How will families with youngsters feel about attending interpretive programs in national parks when the person next to them might be armed? Will the National Park Service have to install metal detectors in parks to ensure gun owners don't enter buildings with their sidearms?
Those are just two of the questions being asked today by active and retired National Park Service rangers lamenting adoption by the Bush administration of a rule that will allow park visitors to carry concealed weapons.
While many 2nd Amendment rights backers and the National Rifle Association view the rule change as long overdue, not everyone shares their belief. The Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, the Association of National Park Rangers, and the Ranger Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police jointly voiced concern Friday that the rule change will not make parks safer and could in fact make them more dangerous.
“This new rule is fraught with a variety of threats and hazards to the solitude and atmosphere visitors have come to appreciate and to seek in national parks,” said Bill Wade, chair of the coalition's executive council.
The coalition has nearly 700 members, all former NPS employees, with more than 20,500 accumulated years of experience in managing national parks and NPS programs, including law enforcement and visitor services.
Mr. Wade, whose Park Service career included a stint as superintendent of Shenandoah National Park, said the rule change stands to create risks to "natural and historic resources in parks." Additionally, he said the coalition is "troubled by the likelihood that the way park visitors relate to each other will be affected."
"Until now, parks have been conducive to visitors having casual chats with each other on hikes. Not uncommonly, visitors camped next to each other share a morning cup of coffee. This open social interaction is liable to change as suspicion and apprehension about the possession of concealed firearms makes people more distrustful,” he said.
At the 1,200-member Association of National Park Rangers, President Scot McElveen, a retired chief park ranger, expressed apprehension about the ability of the Park Service to provide the best available protection to park resources under the new rule.
“Park wildlife, including some rare or endangered species, will face increased threats by visitors with firearms who engage in impulse or opportunistic shooting,” said Mr. McElveen. “We also worry about increased vandalistic shooting at historic monuments, archeological petroglyphs and park signs and markers.”
The ANPR president also described situations in parks that will be confusing or troubling:
* How will a family with small children who are on a ranger-guided tour feel about the fact that other visitors on the tour very well could have concealed guns in their pockets or backpacks?
* How will visitors attending an evening program at an amphitheater in a park campground feel about the possibility that others attending the program could have firearms in their purses or jackets?
* Firearms will still be prohibited in most federal buildings, but will parks now have to provide places for visitors to check their firearms before entering visitor centers or ranger stations? Or will they have to install and staff metal detectors to ensure that firearms don’t get brought inside?
* Some parks lie in more than one state. Natchez Trace Parkway, for instance spans three states, each with a different gun law. What do visitors do when they pass from Tennessee to
Alabama and then to Mississippi?* Some park visitors have a predisposition to kill on sight animals that they believe to be “varmints.” Such animals include coyotes, wolves, prairie dogs, snakes, and some raptors. Even though harming such animals has been illegal and will continue to be illegal under the new rule, having a loaded, readily-accessible firearm increases the chances that these visitors will act on their misplaced beliefs and fears.
John Waterman is a law enforcement ranger at Valley Forge National Historical Park and president of the Ranger Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police, which represents the majority of commissioned Park Service law enforcement rangers. He worries about employee and visitor safety and visitor confusion.
“This new regulation has replaced a clear and consistent regulation prohibiting guns in all national parks unless they are rendered inoperable and inaccessible, with one that opens a Pandora’s Box of confusing exceptions," he said. "Now, if you are in a national park in a state that allows concealed firearms and if you have a concealed-carry permit; or if the state you're from has reciprocal laws with the state you are in, then maybe you can carry a gun, but not in public buildings or if the state says you can't have one in a public park.... This is a regulatory nightmare both for the public and for rangers.
“More guns means more risk," Ranger Waterman stated. "For example, rangers sometimes have to intervene in disputes in campgrounds. With the possibilities of guns being present, the risk increases, not only to the disputants, but to the rangers who have to resolve the problem. Moreover, traffic stops now become more hazardous for rangers in parks.”
Mr. Wade of the retirees group scoffed at the Interior Department's intent in ramming this regulation through without appropriate analysis of the impacts it will have on national park resources and visitors.
“They said it would increase consistency for the public. Clearly it doesn’t. They said there won’t be any impacts to park resources or visitors. But thousands of current and former rangers and other employees – who actually work or worked in parks – say otherwise," he said. "They said this is what the American people wanted, but over 70 percent of the 140,000 who commented during the public comment period opposed the proposed rule.
"They said, ‘if you can carry a gun on Main Street you can now carry a gun in a national park.’ We don’t think Americans want their national parks to be like their main streets; they go to parks because they are special and different, and knowing they can get away from the pressures and stresses they face where they live and work.
“January 9, 2009 is not a good day for national parks or for their visitors,” Mr. Wade added. “We hope the new Interior Secretary will reconsider this ill-advised regulation and keep national parks special and safe.”
Comments
Ted, I should know better, but....
* "Disproportionally"?
Disproportionate to what? To Hispanics, to Asians, to African-Americans, to AARPers, to twenty-somethings, to white males, to white females, to black bears?
You mention the "general population," but I'd wager the "general population" of the Washington peninsula is considerably different than the "general population" of Torrey, Utah, the gateway to Capitol Reef NP or Hurricane, Utah, on the border of Zion NP, or even Bar Harbor, Maine, next to Acadia NP.
If you're being specific to the general population of the peninsula, I'm not sure if your point is that out-of-area gays find the park overly nice and enjoyable or that there's been a disconcerting drop in non-gay visitation.
* "important parts of Olympic National Park"?
And what would be the unimportant parts?
The bottom line is, "So what?"
Back in July of '07 I wrote about an African-American BLM ranger, Wayne Hare, who had written an essay lamenting the general lack of people of color in the backcountry areas of our public lands. Part of his point was that, "The most recent U.S. Census indicates that sometime around the year 2050, people of color in this country will outnumber the current white majority. If the emerging future majority doesn't find intrinsic value in our birthright of publicly owned lands, how much tougher will it be to fund and protect these special areas?"
To say the least, that post generated quite a bit of heat out...from folks who agreed with Mr. Hare, from folks who disagreed, from folks who complained about all the talk about diversity, maintaining that it had become overly PC and was failing to accomplish the underlying goal in favor of merely playing a numbers game.
I guess my point is that I would be more concerned about your observation if it was that you didn't encounter ANYONE in the backcountry. Who cares if those you did are gay, or black, or yellow, or purple? Would you have made the same "disproportionate" claim if the majority of folks you encountered were white males aged 35-55? Just to tie back into the original post, would you have commented if you found a "disproportionate" number of backcounty travelers were armed or unarmed?
Last time I checked the parks were there to be enjoyed by all-comers regardless of race, creed, age, gender, or sexual orientation. Shouldn't they all be encouraged, welcomed, and feel comfortable without being labeled as "disproportionate"?
It's been awhile since I've chimed in on this issue. My viewpoints haven't changed and I don't think anyone else's have either. I think it is immoral to require someone to disarm themselves when they cross a line on a map. How my concealed pistol will "scare" someone is beyond my wildest comprehension. It's like saying that they're offended by the color of my underwear!
As for the comments being mostly OPPOSED to this new rule change, I invite you to go to the comments page and read some for yourself. There are many thousands of them. Pick a hundred at random; it might take you a half hour. But it will show you the fact that most responders were in FAVOR of this new rule change!
http://www.regulations.gov/search/search_results.jsp?No=80&sid=119C6B4B6492&Ne=2+8+11+8053+8054+8098+8074+8066+8084+8055&Ntt=e8-09606&Ntk=All&Ntx=mode+matchall&N=0&css=0
As for Kurt, I truly appreciate that he puts forth the time and effort to operate this website and blog. He and I disagree on this issue but I still think that we could spend a day in a National Park together and enjoy each other's company. We all owe him a big "Thank you!"
Mr. Wade and McElveen's comments are unnecessarily alarmist and have little basis, if any, in evidence coming out of states where shall-issue right-to-carry has been law for a decade or more.
First, the majority of the US population lives in shall-issue states, so people and their small children are already in proximity to lawfully armed citizens.
Second, Federal buildings in parks have always been off-limits and they don't have metal detectors. As before, law-abiding people will not carry in federal buildings, and as before, criminals of a mind to carry inside these buildings will do so anyway.
Third, carry licensees already have to disarm when they cross certain state borders, enter schools, university campuses, and the like. They understand and abide those boundaries, and they will do the same when national parks straddle states with different carry laws.
Finally, data coming out of shall-issue right-to-carry states confirm that licensees are an extraordinarily law-abiding demographic. In many states, licensees are 15-20 times less likely to be arrested than the public at large. Simply put, licensees are extraordinarily trustworthy people. There is no rational basis for worry about crimes at the hands of these people.
All said, the arguments forwarded by Mr. Wade and McElveen are simply unfounded. It is rather absurd to hear them arguing so strongly for something that has little, if any, rational basis.
Afterthought:
I suppose that what dumbfounds me the most regarding these arguments is their long and repetitive history.
Florida passed shall-issue right-to-carry in 1987, and similar arguments were brought out at that time. Since then, only 2 states have NOT passed some form of concealed carry law. During this 20-year process, these same arguments came up in state, after state, after state. Now after 20 years these fears of Mr. Wade and McElveen have yet to be realized! People, we have good, solid data regarding these carry policies. Look at the data, and distrust the alarmist rhetoric.
Public policy is too important to be swayed by empty arguments. We are smarter than that.
Warren:
Check out this brief that was filed on behalf of Dick Heller in the US Supreme Court. Those folks, you will see, fight not only for their enumerated right to keep and bear arms, but also for their penumbral right to gay marriage.
http://www.gurapossessky.com/news/parker/documents/07-290bsacPinkPistols...
For the record, I am pro-gay, pro-choice, and pro-privacy. I am also pro-gun rights. Individual rights are not just a list of things you can do. The idea is one of personal freedom and a commitment to responsibility, both individual and societal. Perhaps when I feel the most free is when I am in the backcountry, be in National Parks, Wilderness Areas, Forest service property, or BLM land.
But I think that you are mistaken to demand that every rights-oriented interest group fights on all front, for all rights at all times. I for one support the ACLU, but they have a dismal record on 2A rights. Before Heller, they said they would not support the 2A because it protected "states rights." Now that the SCOTUS has come out and said it protects an individual right ... do they change their position? No, they say "we disagree with the Supreme Court." They see what they want to see.
Good luck in your battles for equal rights. They are yours. Go get them.
"How will families with youngsters feel about attending interpretive programs in national parks when the person next to them might be armed? Will the National Park Service have to install metal detectors in parks to ensure gun owners don't enter buildings with their sidearms?"
OMG...you're kidding, right? What a drama queen you are!
Well ya know, that gun just might jump outa that holster all by itself and shoot that kid! Lions and tigers and guns...OH MY!
Fact is, anti-gun liberals, those of us who will be carrying CONCEALED are law-abiding citizens who have passed extensive background checks. NO ONE will know and most people won't really care if there are people in the room carrying...unless they are linguine-spined libbies who suffer from gun paranoia anyway. Myself, I feel better knowing that if some looney without a CCW wants to start shooting up the place, I can stop it...or another law-abiding CCW could. Most rangers I have talked to see no problem with CCWs carrying in the parks...they will be concealed out of sight anyway. Uh, Mr. Wade...get a grip! Good thing you didn't live 100 years ago in the old west!
If I knew my camp neighbor was packin', I would probably strike up a conversation about guns and ammo...and we could even check out each other's weapon of choice!
The bad guys have been carrying all along. And remember Cary Stayner (Yosemite killer)? He didn't need a gun...he just used a knife. I'll bet Carol Sund, daughter and her friend would be alive today if they were armed....
Oops, sorry Kurt...you are just the messenger...I guess the three lobbying groups you mentioned are the drama queens I was referring to!
Gerald, the 1999 murder of Carol Sund, her daughter, and her daughter's friend did not take place in Yosemite National Park. The murders occurred at a nearby place called El Portal. Seems to me you're implying that parks are unsafe because people may be killed while on their way to a park, while on their way back from a park visit, or while staying at a motel near a park. That argument doesn't work for me, no matter how many times I see serial murderer Cary Stayner inappropriately referred to as the "Yosemite killer" in the media.
Anonymous,
Tell me, out of sheer curiousity, what good will the weapon be to you in your backpack? Imagine yourself walking along the trail, as you round an outcropping, you run into mama grizz and her two cubs a mere handful of yards away. Now what? I know, drop your pack, that will only take a second or two, then unzip or unbuckle the pack. Another couple of seconds. Now reach in and get a grip on the weapon and draw it out. I'm thinking at this point the grizz is on you like glue. But, at least the grizz is distracted with you and your companions or family can now make their escape. Congrats! Carrying a weapon has saved lives. Just not yours. Carry bear spray on your packbelt, easier access and weighs a lot less. Plus you don't have to be as accurate as with a handgun. Oh and the pepper spray works equally well on humans too, just incase you are attacked.