Editorial: Keep guns out of national parks

Monday, January 7, 2008  

"Forty-seven United States senators recently wrote to the secretary of the interior, Dirk Kempthorne, asking him to lift the ban on carrying ready-to-fire weapons in national parks and wildlife refuges. Under current law, guns carried into or through a national park or refuge must be unloaded, taken apart, or cased in a way “that will prevent their ready use.” According to the senators’ letter, this rule infringes on gun owners’ rights and is “confusing, burdensome and unnecessary.”

There is nothing confusing about the distinction between federal lands where hunting is allowed and national parks, where hunting is not. (Nor should someone who is confused by the difference be carrying a loaded weapon.) It is also no burden to unload a rifle and slip it into a case before, say, driving through Yellowstone.

The old adage used to be that there were plenty of gun laws, they just had to be enforced. These days, most gun laws are under unrelenting attack, thanks to the National Rifle Association’s unbridled influence in Congress and the state legislatures."

Get the Story:
Editorial: Keeping Guns Out of the Parks (The New York Times 1/7)
pwnyt

$rl National Park Service - http://www.nps.gov