Another lawsuit has been filed in a bid to prevent a change in national park gun rules. Late Tuesday the National Parks Conservation Association and the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees filed their lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington.
Back on December 30 the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence filed a similar lawsuit.
The filing by the NPCA and retirees coalition seeks an injunction against enforcement of the Bush administration’s new regulation that would allow national park visitors with concealed weapons permits to arm themselves throughout their visits. In their lawsuit the two groups contend the rule change would increase the risk to visitors, park staff, and wildlife.
The rule is scheduled to take effect this Friday, January 9.
“In a rush to judgment, as a result of political pressure, the outgoing administration failed to comply with the law, and did not offer adequate reasons for doing so,” said NPCA President Tom Kiernan.
The Bush administration last month finalized a National Rifle Association-driven rule change to allow loaded, concealed firearms in all national parks except those located in two states: Wisconsin and Illinois, which do not permit concealed weapons. The former rule, put in place by the Reagan administration, required that firearms transported through national parks be safely stowed and unloaded.
“Our members, with over 20,000 years accumulated experience managing national parks, can see absolutely no good coming from the implementation of this rule. More guns equal more risk,” said Bill Wade, chair of the coalition's executive council. “Apparently, the Bush administration chose to ignore the outpouring of concern voiced during the public comment period."
According to the lawsuit, the Department of the Interior “adopted the gun rule with unwarranted haste, without following procedures required by law and without the consideration of its consequences that they are required to observe under law… The new regulation is an affront to the national parks’ missions and purposes and a threat to the national parks’ resources and values, which must be held unlawful and set aside.”
As with the Brady Campaign, the NPCA and retirees coalition maintain that the rule is unlawful because the Interior Department failed to conduct an analysis of the rule’s environmental effects, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act, including the effects of the rule on threatened and endangered species. The lawsuit also argues that Interior officials ignored the National Park Service Organic Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act.
“Any reasonable person would have to conclude that changing these rules to allow more firearms in the national parks could have an environmental impact on park wildlife and resources,” Mr. Kiernan said.
In a letter sent to Interior Secretary Kempthorne on April 3, seven former directors of the National Park Service stated that there is no need to change the regulations. “In all our years with the National Park Service, we experienced very few instances in which this limited regulation created confusion or resistance,” the letter stated. “There is no evidence that any potential problems that one can imagine arising from the existing regulations might overwhelm the good they are known to do.”
The rule also was opposed by the current career leadership of the National Park Service and other park management professionals, including the Association of National Park Rangers and the Ranger Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police.
The public agrees: of the 140,000 people who voiced their opinion on this issue during the public comment period, 73 percent opposed allowing loaded, concealed firearms in the national parks, according to NPCA tallies.
Comments
This has been in some level of discussion since 2004 at least-petitions, bill drafts, etc. and the gun control groups have been there the whole time predicting rivers of blood, shootouts over camp space, rampant poaching, etc. all the while ignoring the fact that criminals carry wherever they want whenever they want.
More importantly, they fail to understand that a person can cross a national park and not even know it. Are there signs or any clear way of telling when you've gone from a state/national forest or state park to a national park? What about freeways that cross national parks? Should people have to stop and unload and secure their firearm for the 2 mile trip across the forrest?
What does the NPCA, Park retirees, Brady group, etc. plan to do about the murders, robberies, rapes, kidnapping and other assorted acts of violence committed against innocent park visitors by sadistic lunatics and the drug runners who use the parks as their grow/lab area?
murders, robberies, rapes, kidnapping and other assorted acts of violence committed against innocent park visitors by sadistic lunatics and the drug runners who use the parks as their grow/lab area?
And these atrocities are going to start happening when? Maybe I missed the news reports, but it seems likes the parks have never been, and are a far cry from becoming, anything like Detroit. :-)
In fairness, Kirby, there have been pot plantations in Sequoia, Yosemite, and a few other Western parks, but I haven't heard any reports of the growers chasing any tourists, or even engaging rangers.
And no one is claiming that there's never been a crime committed in a national park. Of course, no one is claiming that if concealed carry becomes the lay of the land that crime will vanish, either.
* Park Ranger Kris Eggle was killed in the line of duty in Organ Pipe Cactus NM in 2002 when he and three U.S. Border Patrol officers responded to a report from Mexican authorities of two armed smugglers heading into the United States. He was ambushed.
Kurt said:
Actually the Heller case was specific to determining whether or not the 2nd Amendment applies to all citizens or if it only applies to members of the Military, and if it applies to all citizens the second question was whether or not the DC ban on possession & use of handguns in the home was unconstitutional. They found that yes it applies to all citizens, and yes the DC ban on handguns in the home was indeed unconstitutional.
The issue of the "bear arms" portion of the second amendment was not addressed other than to mention they were not addressing it. The next Supreme Court challenge will probably be to determine incorporation to see if the civil right to keep & bear arms restricts only the Federal government from making laws that infringe it, or if it also applies to the States. Sometime after that the bear arms issue will probably be addressed (the issue of determining if the right to bear arms applies to law abiding citizens anyplace they're not prohibited from being, at least while on public property). Establishing precedents in these types of matters in the Supreme court will be a long process. Ironing out the 1st Amendment for example took many years in the courts to establish existing precedents.
I was merely establishing the fact that the article was one sided, I did not mean to imply that there was something wrong with writing a one sided article. It would of course add a bit of interest to incorporate the view of folks from the other side of the issue rather than simply including the views of one side as if they were indisputable, but it is a free country so including only one side or both sides is of course always up to the author. :)
I actually do often discuss the viewpoints of the other side or if not I at least link to the story I'm discussing. In my response to your article for example, I linked directly to it so everyone could read your side & judge for themselves.
Kurt said:
Very good point Kurt. In fact, not including unreported cases of rape, nor unsolved missing person cases where no body was ever recovered, as Unlce Lar mentioned: "The National Park Service says there were 116,588 REPORTED offenses in national parks in 2006, the most recent year for which data are available, including 11 killings, 35 rapes or attempted rapes, 61 robberies, 16 kidnappings and 261 aggravated assaults."
Very true indeed. In places like Florida & other States that have introduced concealed carry laws, the crime stats bear out that although after implementation violent crime was indeed reduced, it has not yet had the effect of making all crime vanish. That goal while noble is simply not realistic.
All we're asking for is that as Americans we not have our right to choose to bear arms for our own protection infringed while we are on public property. If a private business owner wants to make a rule prohibiting men from coming onto their private property (such as a woman only Gym), or to make a rule prohibiting armed people from coming into their privately owned restaurant, I'm fine with that. As a patron I can choose to go to another restaurant that doesn't make that prohibition.
National Parks on the other hand are public property supported by public tax money. As such they should not have unconstitutional rules that violate our civil rights. Saying only disarmed people can walk onto National Park property is similar to saying only white people can attend a particular public school. Both are infringements of civil rights. We've done away with the race segregation issue in public schools, and once the new rules go into effect civil liberty & the right to bear arms will finally be restored in National Parks, at least in the States that are not already infringing it through State laws.
Dustin,
Thanks for the lucid correction of the distortion that the Supreme Court ruling in D.C. vs Heller was about allow guns in the home (and not elsewhere). Stale baloney ... and a full-letter mark-down on the homework & preparation grade for everyone using this bogus talking-point. Excellent pair of comments!
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Guys, I'm off for a work-day on the trail - finally! Lots of other catch-up work, too, so will be working both sides, and will be home & on-line part-time. But, I see a monster high-pressure system has built over Alaska, giving them extreme cold ... and this air-mass is expected to move down over the lower-48 in the next 10 days. Along the coast here, that's how we usually get our big snow-dumps. Check ya'll tonight. Will go see your blog then, Dustin.
Dustin and Ted,
How can you blatantly ignore the very specific wording of the Supreme Court's written opinion in DC v. Heller?
Dear Warren:
You are correct in that the Heller opinion included language ruling that a ban on handguns in the home is unconstitutional.
However, it appears you need reminding that the opinion also included other "very specific wording", including the following (from page 19 of the ruling; emphases mine):
c. Meaning of the Operative Clause. Putting all of these textual elements together, we find that they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation. This meaning is strongly confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment. We look to this because it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right. The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it “shall not be infringed.” As we said in United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 553 (1876), “[t]his is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed . . . .”
So, in part you are correct, given words (page 64 of the opinion) such as "In sum, we hold that the District’s ban on handgun possession IN THE HOME violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm IN THE HOME operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense. But taking the opinion as a whole, and including the words from page 19, you seem to be kicking a dead horse here.