I’ve been waiting for someone (better at debating than I am) to start a topic on the legislation passed this week allowing concealed and loaded weapons in national parks and wildlife refuges. Apparently, it’s not that hot of a topic around here, but as someone who frequently enjoys outdoor activities in parks and refuges, I’m concerned and perplexed by it.
Of course, I’m worried about safety for park visitors and animals alike. My understanding was that the ban was implemented to reduce poaching and that it allowed park rangers to search for evidence of poaching by illegally armed individuals. I’m also concerned that incidents of serious crime in national parks, which has been relatively low, will increase now that it’s deemed acceptable to go into the parks packing heat.
It’s not that I don’t believe in the Second Amendment, but I do feel there should be limits on when, where, and how the right to bear arms is practiced. In the same way banks and federal buildings prohibit firearms, I feel national parks and wildlife refuges (!) should also be off limits to firearms. I don’t believe that partially abridging constitutional rights in the interest of public safety is wrong. By corollary, I don’t have an issue with the abridgment of free speech in not allowing people to yell fire in a crowded theatre. I don’t believe the press should be free to divulge the names of covert operatives or undercover agents when it puts them at risk or negates their effectiveness on the job. Likewise, I don’t think this legislation is interested in public safety. It’s simply about not allowing the government to abridge constitutional rights. That is what the NRA keeps alluding to when they claim victory with this legislation.
I know there are plenty of people who disagree with me, my father-in-law for one, and I’d like to hear the reasons, including and beyond the Second Amendment, why it’s preferable to allow concealed, loaded weapons, including semi-automatics, by the general public on federal refuge and recreational lands.
Why do you assume crime will increase? Surely criminals aren’t all that concerned about the law in the first place; the mere fact that it’s now legal to carry concealed weapons doesn’t seem like like much of a change for the would-be criminal… (“Now that the law has changed, I can finally legally carry my gun in to rob and assault people! Woo hoo!”)
Or to put it another way: let’s imagine that two years from now the rate of crimes in national parks has not risen any more than the rate of crime everywhere else has – in other words, if crime nationwide goes up 10%, crime in national parks ALSO goes up 10%, but nothing out of step with the country.
Would you then concede your worries on this particular issue were groundless?
So you think that in the past, when the law was in place, that an individual who was already carrying a firearm illegally was going to change his mind about breaking yet one more law by not entering the park or getting rid of his/her weapon before entering the park? All this does is allows the citizen who has jumped through the legal hoops to get a concealed weapons permit to carry his weapon with him into the park. People with concealed carry permits aren’t the ones going around committing crimes with their firearms. The criminals who were going to ignore the law anyways are.
You say “semi-automatic” like it is an exotic type of weapon. If the handgun isn’t a revolver it is a semi-automatic. All that means is one bullet is discharged when the trigger is pulled and a new cartridge is chambered. It doesn’t mean that bullets continue to fly as long as the trigger is held down.
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Because again, people who have jumped through the legal hoops of getting a concealed weapons permit are not the ones committing crimes. The criminals who were already breaking the law twice, by having a concealed handgun in the first place with no permit and taking into the parks, are the ones who are already committing the crimes.
Sure she does. Its a gun, and she shouldn’t worry her pretty little head about it.
Its a sop, a bone-throwing to the NRA, get them to busying themselves with crowing and gloating for a while, maybe they won’t notice when we empower ACORN to go door to door taking their semi-autonomous weapons, and stuff.
And once again, speaking for the conservative wing of the extreme left: just keep the goddam things, means that much to you, fuck it! Ain’t worth fighting about, or at least not worth fighting as much as we’d have to to have any noticeable effect. Keep them, and keep away from me, and muzzle tov! Much good may it do you…
I suspect the change was intended to accommodate campers and other travelers, some of whom lawfully carry firearms based upon the requirements of their own state and other states they may pass through.
When someone plans a camping trip, say a month across the Western USA, a self protection firearm may be a normal part of your kit. But under former rules, this means you cannot camp in, or even enter, National Parks and certain National Wildlife Refuges. Unless, of course, you can arrange safekeeping for your firearm outside the gate for the specific duration of your visit.
Many campers I’ve known (caution! anecdote!) simply ignored the rule, keeping their pistol well hidden for the duration of their visit.
This seems a perfectly reasonable change of rules to me.
Well, that’s silly. The fact is that under the ban, if those intending to commit a crime are caught with loaded weapons, they can be arrested on the basis of illegally carrying a weapon, which would reduce or eliminate the crime from occurring. Now, if a ranger runs into an armed drug producer or an armed poacher, they actually have to catch them in the illegal act and cannot use the firearms as reasonable evidence to search for contraband fruit of the illegal activity. It seems to me to give officers more teeth in enforcing drug laws and protecting federal lands from misuse.
Are you suggesting the crime rate in national parks and refuges is consistent with the crime rate everywhere else? So long as we’re playing the hypothetical game, what if the crime rate in urban areas goes down and the crime rate on federal lands goes up? What’s the correlation?
Not hardly. Gun violence is always going to be a concern whether it occurs in a national park or at the corner store.
Bzzzzt… wrong. As mentioned above you have to have a concealed carry permit in order to legally carry a concealed weapon. To get a permit one of the requirements, among many, is that you can not have a felony or criminal record. A known drug felony or known poacher is not going to be able to acquire a permit so when the ranger stops them and they can not produce a concealed weapons permit they are already breaking the law allowing the ranger to do whatever they need to do.
I will, however, answer yours. If the crime rate in urban areas goes down and the crime rate on federal lands goes up, I won’t know what conclusion to draw. If the crime rate in urban areas goes down and the crime rate in national parks, specifically, goes up (national parks being the subject of this law, yes?) then I will concede that the law is ill-advised and support its repeal.
This is the common “only criminals ignore the law” theme that gun control opponents love to cite that is not only condescending and contradictory, but ignores reality. It’s not just the “criminals” to be worried about now. It’s the impulsive, road-rage type personality that decides he’s been wronged in some (extraordinarily minor) way. It’s the unsecured weapon stashed into a backpack in a tent that a ten-year-old comes across and decides to play with it not realizing that it’s loaded. It’s the stupid people who don’t take precautions with their campsite, attracting critters to their improperly stored food that end up shooting them because they sense danger. It’s justifiable, right? It’s okay not to take precautions because you’re armed and way more dangerous than a small black bear.
Really? Is that how I said it? You’ve got an amazing sense of tone there, buddy. You do realize I can google, too? I know what a semi-automatic is and would like to know what *you *think is the benefit to having one of these on a wildlife refuge as opposed to simply a revolver. The NRA seems to think that assault weapons are also for self-defense.
That’s a concern that is commonly voiced when people are permitted to carry firearms in areas where they were not previously. Florida, Texas, and other states were going to turn into the “wild west,” but, so far as I can see, the number of serious firearm related crimes did not go up.
You probably shouldn’t be all that concerned because this likely does not increase the chances of you being harmed. At least not beyond the abstract. I like to hike as well and I certainly don’t need the added weight of a gun.
One thing affecting this is that not all national parks are the same, and that fact has especially been a problem in Virginia. The George Washington Parkway, Skyline Drive and Colonial Parkway are well-traveled roads that are considered national parks and are patrolled by Park Police and rangers.
Merely turning onto these roads while carrying a legal concealed weapon would make otherwise law-abiding Virginians criminals without some reconsideration of these rules.
I think this is an example of the fallacy of the excluded middle.
It’s not so easy to divide people into “criminal” and “non-criminal.”
I have encountered people illegally hunting in national parks (warning! anecdote!) and I have no reason to believe they percieved themselves as criminal. They were people who hunted elsewhere and, as it turned out, they legally owned their firearms. They turned out to have known it was illegal to hunt in the park, but they believed the park was poorly patrolled and thought they wouldn’t get caught. People are sometimes generally law-abiding, but will break one or two and then cause a problem.
I have no problem with openly carried firearms in places where hunting is legal - national forests for example. But I think that if illegal hunting in a park is a problem, park management should have the option of prohibiting firearms.
ETA: Mr. Moto has a good point - I also don’t have a problem if people have a weapon in their cars (and knowing park rangers, I suspect most of them don’t either.) Isn’t there some middle ground?
I don’t think that is it **CannyDan.[/] If that was the case, all it would take is allowing unloaded, permited guns into the parks. This specifies loaded and concealed.
Bricker, if in 2 years, there is no change in the violence rates in the parks, but there IS an increase in poaching, harassment of wildlife, or shooting damage, would that be sufficient reason to repeal it?
I’m with Brown Eyed Girl on this one. As a non-gun carrying citizen, where is my rights? The US is in the middle of having to find a compromise between smokers and anti-smokers. We also need to find a compromise between gun carriers and anti-gun carriers. I’m still torn on the general issue of concealed carry, but allowing them into parks is outside my comfort zone.
I’ll grant you this. I hadn’t thought of that. But, if the poacher has a permit? Unfortunately, I can’t find any statistics on poaching and firearm registration, so I’m simply suppositioning here.
That article wasn’t very clear on what it meant by “gun permit.” Do they actually mean a concealed carry license, or do they mean a license to purchase a weapon, in states where such a thing is required? The opening paragraph says “nearly every gunman in this monthlong series of mass killings was legally entitled to fire his weapons,” which further obfuscates their intent. Nearly everyone in the country is legally “entitled” to own firearms.
I don’t think this article says much of anything with any clarity.