Posted on 05/25/2009 5:56:30 AM PDT by marktwain
Unique among the public lands of this country, national parks traditionally have banned the carrying of loaded firearms. National forests, wildlife refuges, preserves and other conservation areas have no such blanket rule. Neither should national parks, as Congress reluctantly recognized this month.
For decades, Americans accepted the simplistic reasoning behind the firearm prohibition: Parks don’t allow hunting. Therefore, no one needs to carry a firearm within one. Advocates viewed the ban as a simple way of helping prevent poaching in parks, and it was. It dispensed with the complexities of actually showing some wrongdoing by a park visitor who carried a gun.
Unfortunately, the policy also eliminated a basic right that most people possess on most other public lands.
That right isn’t grounded in a need to hunt. So the lack of such opportunities is no justification to eliminate the right to carry a firearm. If it were, the government also would quite logically ban the carrying of .30-06-caliber rifles anywhere that seasons happen to be closed on all large mammal species.
The right is grounded in the right to self-defense. That right shouldn’t end at some arbitrary line on a map.
Some people scoff at ruffling the status quo and note the low rates of violent crime and animal attacks in national parks. Indeed, they are relatively safe places, but statistical figures mean little when an individual suddenly finds himself or herself to be the unlucky exception.
Besides, the statistical improbability of harm shouldn’t nullify an individual right. If it did, then we all should be happy to have the FBI check out our library records at will because, after all, it’s likely to be a rare occurrence and not particularly harmful to the patron’s health.
More than a few people support the firearm ban because they like the idea of national parks as places where man and beast are equalized, where any fight between the two will be “fair.” That’s real wilderness, right?
Yes, but saving a few human lives is worth sacrificing the resurrection of an Eden that disappeared when man began sharpening spears and arrows. Even the most devout proponent of a fair fight probably would grab a large-caliber firearm if one happened to be lying on the pristine park tundra just as a grizzly decided to gnaw on his leg. Timothy Treadwell himself might have done so, if not to save himself then to save a loved one.
There is no reason to ask people to expose themselves to such heightened risk as the price of entering a national park. The ban isn’t necessary to protect the animal populations; other public lands host healthy wildlife populations and gun-toting citizenry.
When Congress created vast new parks in Alaska in 1980, it understood this and exempted the newly designated areas from the ban. It’s good to see the rest of the country finally catching up.
Let me see if I understand some of this reasoning: I am unarmed, hiking in the mountains and am attacked by a Grizzly Bear, or even a Black Bear. Does not seem much like a fair fight to me - I lose with no hope of defending myself. Maybe the people who believe this is a “fair fight” could explain it to me?
I think the author of the comment forgot to add the /s satire tag!
Does this mean when I enter a National Park..I can park my car and strap on my 44Mag Wheelavator and take a hike? Open carry is now ok in the parks?
The author needs to study the origins of the right to keep and bear arms.
While self defence is part of the God given right, the reason it was added to the Constitution is to protect the citizens of the US from tyranny. If uor government ceases to serve the citizens, the citizens have the right to change the government, by force if needed.
Here’s the law. (not necessarily the NPS opinion)
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/get-cfr.cgi?TITLE=36&PART=2&SECTION=2&YEAR=1998&TYPE=TEXT
I believe that what you have posted is the old law, not the law that was passed last week.
Most Alaskans could care less what goes on in lower 48, nobody would pay attention to any new gun regulations anyway. Govt only works by voluntary complaince, otherwise you have anarchy.
Did the new law effect anything besides *right to carry*?
Self defense and every other moral use of weapons is included in the protection, as you noted. The Founders would have been shocked at the idea that a citizen might be prevented from keeping and bearing arms for his defense.
If you can open carry in the State you are in, you can open carry. If it is illegal in your State (there are a few states in that peculiar, repressive situation), then you cannot open carry. Interesting enough, some of the most repressive states (California, Illinois, Wisconsin) allow for rural open carry of firearms.
Open (and I believe, concealed carry for license holders) is now OK in the parks. The law was signed by Hussein a few days ago. It was signed because it was added to a bill determining what credit card companies are permitted to do to customers. Republican Senator Cornyn added the measure to the credit card bill.
That was one of the reasons stated on why you couldn't carry in the NPs. (there was supposedly no hunting allowed which is blatantly untrue)
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