The Coalition of National Park Service Retirees sees no need to change gun laws in the national parks, saying that allowing the public to carry weapons in the parks could jeopardize the safety of visitors.
Last month, you might recall, the Traveler pointed to an effort by nearly half the U.S. Senate to allow concealed weapons to be carried in the parks. Current Park Service policy allows permitted weapons to be transported through the parks, but they must be unloaded and stored so as they're not readily accessible.
Forty-seven senators, led by Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, don't think that's good enough. He says varying gun laws on federal lands can be confusing to gun holders. (The New York Times pointed out, though, that if gun holders are confused, perhaps they shouldn't be permitted to carry guns.)
In a letter to Representative Nick Rahall, who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, the coalition asked that if legislation proposing a change in the current regulations reaches his committee, that it not gain favorable consideration.
We believe that to change these regulations so that visitors might wear or keep firearms close at hand in national parks - guided by differing state laws -could significantly increase the danger to visitors in national parks. Equally worrisome is that such a practice would almost certainly put wildlife in many parks at greater risk, wrote the coalition. Poaching would become easier. And visitors who believe that carrying a firearm provides them with extra “security” and the authority to shoot animals would be far more likely to use deadly force whenever they feel the slightest threat. Information gathered by State and Federal wildlife management organizations throughout the country overwhelmingly indicates that both people and wildlife are safer when guns are not the first choice when people feel threatened.
Comments
Q) You know the more common name for a "well armed society"?
A) A war zone
If that's your idea of a "safer" society, God help us all. EVERYBODY loses those battles.
If you can get them to ask the wrong questions...
Why does a government who, has people in charge of nuclear weapons and armies supplied with tanks and missiles and all other sort of very expensive weaponry, have any moral right to deny my right to a hand gun.
You know what tyranny is, it's when some people claim the right to use violence to disarm other people.
The gun debate isn't about crime, it's about property rights. The first property is my body which includes my life. I have the right to protect my property. I don't ask politicians for permission to have rights which are innate. That's the mentality of a slave.
Be it a bear, or a crazy criminal, or a disgruntled woodchuck, I have the right to self defense. Not because some politician say I have it, but because it is a fundamental human right. To deny me that right is to forfeit all other rights. Banning guns is not pragmatically effective, but that argument hasn't 't worked. I propose we call it what it is, it is hypocritical to ban guns, and then enforce that ban with men who are armed with... yes guns. If guns are "bad" then they are bad for everyone, if they are not bad they are not bad for everyone. You can't just invent random moral categories based on your own personal bigotries... well you can , but your wrong.
A person traveling in the back country unarmed is as irresponsible as a person traveling in the back country with out proper clothing.
If you don't feel like you can trust yourself with your own protection in the form of a gun, then don't carry one. I respect your right to not carry a gun and I would never suggest forcing you to carry one. But no one has the right to deny me the right to defend my life.
All that any law really is, is an opinion with a gun.
Kurt, I’ll tell ya’ what. I’ll buy your Brady Bunch “statistics” if you believe whatever the NRA says. That’s what I thought. We're not talking specifically about the need for a concealed carry permit holder to shoot someone ("justifiable homicides" - although police shootings are part of the overall data set that the Brady site doesn't specify). Just having the gun and showing the gun to the criminal is enough in most cases to prevent the crime. The Brady numbers just skew to their viewpoint and play to emotions.
When I do my research I let my taxpayer dollars defend my point. You have to work to get the information because there’s so much out there. I can readily see not many of the posters on your site have gone through the effort. They're just passionate about preventing people from carrying a handgun.
Some of the contributors’ snobby perceptions that national parks are Eden-like, safe, sacrosanct and, above all, exempt from Constitutional rights are delusional. To use the line of choice of anti-gunners, “…if it saves just one life” carrying a gun is worth it. Since the MINIMUM number of defensive gun uses per year determined by research done by Kates, Kleck et. al. is at least 1 million there is ample evidence the case for concealed handguns is valid. My personal decision to carry a firearm is on based on personal experience and the fact that an idiot 16-year old nearly killed me while I was riding my motorcycle.
For those of your posters who are intellectually honest enough to do some web browsing and look for government and law enforcement-reported data, I’ve actually saved them the hours it would take to actually dig up this information. These data ought to get you started and give you a perspective on who commits the crimes (Hint: it’s the criminals against criminals) and the number of crimes committed with handguns. (Hint: way less than you think or the Brady Bunch will tell you).
Since I’m actually one of the guys who are responsible for the proposed regulation all of you are protesting I can tell you I’ve spoken with Dep. Ass’t Interior Secretary Lyle Laverty and have provided him with much of this data:
FBI 2006 Homicide Stats
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrta...
DOJ Bureau of Justice Statistics
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrta...
Natinal Vital Statistcs Reports: Deaths – Final Data for 2005 Search for “Firearm” Tables 18-20
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr56/nvsr56_10.pdf
PA State Police handgun permit and handgun sales data 2003. Play around with the year in the URL and you may be able to get other data sets
http://www.psp.state.pa.us/psp/lib/psp/2003_County_Records.pdf
I’m always amazed at how lazy some of the more vitriolic anti-gun people are when it comes to [attempting to] defend their loony gun-hater claims. There are 38 right-to-carry states that have had virtually no problems with concealed carry permit holders. Even the most resistant police officials concede they’re surprised at how the transition has gone. I never see any anti-gun proponent quoting any of these statistics. They always get the “truth” from the Brady Gang or the “Ban-The Gun” group” du jour.
None of the posters to your site has offered any data to back up some of the silly, bigoted, paranoid claims about concealed carry permit holders. It’s always the same old, “I’m scared!” or “They’ll shoot Bambi” or “They’ll shoot my favorite tree!” or just, “Those macho gun nuts.”
The anti-gun bigots (yes, in many cases they are the genuine article) continue to blather about emotions and feelings and sensitivities without mention of victims who may have been able to defend themselves. Not surprisingly, no one in this forum complains about the actual criminals who commit the crimes! Someone - not me! -wrote very recently (don’t remember where I heard it but it was facetious) that since 90% of Philadelphia shooting victims are black – and many are criminals themselves - and 99% of the shooters are blacks with criminal records if we just isolate that demographic Philly’s gun problem would go away. Rendell unfortunately wouldn’t go away and would simply continue to pander to his gun-hating constituency.
Does any poster here have verifiable proof that a person with a concealed carry permit actually committed a crime in a national park with their handgun? Basically, put up or shut up. The Interior Department couldn’t prove it either. Thank you Karen Taylor-Goodrich for your dedicated years of steadfast stonewalling and deception.
I’ve told this story to many legislators now. My wife and I frequently visit Shenandoah National Park. We spend money, we hike. Heck we got engaged there. My wife jogs on the trails. A lot. Back in 1996 we heard people everywhere muttering about a murder. Turns out two women were brutally murdered on the same trail my wife jogs on and that we both hike on near Skyland. Yeah, Mr. Park Ranger, tell me again how safe the parks are? Murders and crimes happen. Especially in gun-free- victim zones. If you are the statistic of the day IT DOES matter.
In all the years I’ve spent hiking the trails in Shenandoah I’ve yet to see ONE ranger more than a hundred yards or so out on a trail. I’m sure it must be different in the majestic parks out west. I just haven’t gotten there yet.
You know what? I don’t care if folks here don’t like guns. I don’t care if they have a seething, visceral hatred of guns. I just don’t care about those opinions. I do care when they lie or distort in order to advance their attempts to deny my Constitutional right to defend my life. I will defend my rights with the truth. And I will prevail. Not a threat, just the truth.
Editor's note: A sentence of this comment was deleted for being off-color and off point.
Rick,
Thanks much for the urls. There is indeed a world of data out there pointing to high numbers of gun crimes. Before you put down the Brady Campaign's numbers, though, if you look at their footnotes (you can find them here), much of their information comes from the same sources you cite, including the FBI and Centers for Disease Control.
As to your question seeking "verifiable proof that a person with a concealed carry permit actually committed a crime in a national park with their handgun?," if you go back through the comments posted on this issue on the Traveler you'll find a few in which the individual has said they carried a concealed weapon into a park against the law, so yes, I'd say that's pretty good proof of committing a crime. Now, you might quibble over the severity of the crime, but it's a crime nonetheless. If you do quibble, where do you stop?
There also, as you likely know, have been numerous poaching incidents in the parks, although it's hard to say without further research whether these individuals had concealed carry permits or not. But they obviously went "through the process" to obtain their firearms. Are you suggesting that CCW permit holders have a higher sense of morality than those without such permits?
As the tenor of your comment points out, this is a highly charged and extremely emotional issue. It will continue to be so no matter which way Interior comes down on the proposed regulation. If it tosses out the changes and retains the existing language, I'd wager there will be permit holders who ignore those laws and pack in the parks just the same, and if it changes the regulations those opposed to guns in the parks will continue to lobby for a change.
As the saying goes, only the lawyers and lobbyists will be better off.
Rick,
Thank you very much for your efforts and comments. I appreciate you assisting in any process that allows us to decide our own safety and protection. I love freedom and relish any opportunity to gain some freedom back. Please keep up the fight. Knowledge is the real power. Hopefully we can all convince people to give up the emotion of issues and take a logical look at the platform.
Kurt, you said:
> if you go back through the comments posted on this issue on the Traveler you'll find a few in which the individual has said they carried a concealed
> weapon into a park against the law, so yes, I'd say that's pretty good proof of committing a crime.
I'd call that an exercise of a Constitutional right. And "life insurance." While I can't say never, no park visitor I've ever heard of has been accosted by someone with a concealed carry permit. No concealed carry permit holder has been arrested for poaching or vandalism. DOI couldn't provide any proof either and we hit them with two Freedom of Information Act requests to get the "incidents" they alleged. Aside from that why should I give a hoot what some retired park ranger thinks on this issue? These guys are typically anti-gun to begin with, had a gun, and could have defended himself. The odds were stacked in their favor.
The point I've made is concealed carry permit holders, the group in question here, do not commit the crimes. Criminals do. Every time. Timid, uninformed people making unsubstantiated, emotional claims don't help save lives at all.
People refuse to take responsibility for their safety and their loved one's safety. They arrogantly and naively (OK, maybe they just haven't considered this aspect) believe someone in "law ENFORCEMENT" (that's what they are since the courts established LEOs do not have an obligation to "protect") should risk their lives to protect them instead of doing the risky, messy work themselves.
if gun control worked Washington D.C. would be the nirvana folks claim the park system is. Gun control is nothing more than government-mandated aiding and abetting of criminals. The world is full of evil people intent on taking advantage of unsuspecting, naive people. Regardless of how nice you are to people and how much you extol the virtues of civility someone will try to get you at some point in your life. Do you want to be the next victim?
Another anecdote - true story. Back in 1980 I was working for a seismic surveying firm on old RT 25 in the Cumberland Gap between Cumberland Gap, TN and Middleboro, KY - ironically, now a national wildlife area or park. A couple hours before dawn I was awakened by shooting outside my door. It lasted for a really long time it seemed. Several calibers; pistol and shotgun. I jumped out of bed, hit the floor and immediately tried to call 911. Guess what? They cut the phone lines. Now, the only way out was the front door - or potentially in an ambulance. Fortunately for me the shooter was someone getting even with the motel manager and shot the heck out of the office and a couple vehicles. I didn't know that at the time. I and my roommate were unhurt. From that point on, though, I realized I really was the only one responsible for and capable of ensuring my safety.
Consider this very carefully: when seconds matter, help is just minutes away. When the cops arrive they're investigating a crime, not saving your life. Now, just think if one of the recent shooting victims in these gun-free nirvanas had the opportunity to defend themselves. If you want to go through life thinking someone will help you in a life-threatening situation you could be gravely wrong.
I'll say it again. Concealed carry permit holders are responsible for preventing crime and saving lives. Not the converse. Guns save lives.
Rick,
I'm not trying to debate about guns in the parks or nitpick...but I do think it's worth pointing out that the links you provided are to reports/studies, etc that were done several years ago. The FBI, CDC, DOJ and PA links all referenced documents published no later than 2006.
My point is that we don't live in 2006 (thank God!), and I think it might be worth it for you to dig up some more recent information, or determine and let us know if this is that most recent info, to support your argument. Just because something was one way in '06 doesn't mean it couldn't have changed.
One thing I forgot to mention, Kurt. The stats above referring to:
> Guns in the Home - A Greater Risk to Family and Friends
> • For every time a gun is used in a home in a legally-justifiable shooting there are 22
> criminal, unintentional, and suicide-related shootings.[16]
> • The presence of a gun in the home triples the risk of homicide in the home.[17]
> • The presence of a gun in the home increases the risk of suicide fivefold.[18]
Kellerman used incomplete/innacurate data and the report has long since been discredited. Ludwig is a known gun hater who produced biased reports favored by, well, the Brady folks who insist that somehow "[inanimate] guns murder" X number of times each year. They know they can't get away anymore with pumping up the numbers by saying a gun causes suicide. I'll find someone from the NRA or GOA to provide some balance for the aforementioned "statistics." Just teasing. Stick with FBI, CDC, DOJ facts and not the opinions of that group.