Thanks to a brilliant tactical move, gun rights advocates are a step closer to arming themselves in national parks and national wildlife refuges across the country following a U.S. House of Representatives' vote on a credit card bill.
By attaching the gun legislation to the widely popular bill that would redefine the ground rules for credit card companies, Congress essentially made the firearms provision bulletproof. The House passed the measure, which earlier this week cleared the Senate, on a vote of 279-147 Wednesday, and sent it on to President Obama, who is expected to sign the legislation into law this weekend.
Condemnation of Congress's move came quickly from park advocacy groups.
Theresa Pierno, Executive Vice President, National Parks Conservation Association
“We are disappointed in the members of the House and Senate who allowed this amendment to pass, as well as in President Obama. By not taking a stand to prevent this change, they have sacrificed public safety and national park resources in favor of the political agenda of the National Rifle Association. This amendment had no hearing or review, and will increase the risk of poaching, vandalism of historic park treasures, and threats to park visitors and staff.”
“These are special protected places, where millions of American families and international visitors can view magnificent animals and majestic landscapes and experience our nation’s history, including sites where lives were lost to preserve our American ideals.
“The Reagan Administration’s regulation requiring simply requires that guns carried into these iconic places be unloaded and put away is a time-tested, limited and reasonable restriction to carry out an important and legitimate goal of protecting and respecting our national parks, monuments and battlefields. It is a tremendously sad day that it has been thrown out by political leaders from whom we expect more.”
Bill Wade, Chair, Executive Council, Coalition of National Park Service Retirees
“Passage of this legislation that would allow firearms of all kinds in national parks is an absolute travesty. There is simply no need for it, given the extremely low risks that visitors face in national parks compared with everywhere else.
"Legislators who voted for this amendment now have to live with the fact that they have, in fact, increased the risk to visitors and employees, as well as the risk to wildlife and some cultural resources. Moreover, they've just contributed to diminishing the specialness of this country's National Park System. We hope the American people register their disappointment in the actions of these legislators.”
Scot McElveen, President, Association of National Park Rangers
“Members of the ANPR respect the will of Congress and their authority to pass laws, but we believe this is a fundamental reversal from what preceding Congresses created the National Park System for. Park wildlife, including some rare or endangered species, will face increased threats by visitors with firearms who engage in impulse or opportunistic shooting.”
John Waterman, President, U.S. Park Rangers Lodge, Fraternal Order of Police
“One should ask, what do guns have to do with credit cards? We are disappointed that Congress chose to disregard the safety of U.S. Park Rangers, the most assaulted federal officers, and forgo the environmental process set up to assure the protection of our national parks. If signed by President Obama, this will clearly be a change in his rhetoric towards taking better care of our environment and protecting federal employees."
Comments
One just needs to compare the number of gun related deaths and injuries in the US vs. Europe to figure out that gun ownership is not the glorious freedom that gun lovers pretend it is. That being said, I wished that IMBA had the pull the NRA has in this country as we'd be riding our bikes in wilderness areas. Actually, coming to think of it, I heard that operating a wheelbarrow in wilderness is forbidden as it is mechanized (sounds stupid yet believable). Maybe, cyclists should side with the NRA (hunters like to use wheelbarrows to bring their game back) to have the definition of mechanized vehicles be revisited to allow human powered recreation in wilderness. :)
I heard that Obama wants to get the Credit bill signed on Friday. So I heard he will sign it with the Coburn amendment. Obama is a politician and he knows that the pro gun feelings are the majority and the overwheming votes in Senate and House reflect that.
National Forest and BLM land has been operating with the the provison that carry is allowed for a long time. Now the NPS and Wildlife Refuges can no longer restrict an Constitutional right.
The next step is to contunue to educate people that the sight of a person with a gun is not enough to call police unless they are using the weapon incorrectly.
The gun owners have to continue to impress not to abuse the right to other gun owners. Since the majority does not want to carry a weapon this will still be a small number to use the right.
Now people will have the ability to carry a weapon to defend themselves in and out of parks. I certainly will not be carrying openly on daytrips but now when going on week trips I do not have to worry about breaking the law becasue I have improperly stored my gun.
I heard that a hunter had been on NF and crossed through NPS and had been cahraged and that had a impetus to this bill. Don't knoww for sure.
Now VA residents who have a CCW can travel on The GW pkwy with their weapon concealed like they do on other roads in Va.
The facilities will still have carry prohibtions I beieve so the details still have to ironed out.
I do not know all the states that have OC allowed But I do know that PA, VA, WV, KY, OH all allow OC and ther have been few incidents of abuse of that right. Most incident are poloce hassleing and charging people for a legal action an dthat had caused a lot of pushback. Gun ownes are tired of being demonized for exercisinga right and we want to be allowed to use our guns for lawful peuposes and not to be charged when we caryy a wepon. Most gun ownes who carry have to reserch laws to make sure they te don't break a law by ignorance. Getting rid of restrictions that inhibit the RKCB has been a a goal so that a free people can not have their rights infringed.
Visitors will get used the to sight of a the rare person carrying and will get accustom. That will take time but people in AZ are used to the sight of other free man and women carrying firearms and it does not freak non carry folks. Just like at a range where it doesn't bother me to see everyone else with a shotgun or handgun on them.
Mr. Kane
Thanks for the research. I have wondered about many of the same points that you have brought out. It is not that they outright lie it is just that they only give out a fraction of the real data to support specoified agends. All I ask of NPS and all politicians is "don't lie to me". It would be real interesting to have the actual data. My daughter worked two summers in a national park and I will definately tell you there are drug offenses and related crimes of the body and property. Anyone who does not believe it lives in a fairyland.
All of the comments are good for discussion. It is always interesting to note which sections of the Constitution people agree with and which ones they do not to promote and instill their ideological agendas on the rest of us. At least the First Amendment is alive and well. I wonder how many of the commentators want to do away with the First Amendment and the rest of the Constitution and the 27 Amendments.
Mr. Kane
I too appreciate and am impressed with your knowledge and research. I do feel the need to stick up for the NPS though. Aside from units covered by the Park Police, you are correct that other units are patrolled by Park Rangers. Due to those units often being in remote areas with varying law enforcement response times and resources, many of them have mutual aid agreements with neighboring cities, local counties and even their home states. These local agencies have a much better infrastructure and logistical support in terms of handling the investigation of crimes committed in parks. This often times helps relieve law enforcement rangers because they also EMT/Paramedic, Search and Rescue, Wildland Fire, resource management and any number of other park responsibilities to handle. If a crime is significant enough, it is turned over the FBI for investigation.
It is not the NPS's intent to minimize and skew crime statistics. Due to the nature of the parks and the responsibilities placed on Rangers and the park staff, many of the incidents are handed off to other agencies to investigate and clear. Sorry to get off topic, but I felt the jobs that Rangers perform and the great service that the NPS provides needed to be clarified.
The tactic to skew reporting is a time honored method by many. The British have used in their crime reporting which is different how it is reported in the US. For instance a person is attacked 5 times and it is reported as 1 occurence. The skews the report which is why the anecdoctal reporting is so different from the official reports. If we depend on official reports it is a good idea to dig in to see how the methodology of reporting is done. That is true for all sides.
I also wish to express my thanks to Kane and his research.
DVP made some good points in terms of Mr. Kane's statistics, and I appreciate both of them taking the time to present this information.
A couple of points of further clarification on Mr. Kane's data.
Mr. Kane believes that NPS numbers under-report violent crimes in parks by a "factor of about 21," based on "over 11,000 narcotic related offenses in national parks …involving gangs, organized crime, and drug dealers…”. It wasn't clear where that number of 11,000 such cases came from; it may in fact be from a valid source. If so, it helps to keep in mind that the limited number of categories used for stats such as the FBI uniform crime report sometimes result in "pigeonholing" offenses into broad categories that aren't very descriptive of the individual situations.
"Narcotic related offenses" are a serious problem, but the vast majority (such as an arrest of an individual for possession of a small amount of drugs) are not "violent crimes," and I'd need to be convinced that such a large number of cases involving "gangs, organized crime and drug dealers" actually occurred parks. Attempting to interpolate those numbers into significant under-reporting of violent crimes such as murder and rape simply isn't valid.
Mr. Kane is concerned that the number of serious crimes in parks is seriously understated by the NPS because of the number of cases handled by cooperating agencies rather than the NPS. Things may have changed since I retired 8 years ago, but based on my personal experience, if a serious crime occurred in a park, we completed a report - and included the incident in our annual stats - even if another agency ultimately took the lead role in the investigation and/or prosecution.
There are mechanisms to prevent double-reporting by of those incidents in databases such as the FBI Uniform Crime Report, so I agree it's sometimes difficult to compare NPS stats and other reports. However, even if you include all violent crimes in parks in which the NPS had no role in the investigation, I believe you'd have a hard time coming up with many more of those serious offenses than were reported by the NPS. It would be interesting to see any data to the contrary.
One strictly anecdotal source in the "NPS Morning Report" which for a number of years has summarized serious incidents in parks - irrespective of which agency handles the case. Is that a comprehensive list of criminal activity in parks? No, but it's a pretty good snapshot of what's happening in parks, especially for major cases such as homicides. I've read those on a regular basis for years, and that source clearly suggests there aren't a lot of murders in parks falling through the reporting cracks.
Mr. Kane makes a valid point with the statement: "It would not be unreasonably to assume that the majority of these crimes [such as rapes and assaults] were handled and reported by the U.S. Park Police and occurred most likely in the 3 urban parks patrolled by the Park Police."
He is correct that those areas often account for a disproportionate number of such cases each year; the NPS is responsible for some pretty unlikely pieces of real estate in downtown Washington, D.C. and while offenses which happen there are in fact crimes that occur in a park, including those in the stats gives a very skewed picture of risks posed by visitors to the vast majority of other NPS sites. What happens on a downtown D.C. street in the middle of the night doesn't have much correlation to the risks faced by a camper in a Rocky Mountain National Park - or any other "traditional" park.
In a very real sense, NPS crime stats may in fact over-report serious crimes, in terms of how much risk is faced by a traditional park visitor. Here are some examples of "violent crimes" which have been reported in parks in past years:
- a shooting on a Greyhound bus on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway was the result of a lovers quarrel between 2 passengers on the bus. The incident happened on NPS property in the urban area, so it was counted as a homicide in a park.
- U.S. Park Police found a partial human skull, with an apparent gunshot wound, on the shoreline of the Annacostia River in the D. C. area. Did that crime actually occur in a park, or was the body simply dumped there? Did the skull wash ashore from elsewhere? I don't know, but it was reported as homicide on NPS property.
- Some (many?) of the rapes reported in parks are incidents which began in a town outside the park boundary and ended in the park. While the actual crime occurred in a park, such sad situations aren't a true reflection of the risks facing park visitors.
There are numerous similar examples.
Are there vast numbers of violent crimes occurring in parks that are not reported, or which are absorbed into the data for other agencies? I'm not convinced.
Actually, last year there were 5 incidents of muggings attacking visitors on the National Mall with knives. The park police shut that down fast and there were arrests of the juveniles and it stopped.
The police jumped on that becasue tourists have never been a target of criminals in the past on NPS land . Usually they attack on the street to steal a wallet or purse. So the high street crime in DC should not have reflected in the stats. Th BW Pkwy has a lot of street ravers. I live near it and hear them many evenings. But this is a traffic issue and speeding issue not a violent crime.
I expect that drunken drivers and drug possesion arrests are high on GW and BW Pkwys since these are major commuter routes. Most people do not realize they are on NPS land.
The VA commuters will be affected since some use portion of the GW pkwy and have CCW in thier cars and no longer have to stop on their drive to work to store the gun in the trunk from their hip. Thi s change will allow them not to be hassled or inconvenienced trying to accomodte safe storage when they do not have to on other federal or state roads in VA
Anonymous says,
No argument from me.... although I'd say "extremely rarely" in the interest of accuracy.
I suspect we've long since wrung any new ideas out of this whole discussion, so I'll move on to other topics on the Traveler.