Interior Department officials finally did what was expected Friday when they published a rule change that will allow national park visitors to arm themselves.
In a decision that surely will delight some and surely disgust others, the Bush administration ignored all past living directors of the National Park Service, the Park Ranger Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police, the Association of National Park Rangers, the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, and the National Parks Conservation Association in deciding it would be OK for park visitors to carry weapons if they hold concealed weapons permits and the park they are in is located within a state that allows concealed carry.
“Once again, political leaders in the Bush administration have ignored the preferences of the American public by succumbing to political pressure, in this case generated by the National Rifle Association. This regulation will put visitors, employees and precious resources of the National Park System at risk. We will do everything possible to overturn it and return to a common-sense approach to guns in national parks that has been working for decades,” said Bill Wade, president of the retirees group.
The administration received almost 140,000 comments, the vast majority of which opposed the proposal to allow loaded guns in national parks.
The groups opposed to the rule change say the "final regulation is even more extreme than the administration’s original proposal, and permits concealed and loaded guns to be carried in national parks located in any states with concealed carry laws, not just those that allow guns in their state parks as originally proposed. Only the three national park units in Wisconsin and Illinois, which do not issue concealed carry permits, are excluded."
According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, there were 1.65 violent crimes per 100,000 national park visitors in 2006—making national parks some of the safest places in the United States. Those opposed to the rule change say the new regulation could increase the risk for impulse shootings of wildlife, and risk the safety of visitors and rangers.
Despite the potential affect on national park wildlife and resources, the administration did not conduct an environmental review as required by law, and some believe that opens the door for a lawsuit to halt the rule change.
“Land management agencies have worked diligently over the years to successfully create the different sets of expectations amongst the visiting public to reflect the differing levels of resource protections for each specific area,” said John Waterman, president of the Park Ranger Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police. “National parks are different from other public lands. The visitor population expects, demands, and gets a higher degree of protection, enforcement, and restriction in a national park.
"Furthermore, while national parks are amongst the safest areas to be in, the toll on the U.S. Park Ranger is high: U.S. Park Rangers are the most assaulted federal officers in the country. This vague, wide-open regulation will only increase the danger U.S. Park Rangers face.”
In a letter sent to Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne on April 3, 2008, seven former directors of the National Park Service said that there is no need to change the existing regulation. “In all our years with the National Park Service, we experienced very few instances in which this limited regulation created confusion or resistance,” the letter stated. “There is no evidence that any potential problems that one can imagine arising from the existing regulations might overwhelm the good they are known to do.”
At the Association of National Park Rangers, President Scot McElveen said “American citizens have traditionally valued the professional opinions of park rangers when it comes to managing national parks. In the professional opinion of ANPR, this regulation change will have negative impacts on park wildlife. Our experience in operating parks creates disbelief that wildlife poaching rates will not increase under the new regulation. We oppose this rash regulatory change.”
Echoing these concerns, the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees last month released a report revealing that more than three out of four of 1,400 current and former employees of the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service predict that this controversial regulation will have an adverse affect on the ability of agency employees to accomplish their mission. Furthermore, it found that 75 percent of respondents feel that there will be an increase in opportunistic or impulse wildlife killings in parks and refuges.
“With this decision, many state parks across the country will now provide a more protective environment for wildlife and visitors than national parks—once the safest place for families. Furthermore, this decision undermines the ability of national park professionals to manage the parks and runs counter to the overwhelming majority of Americans who wrote in opposition to allowing loaded firearms in our national parks,” said NPCA Associate Director for Park Uses Bryan Faehner.
Comments
Yeeeeee haw! Ride 'em, cowboy, ride 'em! Was there ever any doubt but that this rule would be made by Bush & Co.? We will all remember Bush for many years to come. At least, I hope we all remember what he has done to this country!
"Despite the potential affect on national park wildlife and resources, the administration did not conduct an environmental review as required by law..."
I find it shameful but VERY typical of the Bush administration that officials at the DOI could care so little about respecting it's own established processes of examination. (Scientific fact-based review? Bad. Reactionary paranoid legislative decisions? Good.)
It's very clear why the administration has chosen this path yet again: to try and push a political agenda they clearly fear will have little support if the general public were to closely examine the issue. If it weren’t afraid of failing, why did it wait until now to put this law through? Once again the Bush administration blatantly ignores professional opinion (and for that matter the majority of public commentary) on an issue that effects us all in order to push a political agenda based on fear and paranoia. Absolutely shameful.
As for readers of this blog, if everyone here is such a great fan of The Bill of Rights, The Constitution, and the FULL legislative processes that have made our country so great, why are they not questioning the administration's disregard for the very laws and processes that help protect our public lands? So far, the published commentary here in favor of this new radical gun decision seems NOT to mention the administration's continual blatant disregard for established legislative procedure. How come??
The issue of environmental impact should be utmost in every legislative and procedural change that effects our public lands, especially our National Parks. Unfortunately, gun rights advocates conveniently have chosen to ignore this aspect of legal process so as to serve their own political agenda.
Gun rights advocates need to question the administration's motives in ignoring this crucial part of the process, for the administration had to realize it would be appealed (and most likely overturned) BECAUSE it ignored this part of the process. So one could infer that the DOI, Secretary Kempthorne, and President Bush knowingly pushed through this lame-duck decision to purposely appease the NRA and it’s more vocal supporters. But you must all realize that the current administration really has no interest in any rule, law, or short-term decision that will not improve it’s own public approval rating, even if it only lasts for the next 4 weeks.
Scientific logic dictates that more guns (or more of ANYTHING) in the National Parks will have an environmental impact which must be thoroughly examined before any final decisions are made. If you truly love these national treasures, why not fully support the laws and procedures created to protect them for us and for future generations?
As for the illusion of safety that carrying a loaded weapon will allegedly provide visitors to our National Parks, I personally will now feel very UNSAFE in my local national park knowing that the unfamiliar face walking towards me on the trail could potentially harm me with a firearm if they felt "threatened" by me in some way. I go to parks to create the illusion that I am getting away from the threat that firearms pose to my own personal safety in the outside world. The two legged predators I fear are the ones carrying loaded guns, ready to shoot off a self-justified round or two at a moments' notice.
I have yet to read any justification for carrying a loaded weapon in a National Park that does not mention some aspect of personal fear, or a libertarian argument about personal rights. Can someone please explain why I should support this new law without using the vocabulary of fear and anarchistic lbertarianism?
Gun rights advocates also continually ignore the secret undercurrents of this issue that the Bush administration is certainly well aware of: The roots of contemporary gun rights arguments that are based in 18th and 19th century ideas of classism, oppression, and racism.
As a society, let’s finally put these aspects of this issue on the table and have a REAL debate about gun rights that truthfully examine why the dialectic of fear is still so prevalent in personal gun rights issues.
But please, keep your guns locked up in your safe at home while we bring this debate to light, and please please please keep them out of public parks.
They just don’t belong there.
The need to keep a loaded gun on your person at all times in order to feel like a righteous citizen is an issue for yourself to examine and decide on, but do you need to force that personal ideal on me while I’m trying to look at birds in the forest??
I live on the olympic penninsula in the state of Washington if you look at a map this is 80% national park, all mountains. We hike and camp this park all the time, over 1 million acres. I also have a carry permet for the state of Washington and I am very happy about the new ruleing to allow me to protect my family and myself. In the past, Washington state has had some trouble in our parks by NONE law abiding people, I will feel much more at ease when I meet someone or something on the trail 20 miles in the back country now. I think that this is one for the law abiding citizens. I would just like to thank President Bush for opening his eyes to this. I use to only carry70% of the time, now I can carry 100% of the time, it's like a cell phone or wrist watch I'll never leave home without it!
I am so sorry to see this ruling come about. I have hiked and backpacked in parks for years and felt safe. This is a most unfortunate turn of events and to be expected from an outgoing president. Carrying a firearme does not mean you won't be overpowered by two legged predators. It may mean the gain access and use it on you. I do not look forward to seeing bullet holes in signs and structures all over the park.
I think the following quotations on fear are appropriate, because in strongly felt beliefs, such as those that this issue is based in, are often based in fear.
"In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly."
---- Coleridge
"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear."
--- H.P. Lovecraft
"One of the things which danger does to you after a time is -, well, to kill emotion. I don't think I shall ever feel anything again except fear. None of us can hate anymore - or love."
---- Graham Greene - The Confidential Agent (1939)
"What we fear comes to pass more speedily than what we hope."
---- Publilius Syrus - Moral Sayings (1st C B.C.
Courage is not the lack of fear but the ability to face it."
---- Lt. John B. Putnam Jr. (1921-1944)
"Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is."
---- German Proverb
"Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake."
---- Edgar Wallace - The Clue of the Twisted Candle (1916)
"Fear - jealousy - money - revenge - and protecting someone you love."
---- Frederick Knott - Max Halliday, listing the five important motives for murder, Dial M for Murder (1952)
"What are fears but voices airy?
Whispering harm where harm is not.
And deluding the unwary
Till the fatal bolt is shot!"
---- Wordsworth
"The only thing we have to fear is fear it'self - "
---- FDR - First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933
Anonymous: Excellent quotes selected! That's exactly what the NRA platform is built on--plain FEAR with a touch of PARANOIA to blend!
The dangerous, armed gun nuts we fear are already in the parks. Thinking otherwise is fooling yourself. This law doesn't change the inherit danger of guns in the park. People who follow the rules re: concealed weapons permits are not the folks we should be afraid of, it's the whack-nuts who already bring concealed weapons in the parks in some form or another.
I see no added risk by this ruling.
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My travels through the National Park System: americaincontext.com
If you pay attention to the text, those allowed to carry a weapon into the park are only those who are already permitted to carry a Concealed Weapon. For whatever the reason they are permitted to carry, whether it be a threat to their themselves or their families or for professional responsibilities. The reason for those individuals carrying a concealed weapon don't end at the park gate. If they have been able to prove their need for a concealed weapon, they should be allowed to carry it at all times. Those "two-legged" predators referred to above don't care about the law and those intent on wrong-doing or harming others certainly don't leave their guns at the gate just because the law says they can't carry a weapon in the park. If folks thought they were safe from the criminal type just because they were inside the boundaries of a National Park, they were being naiive...very naiive.
In my opinion this law does little to change the activity that has been going on for years. Our National Parks often include some of the most remote terrain in the U.S. and law enforcement is not just a phone call away. We are not carriers of concealed weapons and won't be carrying, but it does not bother us in the least that licensed individuals will be.