With the latest debate over whether the National Park Service should allow visitors to carry live weapons in the national park system, much has been made over whether parks are safe. While even one murder is too many, the crime statistics for a park system that last year attracted some 277 million visitors would seem to indicate parks are relatively safe havens from violent crime.
During 2006, when 273 million visitors toured the parks, 11 deaths were investigated across the system. Two involved women who had been pushed off cliffs (one at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and one at Lake Mead National Recreation Area), one was a suicide (at Golden Gate National Recreation Area), and one was the victim of a DUI accident (in Yellowstone National Park).
National Park Service records also show that one of the 11 deaths, reported in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, involved a stabbing that was spawned by an alcohol-fueled altercation. Great Smoky also was the setting of a fatal shooting of another woman with three others arrested for the crime.
The suicide at Golden Gate involved a man who "began shooting at hang gliders. He did not hit any of the hang gliders, but then he shot a stranger. Then he turned the gun on himself."
At the Blue Ridge Parkway, a woman parked at an overlook and wearing headphones while studying for final exams "was killed by a handgun by a suspect on a killing spree," the Park Service said. In another case involving the parkway, the body of an individual shot and killed outside the parkway was dumped there.
At Amistad National Recreation Area, a woman was found floating in a reservoir in about 5 feet of water. "She appeared to have blunt force trauma to the head and was possibly stabbed," the agency said.
The last two murders were reported in Washington, D.C., area park units. In one case a victim died from a gunshot wound to the head, in the other U.S. Park Police found a partial human skull, with an apparent gunshot wound, on the shoreline of the Anacostia River, a crime that didn't necessarily occur in the park system.
Most folks, I think, would agree that the suicide, two pushing victims, and the DUI victim couldn't have been prevented if guns were allowed to be carried in the parks. And, of course, there was the victim who was murdered outside the Blue Ridge Parkway. That lowers to six the number of violent deaths investigated in the parks, one of which involved a stabbing in a drunken brawl, an outcome that could have turned out just the same -- or worse-- if either individual was carrying a gun.
During 2006 there also were 320 assaults without weapons, 1,950 weapons offenses, 843 public intoxication cases, and 5,752 liquor law violations. How many of those might have turned deadly were concealed carry allowed in the park system?
I think much of the concern over this move by the National Rifle Association to see visitors allowed to carry loaded weapons does not center on the majority of the "law-abiding" gun owners in the country, but rather around the accidents waiting to happen involving folks who either aren't so law-abiding or so careful.
Comments
As I understand it, there are certain National Parks in Alaska where carrying weapons is permitted. It would be interesting to learn whether there has been any abuse of the weapons-carrying privileges in those parks. Have people been murdered there? Have bears been unnecessarily killed there? Have any crimes been prevented by guns there? Or are they just too remote and have so few visitors that any stats from those parks don't correlate to the parks in the other 49 states.
For the same reason, I don't think one can use the stats from DC as reasons for carrying/not carrying a gun in a more typical national park.
The sad fact is that women traveling alone or in small groups or without men are vulnerable to sex crimes or worse. There are no phones, no doors to lock in a tent, no one around to hear cries for help. There is no way I would ever hike alone or with just one or two other women in remote areas in our national parks.
Haven't most of the victims of murder on the Appalachian Trail been women?
It would also be interesting to learn the gender stats on crime in the national parks.
I so hope that the law makers are really listening to those who have spent lived and worked in the many National parks . They have a wealth of experience behind their view points/observations/. I wonder within the stats reported how many incidents were between/involving indivuals who actually live and work within or near the National park area. Some destination /large parks have services within and in the community employing a large base of people . I simply think that the more guns people are encouraged to bring( and a kind of encouragement may occur simply as the product of this proposed law change...there seems to be a kind of fear promoting around why a change is needed) that there will be a higher probablity of tragic accidents...a shot out and about hits another person, children finding a gun in a tent, wildlife wounded by someone showing off. There are law abiding people who do careless things and/ or act with poor judgement. My take is that the increase of events will be primarly between one law abiding person and another law abiding person(s) . I worked many years in 3 large "destination" type parks, in the campgrounds and in the field .Some of those years involved commisioned Law enforcement positions.
Frank -
You're right, sending you a bunch of pro-gun stats is the same as you sending me a bunch of anti-gun stats. The website I listed was for the huge number of news stories you can read about the almost-daily occurrences of defensive gun use, not a bunch of stats. I read the hooey from the Brady site almost weekly. It would only be fair that you glance at some info from the "pro" side once in a while. You might be surprised.
kath,
My point was that there is no correlation between gun laws and crime statistics. That works both ways, whether they are strict or non-existent. I'm not arguing for gun restrictions in national parks. I'm arguing that the issue is a non-issue and that the two aren't connected.
Jim Macdonald
The Magic of Yellowstone
Yellowstone Newspaper
Jim's Eclectic World
The Dc gun control issue is about guns in your home. It has nothing to do with guns on the street.
I have to step in on one comment...."There is no correlation between gun laws and crime statistics". Compare homicide statistics between a U.S. city which has liberal gun laws, and ANY similar-sized Canadian city. Regardless of anyone's pro-or anti-gun stance, there should be recognition that "Guns kill people", and having easy access to 'high-powered guns made for the primary purpose of shooting other humans' IS going to result in more deaths.
Whether that is a price worth paying to uphold the 'right to bear arms' can be debated. What shouldn't be debated is there's a significant price which the U.S. is paying for this right. A comparison of the country to the north of us which takes a significantly different approach to guns/gun control provides sufficient empirical data to make such conclusions, and should be acknowledged equally regardless of one's stance on this issue.
The comparison, correct me if I'm wrong, between Canadian cities with liberal gun laws and a U.S. city with liberal gun laws is that in the U.S. the homicide rate is higher. If that's right, that's actually more evidence to my point because given the same set of gun restrictions, there are different crime rates. Therefore, the cause of the higher crime rates has to do with something else besides gun regulations (and also the lower crime rates). It argues against the correlation, not for it. That was actually part of Michael Moore's point in Bowling for Columbine. He wasn't arguing that the U.S. was more deadly because there were more guns; he argued that guns were dangerous in the hands of Americans because our society has been built from the beginning on a culture of fear. So, he supported gun regulations until the root cause could be addressed. In principle, though, it seems that the arguments about protection and prevention of violence through gun regulations (or lack thereof) miss the point of the underlying conditions that tend to produce violent crime.
This neither supports the NRA position or the gun control advocates in respect to this issue; for me, it suggests that some of the biggest reasons for supporting a change in regulations miss the point and are a red herring for an ideological argument that has nothing to do with what happens in the national parks. That is a necessary discussion to be having, but it doesn't need to be dressed up by legislative stunts (before we heard about the 47 Senators writing Kempthorne about this, this particular issue simply didn't ever come up - it really came out of left field, and what a firestorm it has caused).
Jim Macdonald
The Magic of Yellowstone
Yellowstone Newspaper
Jim's Eclectic World
For once an honest response, I'm not posting my name this time because I am probably over trained and over armed. I am going to be illegal in national parks until they the laws are changed. I travese the roads on the border states and experience smugglers. I avoid them, but you can only do so much. Big Bend Nat'l Park is ignored as a drug import area and yet you can drive across the border in some places. Wonder why I carry loaded weapons? This was edited to remove a superfluous derogatory comment aimed at others.