep out legal guns. If all you do is pass a law or put up a sign, all you do is keep out the guns of the law-abiding.
In other words, all you've done is to create a situation where any lunatic can be certain of finding a collection of helpless victims.
Do a google on "Susan Rae Berkovitz", and tell me how "no guns" signs keeps people safe.
Uhhhh, Binky, you must not listen to the news much. There have been several school shootings, none by ccw or legal guns. A legal guns in the hands of a well trained young lady who was the guard in a church brought a halt to illegal gun violence in a church recently. So yes, I think we do need legal guns in those places.
Banning them has not seemed to provide much protection.