How far will the National Rifle Association go to overthrow gun control measures? Apparently infiltrating groups who favor gun control isn't out of the question. Among the groups infiltrated? Apparently the National Parks Conservation Association.
Mother Jones magazine, in a story published Wednesday, reports that a woman known as Mary McFate has over the years worked undercover as an NRA mole who infiltrated gun control groups. Among the more recent targets was NPCA, which has been working for months against efforts by Interior Department officials to overturn gun regulations pertaining to weapons in the National Park System.
Under the current guidelines, weapons owned by licensed gun owners can be brought into the parks, but they have to be broken down and stored out of easy reach. Earlier this year, however, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne proposed to replace that regulation with one that would allow park visitors to arm themselves around the clock if the laws of the state in which the park in question is found allowed.
What's not been answered is how rangers in park units that span multiple states -- such as Yellowstone, Death Valley, the Blue Ridge Parkway, and Great Smoky Mountains -- would police gun laws if this proposal were embraced.
A source for the Mother Jones story, Barbara Hohlt, executive director of States United to Prevent Gun Violence, told the magazine that Ms. McFate's ears perked up when she heard about NPCA's opposition to the change.
McFate also took a keen interest in a gun matter currently under consideration by the Department of the Interior, Hohlt says. At the urging of the gun lobby, the agency has been mulling whether to change its regulations to allow people to carry loaded and concealed guns into national parks under certain circumstances. (At the moment, a gun carried into a national park must be unloaded and kept apart from ammunition.) The National Parks Conservation Association and current and former National Park Service officials have been fighting the proposed rule change. "When Mary heard about this," Hohlt recalls, "she immediately asked to be on the email list [of the opponents] and she also got on the phone calls. So she now knows the strategy of the people trying to fight this."
NPCA officials, understandably, are aghast at the possibility that their private deliberations have been overheard by a spy possibly working for the NRA. In a statement issued this afternoon the park advocacy group confirmed that Ms. McFate "has participated in multiple confidential conversations and email correspondence over the past few months about efforts to keep visitors and wildlife safe in our national parks."
Bryan Faehner, NPCA's legislation representative, adds that, "If the investigation by Mother Jones proves true, then the NRA will have effectively spied on our ongoing efforts to keep visitors and wildlife safe in our national parks. If true, this is a troubling display of the lengths to which the NRA will go to further its agenda."
Comments
Watchdog: Show me the stats were CCL holders are "less violent" and more "law-abiding"...than any other group of the similar size...whatever that means.
Are stats put out by the NRA!?
Concealed carry license/permit holders have said licenses/permits because they're law abiding, and willing to go through a process to prove it (and capable of safely handling a firearm). The license/permit has to be renewed every few years with another round of background checks. And what's more, if a holder violates the law (by committing a felony or in most states a domestic violence offense of any kind felony or otherwise, and gets charged) the license/permit is revoked (I'd be willing to bet that a state outside one's jurisdiction with a reciprocity agreement if one's home state will report an felony arrest and very likely physically pull one's permit upon arrest). If the holder is acquitted, then any only then, do they get to ask for it to be reinstated or have it returned depending on jurisdiction.
In simpler terms, one or more offenses means no holding a license/permit to carry concealed, for life. I'd call that better odds, that a CCL/CCW holder is careful to abide by the law and think twice about loosing his or her cool with others, then the general population is, and therefore pretty safe grounds to assert that they are less violent and more law-abiding than other groups. If they commit one offense, they're not IN the group any more for life, not without proving their innocence (sometimes not even then and 'may issue' states, or by getting a pardon from a Governor or a President (the latter is not the most likely of outcomes).
The only state that I know of that allows residents to carry concealed without a license or permit and that does not have a license or permitting process should one wish to get one anyway is Vermont. I'm sure its a lovely state (never been there) but I doubt it throws off the stats much in terms of population figures.
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Coming back to the article, I have to ask: Mother Jones? Really? Mother Jones is far, far left and was even edited by Michael Moore. This is hardly a neutral source, and I'm skeptical.
"Spying" seems a bit over the top, too, and using the word raises suspicion of paranoia. At any rate, the "spying" that is alleged to have occurred includes getting placed on mailing lists. If that's the case, then I guess I'm guilty of "spying" on the ANPR since I am a Second Amendment advocate and the ANPR seems so determined to deny citizens of their Second Amendment rights on federal land.
This seems a distraction by those on the far left from the real issue: Restoring constitutional protections to law-abiding citizens traveling and living in national parks.
For once the gunnies got a good one in. More of this needs to happen.
At least in California, the Bradyites have attempted to (sometimes with success) infiltrate local 2nd Amendment groups and regional NRA councils. So the "We're so shocked!" attitude by the antis, Bradys, etc. is much like the mutterings of a soccer mom suddenly found doing the day shift in a massage parlor.
In addition the antigunners often have government types in essence working for them. The Deputy AG for our Calif. Bureau of Firearms, Alison Merrilees, frequently communicates with/receives marching orders from Bryan Siebel of the Brady Campaign.
We were able to see how deeply she was involved by PRARing (roughly, the Calif version of FOIA) her communications. She's been able to use her legal status to (so far unsuccessfully) entangle CA firearms-politics websites like Calguns.
And for those worrying about "security" in National Parks, shouldn't you really be worried about the extensive illegal-alien-run methlabs and methheads out in the sticks with some lonely little wildlife-mgmt biology graduate forest ranger trying to keep a lid on things with something like a 50 sq mi coverage area?
Frankly, National parks are unsafe enough no one should visit them *without* a firearm handy.
Bill Wiese
San Jose CA
As FrankC observes: Mother Jones? Yes, they could conceivably produce useful information, but if one is serious about presenting a case, corroboration is going to be more than normally important.
If an information-gatherer is falsifying identies and committing fraud to gain access & acceptance, than that is the material her opponents want to find & document. And if the NRA can be shown facilitating actual offenses such as those, then detractors of the NRA have something useful to their cause.
Meanwhile, this is the Information Age, and those who ignore information are destined to end up where their opponents hope to put them.
For the most part, meaningful NRA operatives are 3-button suits, exactly as in the case of their liberal opposition. It's mainly a professional lawyer game, and I doubt either side is attracted to amateur or freelance agents. Since the two sides have been at each other's throats for many decades, any sustained pattern of melodramatic skulduggery would be old news & common knowledge.
While this discussion is entertaining I believe the matter of carrying concealed weapons in the National Parks has been settled in favor of those who want this right. Although there were 35,000+ public comments submitted (with about 95% of them in favor of adopting the new rule allowing concealed carry) I think the matter was really settled when a letter with the signatures of 51 U.S. Senators was sent to Secretary Kempthorne requesting the change.
The groups which opposed this change were doing what they thought was correct, and what their membership would expect them to do, but if any of the members of the various groups really thought there opposition was going to change the outcome they were politically naïve.
When you have a majority of the U.S. Senate signing a letter to a federal agency urging a change in policy the matters has been settled.
The discussion about “spying” with some expressing notions that doing so was something bizarre I found sophomoric at best. What could any of the groups who opposed this new rule be doing that was really “secret”?
Political Observer: Out of the 51 Senators that signed the rule change (to carry concealed handguns) were they Republicans...and who were these Senators? Was this a strict party line vote and "not bipartisan"?
There was a request for information on the 51 Senators who sent the letter.
The link below will take to you the U.S. Department of the Interior website where a copy of the letter is posted. You will probably need to paste the link into your browser--not sure if the link will be active on the page.
It is actually two letters--one with 47 Senators and then a follow-up with another letter with 4 Senators.
You will see that it is not all Republicans and even if it were the point remains the same--you have a majority of the U.S. Senate telling Interior to change the rule. The matter was settled when the letters reached Interior.
http://www.doi.gov/issues/response_to_senators.html