Posted on 02/25/2010 4:10:10 PM PST by neverdem
AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) - Lawmakers in Maine, home to one of the nation's most-visited national parks, are considering whether to override a new federal law that allows guns in the sanctuaries.
A law that took effect Monday lets licensed gun owners take firearms into national parks and wildlife refuges - provided state law doesn't say otherwise. No states have laws that supersede the new policy, officials say.
The Maine bill would outlaw guns in Acadia National Park and the St. Croix Island International Historic Site...
(Excerpt) Read more at kpvi.com ...
The Second Amendment applies to any federally owned property, regardless of what any contrary law states. Now, the state has the right to outlaw guns in state parks as long as it doesn’t run contrary to their constitution, but on federal land, the U.S. Constitution is wholly applicable. I hope this gets turned down in the Supreme Court (as this case should start out in federal court due to jurisdiction).
The faeries in Ogunquit won’t feel safe otherwise...even though they wouldn’t be caught dead in a campground...at least not without gucci sleeping bags and room service...
As I understand it, the law doesn't work that way. The Policy in Federal Parks is to be the same as in the state as a whole. The states cannot separately regulate the policies in the Federal Parks. However I'm sure Obammy and Company would be entirely in favor of this action by Maine, and probably by New York (dominated by the city folk, not the more rural folk who actually live near or in the federal parks), CA, MA, MN, IL (Again dominated by the City, in this case Daley's Sewer)
But:
Y'all will have to work on your own state legis-critters.
The new law allows firearms in national parks as long as they obey the gun laws of the state in which the park is located.
Firearms will be allowed in 373 of the 392 national parks. For parks located in more than one state, such as the Appalachian Trail which crosses 14 states, visitors will need to know which laws apply.
The new federal law also applies to 551 national wildlife refuges. It also prohibits firing weapons unless in self-defense.
The law passed by Congress in May reverses almost 100 years of National Park Service policy that generally allowed visitors to transport unloaded, disassembled weapons in the trunks of their cars.
The Maine bill would outlaw guns in Acadia National Park and the St. Croix Island International Historic Site.
The Maine Senate public safety committee is split on the state proposal banning guns. They have agreed to negotiate to remove from the bill a provision that would outlaw weapons along the Appalachian Trail, which borders many popular hunting areas.
However, in most states, it remains illegal to kill animals and most rangers are unarmed.
“Maine is a state that has more guns than people, and it is a very safe state,” said John Hohenwarter, the National Rifle Association’s legislative liaison for Maine and other northeastern states. “That is one of the reasons why you don’t really see a lot of the bills in Maine that you see in other states.”
Maine has dozens of laws on the books regulating the use, abuse, ownership and transportation of firearms. But the state also has a long and oftentimes controversial history of protecting the interests of gun owners.
Before November 1987, Maine’s constitution stated that citizens had the right “to keep and bear arms for the common defense.” But during a referendum that year, Mainers voted to drop the phrase “for the common defense” and amended the constitution to read that citizens’ right to keep and bear arms “shall never be questioned.”
Maine also has one of the lowest crime rates in the nation.
Strimling, a Portland Democrat who co-chaired the Legislature’s Criminal Justice Committee, sponsored or co-sponsored bills to ban military-style assault weapons, to require waiting periods on handgun purchases and to close the gun show “loophole.” During the 2005 debate over his assault weapons bill, Strimling received death threats serious enough to warrant an investigation by law enforcement.
The Brady Campaign, the national organization Stop Handgun Violence and Maine Citizens Against Handgun Violence all contend that Maine’s lax regulations help feed the illegal gun trade — and, therefore, violent crime — in Massachusetts and other states
Hurrah for Texas.
Those with concealed carry privileges.
ALL gungrabbers, statists by definition, whenever and wherever they have succeeded, have threatened and continue to threaten death and injury to hundreds of thousands, nay, millions, of innocent, law-abiding citizens. The fact that thus far they have made and, in effect, carried out these threats with impunity in no sense mitigates their lawlessness and hatred of freedom. Catch my drift?
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