Bill Wade wrote: I say, give me one example of a citizen with a concealed carry permit who has averted a violent crime in our sacred national park system...

That smells suspiciously like shifting the burden of proof. Kurt has argued against proposed amendment to the CFR by asserting that there is a risk (and he implies it is a large one) of CCW permit holders using their weapons to commit unlawful acts. Without evidence, however, this is merely an unsupported assertion and to quote Christopher Hitchens, "what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." Statistics indicate that CCW permit holders are one-fifth (or less) as likely to commit a violent offense as the general population (and comparatively even less likely to commit a non-violent offense). Unless there is something unique about National Forests that would somehow cause a CCW permit holder to suddenly deviate from this pattern (and if there is, I'd like to know what), Kurt's fears do not appear to have much basis in reality.

The main problem with demanding such an example, however, is that it is not likely to be documented. If a CCW permit holder averted a violent crime in a National Park without using a concealed carry firearm to do so, why would it be documented that the person in question was a CCW permit holder? The germane question, presumably, is whether there are documented examples of CCW permit holders using their concealed carry weapons to avert a violent crime. The rub is, of course, that concealed carry is currently illegal in National Parks; thus, an absence of such examples may simply be the result of CCW permit holders obeying the law. You simply can't reasonably assert that CCW permit holders wouldn't do any good because they have failed to do so thus far, when doing so would, at this point, require them to have broken the law first. And if such an example could be found, I have little doubt you'd gleefully seize upon the fact that CCW permit holder was carrying illegally in a National Park as evidence that all CCW permit holders are scofflaws. It's a "heads I win, tails you lose" scenario.