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
Memorial Day, a most auspicious day for our country, yes? Sticking up for something…both an admirable and caring trait. You should take pride in that and pass it along. It is contagious!
It is and always will be my opinion that the rank and file members of the NPS are dedicated and skilled individuals possessed of the abilities, intelligence, will, and shear heart to accomplish their mission, with or without many of the shackles imposed upon them by their management.
In my experience, when the objectives of a mission are tarnished it is generally due to a combination of poor assessment of available intelligence, a questionable application of assets and resources, miscommunication, lack of foresight in planning for alternatives and contingencies within the mission plan, or simply poor follow up. These issues all rest squarely on the shoulders of command most of the time, not on the individual men and women on the ground and doing the job! The fact that most serious crimes are turned over to local, state, or federal agencies, who have greater resources and manpower expressly designed to deal with criminal activities, demonstrates both good and sound judgement in the proper utilization of assets and resources. Consider they deal on a daily basis with more than 18,000 permanent structures, 8,000 miles of roads, 4,400 housing units, and God knows how many tunnels, bridges, dams, and other operations over vast expanses of this country. According to GAO reports the average for each law enforcement officer in NPS is over 100,000 visitors and 100,00 acres of land to watch over. Given that, it is an even more remarkable job they do with what they have.
Their action speaks for themselves and most often with great conviction. Even though one might think they already know… it’s a good thing for them to hear a “Well done!” on occasion.
Yes, I do have an agenda here.
1) This issue has never really been about guns in the park or crime in the park. These are contrived arguments. It has always been about the individual’s rights. Weather I choose to carry a firearm or not is my choice. Barring certain constraints, which we (the collective country) have agreed to I do not have to prove a need to anyone. Nor do have to prove that I am not a criminal. Some people have cars that will do 200mph just because they want it, the same reason here. “Just because I want to.” The US Constitution is more important than the NPS, now and always. I give you this though – Should the first amendment fail, see the second.
2) I refer you to my response to DVP. The people, or bureaucrats if you prefer, who tend provide misleading intell and data for their own reasons take the tack that if they say it loud enough and often enough it will be true. After that, we have make decisions based on what?
I note you cite no references and instead offer conjecture and anecdotal items only. There is usually no need to use a sledge hammer to drive a nail, however in as much as you remain unconvinced I will restrain my references to more traditional types. Since you have chosen to overlook the reason I choose 1996, I will restate it. I reviewed every 3 years; looking for patterns over time. I chose 1996 because Mr. Wade retired in 1997, therefore he would have had input into and review of the data for the last annual report he would have contributed to. Just trying to make it easy.
As I indicated the number was an average complied from multiple informational sources and intended to be on the low side of the example. I used the-eggman.com just for the complied chart, since nothing like that is available from DOI or NPS, and have found it to be accurate. If you prefer you may look these entries up in the US Dept. Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics “Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics”. It has the same numbers and notes just not as easy to get to. The comments regarding drug arrests, machine guns, other investigators, etc. were quotes taken from “The National Drug Control Strategy, 1997: FY 1997 Budget Year”, http://www.ncjrs.gov/htm/toc2.htm ,specifically under the section of NPS’s accomplishment for the year. These are annual reports so just change out the year to whichever one interests you. Doesn’t it seem a bit odd to say one thing 364 days out of the year and then go before congress on budget day and state something else?
The actual report, National Park Service FY1996 Interior Accountability Report, http://www.doi.gov/pfm/par/acct1996/nat_nps.pdf , states that Park rangers reported over 74,000 offenses with 20,000 arrests and USPP reported over 11,000 criminal acts with 3,500 arrests. Additionally, a report from the IG office, #97-I-908,Audit Report on the Automated Law Enforcement System, National Park Service concludes “Thus, there is little assurance that the Park Service will be collecting and reporting all law enforcement data from all of the park units.” I think that means understating, but in all fairness in part was due to lack of manpower.
There are 8 Part 1 crimes in the uniform crime report, http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm, 4 crimes against persons and 4 property crimes- murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. These have very specific conditions associated with their reporting. An attempted rape becomes aggravated assault if there is a weapon, otherwise it is just simple assault and may not be reported as a Part 1 crime. That being the case for 5,992 offenses reported by NPS/USPP out of 85,000 reported offenses would be low by an overall factor of at least 14. If we assume the same percentage (10%) of 85,000 to be crimes against persons than 8500/509 is approximately a factor 17. A report from USPP indicates offense handled by them to be in the 1000 range so 17 divided .83 is approximately a factor of 21.
Now, an anecdotal story- once a pair of sunglasses was stolen from a convertible while parked in the lot at a visitor’s center, a relatively expensive pair I might add. The complaint was not turned over to the FBI or the US Marshall, the DEA or BATFE, or the state police because apparently they have criteria for what they will send an investigator out for and so it was dutifully reported by NPS. There has been much conjecture that the crime rate for any given park is comparable to the surrounding area. This seems to be a reasonable assumption. One could construe from this that the majority of offenses turned over to FBI et al. are likely Part 1 crimes. What’s a majority? Since we are a republic, how about 2/3rds? (make your own number up based on your opinion) 85000 x .66 / 5992 = 93.6, just conjecture. Based on the reporting all I can really say it the Part 1 crime rate for NPS is off by a factor between 14 and the national average. Weather 14 or 21 or 93 or 459 the point is still the same.
For whatever reason, officials, bureaucrats, or agencies who knowingly would allow the planning and allocation for assets and resources to be expended based on misleading or questionable intelligence should be sat down hard or at the very least shot down in flames. Yes, yes not intended as a pun... however not a cheap shot either, that's intended.
It is difficult to get info for the past few years since Automated Law Enforcement System, National Park Service this is being replaced by IMARS at DOI. ”Currently, the Department is unable to provide the full range of data and information on incidents when asked, and lacks meaningful information to report…”, http://www.doi.gov/e-government/FY2005%20E%20Gov%20Annual%20Report%20-%2.... The implementation was to be complete by 2006 however meaningful info is still not available. I should warn you that in 2004 it changed slightly to be like this www.doi.gov/pfm/par/par2004/. This table, http://www.doi.gov/pfm/par/par2004/par04_goals_glance4.pdf says that Part 1 crime rate is 14.6 (see page 142) with only 3 of 4 agencies reporting. I wonder which agency is not in here. By the way, LE funding requests from 2003 to 2005 increased by almost 50 per cent for annual expenditures although they only received about a 40 per cent actual increase. Check the annual budget requests and approvals, my math could be off a bit.
NPS–Park Police, http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/expectmore/summary/10003727.2006.html, program assessment (latest available) indicate that the Part 1 crime reporting is up for 2007 from the establish baseline 2003-2004. From the program performance measures come the following quotes- ”In fact, increases could be a good thing, if it reflects better reporting.” and ”… the 2006 IG progress report showed USPP as the only DOI bureau making satisfactory progress on all of the Secretary's directives for law enforcement reform. These follow-up reports suggest that, while the program still has work to do, the USPP has become more effective and will soon be able to better demonstrate results.” Oh, it appears USPP may be using the UCR and NIBRS, http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm. According to the annual DOI/NPS 2008 report nothing really happened in 2005, 2006, 2007 except a few crimes on the Indian lands. Go check it out, if you can make sense of it, http://www.doi.gov/pfm/par/par2008/. Side note- based on informational reports for 2006, the last year I make sense of, total number of offenses in the parks was in excess 116,000 offenses. Should we we assume the numbers have gone down for 2007 and 2008?
NPS does not earmark exclusive law enforcement expenses when they request funding from congress. When congress denies or lowers or increases the allocations it is usually due to lack of meaningful data or the inclusion of supporting data in this area. See the following individual sections relating to NPS, http://www.doi.gov/budget/2005/data/pdf/05_HouseInteriorSum.pdf, http://www.doi.gov/budget/2006/data/pdf/06_HouseInteriorSum.pdf, and http://www.doi.gov/budget/2007/data/pdf/07_HouseInteriorSum.pdf. Once the monies are allocated NPS may spend the monies on anything they choose to after received. Which leads to funds needed for law enforcement spent on operations or in the parks that need it- money being diverted from operations to security and law enforcement as an example. This can lead to all kind of unintended consequences. Like the "Chambers treatment". Look it up yourself- see Teresa Chambers USPP or ask Mr. Wade, he was very outspoken about that. No bureaucrat every willingly gives up the power of discretionary spending over even a dollar unless they have to. One wonders why DOI/NPS wishes to re-invent the wheel of crime statistics, to the tune of many millions of dollars, rather than use the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting and National Incident Based Reporting Systems that are already in place. Unfortunately these systems are not mandatory.
I disagree with Mr. Burnett’s assertion that there are no new ideas to be had here. The UCR is a system which can accurately track crime statistic down to a local junior college. If NPS/USPP reported all criminal offenses by park than there would be accurate data for NPS as a whole and for LE funding that could be earmarked for each park based on need. This could be accomplished by executive order and in place before the new law takes effect. The current administration, which declined to even comment on the amendment due to that rare splitting of the house vote (only 2/3rds required to become law without a presidential signature and if you have 85 per cent going in...why bother), could support it and be on the pro-gun, anti-gun, pro national park, and pro-states rights issue all at the same time. What politician could resist that! When the stats come in then the pro-gun, anti-gun, pro national park, and pro-states rights people could set back and say “See, I told you so” depending on who’s really correct of course. Changes can be made if required at that time.
According to NPCA’s report, "Faded Glory: Top 10 Reasons to Reinvest in America’s National Park Heritage", the top 10 reasons America’s national parks need more money: Reason # 1: Parks are vulnerable to crime…
So, I think everyone concerned should write your President, your Governor, and both your state and national Representatives and Senators to suggest that NPS should report all criminal offenses (even those turned over to another agencies) and be included under the Uniform Crime Report by park. Providing accurate information for the assessment of LE funding needs not only for each individual park but the NPS as a whole based on a standard used by the rest of the country. Life could be simple. Did I say I had an agenda?
There's definitely a lot of material here to sort through and digest.
That said, and without having scoured it all, just a quick note that your statistics in graph six are a tad out of context. For instance, while you noted that the USPP reported more than 11,000 criminal acts with 3,500 arrests, you failed to complete the sentence from the report, which added that those numbers were compiled from "crimes committed on park lands and adjacent areas and captured 281 fugitives and wanted persons. (my emphasis).
As you undoubtedly know, the USPP is called upon quite frequently to matters outside the National Park System, and it'd be good to know how many of those incidents went toward the 11,000 crimes and 3,500 arrests.
Also, in pointing out that park rangers reported more than 74,000 offenses with 20,000 arrests in 1996, you dropped the following sentence that noted that of those totals, 4,400 were felonies, "including 15 murders and 158 aggravated assaults."
Without further detail into those 74,000 offenses or 20,000 arrests, it's difficult to get an accurate picture of crime in the national parks. How many arrests were for speeding? How many for disorderly conduct? How many were in urban settings, such as Golden Gate NRA or Gateway NRA or the National Mall? How many murders were committed outside a national park, but the bodies were dumped in a national park and so were recorded as a murder that occurred in a park?
Nevertheless, I'm sure everyone would agree that even one murder, whether committed in a national park or in downtown NYC, is too many (ditto with the aggravated assaults). But against the 265.7 million visitors the national parks counted in 1996, these numbers show how very, very low the crime rate in the National Park System is.
This arguement is over. Gun carry is to be allowed. NPS is not a separate sovereign agency that can make it owns rules contravening the Constitution.
Now the issue on reporting is a side issue and should be done if only to allocate resources to the NP. Rangers in some parks I have heard are in danger and should get more resources. A ranger is a person that has multiple responsiilties snd should not have to take on the armed soldier hat too often.
I hope with experience that many here who advocated the restriction of gun carry will change their mind as may have about CCW in the states. Now it is up to us who advocated gun carry to push our fellow lawfully armed citizens to be responsible and be extra careful. The last thing we want to prove the fear of that lawfully carry increases danger in the parks.
Noe NPS has 9 months to figure out how to manage carry issues. Some places like Washington state courts have storage for gun carry when entering the court. If they would provide that and it would be secure from theft then many would be glad to hand over their firearm when in the museum or the facility. These are the practical issues that come up and need to thought out.
Frank, I knew you wouldn't disappoint me. So let me walk you through my thinking.
My comment regarding the difficulty in fully assessing crime in the parks: The figures Mr. Kane cites are simply numbers in broad categories. They're not broken down enough to fully understand what sort of crimes were being reported, or even where they were committed.
My comment on the low overall crime rate: Using the document for 1996 that Mr. Kane himself provided, it's clear that crime in the parks is very low no matter what approach you take. When you realize that some of the murders stemmed from crimes committed outside national parks, those numbers go lower.
One of the problems with this entire debate, and there are many I'm sure you'd agree, is that people cherry-pick data (some intentionally, some unintentionally) to support their arguments. For instance:
* For those who contend that the latest on guns in the parks stems from an overwhelming majority of Americans who wanted this ruling, data from this site show that no state with a "shall issue CCW" law has a double-digit percentage of its residents holding such a permit. That could be interpreted as meaning that a majority of Americans don't support CCW, no?
* For those who claim CCW permit holders are more law-abiding than most everyone else, there was a study in California in the early 2000s that "suggests that a shall-issue policy for CCW permits may result in higher rates of violent crime among permit holders..." (Selective trimming of that sentence would delete this telling conclusion: "but the results do not reach statistical significance; larger studies are needed.")
Does anyone know if such larger studies have been performed?
Suffice to say, this debate, discussion, or argument, however you want to term it, will continue.
RAH, just to set the record straight, the NPS has not acted like a "sovereign entity" on this issue. It does what Congress or the administration tells it to do.
A lot people just don't get it. There's no excpetion to gun rights in the 2nd Amendment. It doesn't say "you an own or carry a gun everywhere except on NPS land." You left-wing nuts think you can ignore the law whenever it suits your fancy. Newsflash: these wild lands were tamed and explored by people with guns. Guns are what kept (and still keep) people from getting killed from wild animals and criminals. Amount of crime in parks, etc is all a red herring. This about the law and NPS rules violated the law. If you think you are Jet Li or some sort of wizard and can defend yourself from grizzlies and killers with a twig, have at it. The rest of will return to common sense, which is the law of the land.
The NPS had a regulation restricting carry in violation of the 2nd amendment. They were active in trying to avoid the change in regulations and they are now delaying implementation for 9 months. So yes, I believe that most of the NPS believes they have sovereign rights to create their own regulations and it did not matter that it violated the consitution. They are part of DOI under the executive branch and have to abide by Constitution restrictions like all other agencies. Once Heller was decided in the affirmnative all agencies should have started thinking about the consequences of regulations that restrict the 2A. NPS regulations have been under review because of the problems that CCW holders had in crossing NPS roads and territory oy commutterspn their way to work. Since more people are exercisingtheir 2A rights, any regulation that contravenes that right should be rethought. NPS has been reluctant to instigate the change, thinking they were special. NPS lands are special but the regulations are not There is no reason to restrict the rights of American within NPS lands and that includes carry of handguns.
All the arguemnents have been red herrings. Poaching, vandalism, rckles shooting are all still prohibited.
Now residents will have the right retored to carry in the backcountry or carry concealed if they have a permit.