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Re: Photography, Guns, and National Parks? [Re: Tony Bynum] #13378
02/26/08 02:51 PM
02/26/08 02:51 PM
Joined: Feb 2005
Montana
Tony Bynum Offline OP
Pooh-Bah
Tony Bynum  Offline OP
Pooh-Bah

Joined: Feb 2005
Montana
Here's the latest . . . looks like the bill will get shot down, pardon the pun. . .


Park ranger group opposes gun proposal
By MICHAEL JAMISON of the Missoulian

- Thousands of national park rangers, police and retirees are speaking out against a plan to allow loaded guns in national parks - a proposal first put forward by Congress and now made possible by the White House.

“It's a terrible idea,” said Doug Morris, who has 40 years' experience with the National Park Service, from law-enforcement ranger all the way up to park superintendent. He's also a member of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, a widely respected group whose 640 members have a combined 19,000 years working in the nation's parks.

At a Monday news conference, Morris joined the Association of National Park Rangers and the Ranger Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police, as well as the National Parks Conservation Association, in opposing any plan that would put weapons on the hips of national park visitors.
Previously, an Oklahoma senator tried to place an amendment on a public lands bill allowing loaded guns in parks. When that measure drew political opposition, a stand-alone bill was crafted that would change Park Service rules to allow guns in parks.

At the same time those congressional wheels were turning, pressure was coming to bear on the Department of the Interior to take up the cause from inside. Some 50 senators - including Montana Democrats Max Baucus and Jon Tester - penned a letter to Interior, asking that the rules be changed.

And according to NPCA legislative representative Bryan Faehner, “There has been pressure, top down, from the White House.”

On Friday, Interior announced it would open the current rules to scrutiny, taking public comment on a possible “update” to park gun regulations.

Proponents argue guns are necessary for personal protection. They also say rules for gun use should be consistent across federal lands - on Forest Service lands, for instance, hunting is allowed.

Proponents also have said it is a fundamental Second Amendment issue, and rules prohibiting guns in parks infringe on those citizen rights.

Under current rules, guns are allowed in parks, but must be unloaded and properly stored. The National Rifle Association - which helped write the letter sent by senators to Interior - has argued existing regulations are overly burdensome.
Those rules date back to the mid-1930s, and were most recently reauthorized during the Reagan administration.
Faehner and other critics say allowing loaded guns in parks would put wildlife at risk, as well as endangering both people's safety and the “family friendly” reputation of national parks.

Morris said “parks are special places,” and predicted any public comment period will result in an overwhelming rejection of guns in parks. In his 40 years with the National Park Service, Morris said he'd seen animals shot on “impulse” when urban visitors - who were breaking the gun rules - felt threatened by surprise encounters with wildlife.

Putting guns in parks, he said, illustrates a “total disregard for how society values our national parks.”
Scott McElveen, president of the Association of National Park Rangers, agreed, and added his organization's 11,000 members to the growing list of those opposed to any rule changes.

He worries about wildlife being killed or injured, and about park employees and visitors, too.

George Durkee, director of the Ranger Lodge of Fraternal Order of Police, said there is “absolutely no practical reason” for changing current rules, noting “how panicked some visitors get when they see a wild animal.”

He imagines scared campers, hearing noises in the night, firing rounds from tents in crowded campgrounds.
And guns provide only a false sense of security in the woods, Durkee said, because “getting shot is just going to piss off a 500-pound grizzly bear.”

In fact, parks are some of the safest places in the country, he said, and are refuges not only for wildlife but also for visitors.

Hunters, the rangers said, already can pass easily through parks with their guns, so long as they're unloaded and packed away.

“It's just not a problem,” Durkee said. Adding loaded firearms to campgrounds, however, “changes the whole tenor of how a family area feels.”

In Morris' estimation, allowing guns in parks “truly opens a Pandora's box of possibilities.”

Nevertheless, the Bush administration has said it will publish a draft of its revised regulations by April 30, opening the issue to public comment.

In announcing that move to the Senate, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne said the draft would take into account recent changes to laws governing guns in federal buildings, as well as gun laws in individual states.
It will, he said, preserve the “values of our public lands, including the safety and enjoyment of all visitors, while enhancing local control and respecting an individual's Second Amendment right to bear arms.”

Tom Keirnan, however, agreed with Morris' prediction that the public ultimately will reject any move by Interior to allow loaded guns in parks.

The president of NPCA said his group is “convinced when the review process is complete, it will show the existing regulations are not unduly burdensome, but are limited, reasonable and necessary to enable park rangers to carry out their duties of protecting the millions of families who visit our parks every year, and the wildlife that inhabits them.”

Reporter Michael Jamison can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at mjamison@missoulian.com.

Re: Photography, Guns, and National Parks? [Re: DavidRamey] #13379
02/26/08 03:50 PM
02/26/08 03:50 PM
Joined: Jul 2006
Eden (no really!)
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jamesdak Offline
Old hand
jamesdak  Offline
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Joined: Jul 2006
Eden (no really!)
Quote:

I am getting a big kick out of all these doom & gloom reports about if firearms are allowed in the National Parks. I can remember when firearms WERE allowed in the National Parks and there were NO problems reported back then. Don't blame an inanimate object for the behavior of crazy people. Blame the crazy people for their own actions and then lock them up.




But, do you not see the shift in social dynamics in respect to firearms? When I grew up in the mountains of VA the game wardens did not even pack weapons. But society and the respect people have for each other has shifted some and they are armed now for self protection.Are not the Parks running at all time highs in terms of visitors? I run into folks occasionally in the various Utah wilderness area I frequent and of those times only a few are openly carrying. But man you go to a national park and you are constantly tripping over people. I'm sure someone with more brain power than me can provide so statistical model showing how much greater the risk of an accident is. I think we all realize it's the idiot behind the gun that kills, not the gun. The SOB that shot me certainly was one of those idiots.

I'll use my own situation last summer in Glacier. We had just arrived and I took the family down to the little lake by the swiftcurrent inn because I figured we she the usual moose or two there. While walking in the brush, my wife started complaining (she's no country girl and was terrified of the thought of bears) and just as I turned to tell her to relax a Moose Cow and Calf burst right by us by no more than a few feet. Now my wife about had a heart attack and I wonder how many other edging people would have been startled and shot at the sound? She told me afterwards that she thought it was a bear attacking even though it was actually moose trying to get away from us. Who else is going to think bear?

I'm not a gun control liberal nut either(said slightly humourously so as not to offend). I believe in our right to bear arms. Heck I spent 22 years in the Army and carried various weapons throughout my carrier. I even spent 6 years in special ops carrying concealed weapons daily and it took several years after that for me to feel comfortable not carrying. But the national parks are the wrong place for weapons in my opinion.

Re: Photography, Guns, and National Parks? [Re: jamesdak] #13380
02/26/08 06:49 PM
02/26/08 06:49 PM
Joined: Jan 2006
Alaska
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DavidRamey Offline
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DavidRamey  Offline
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Joined: Jan 2006
Alaska
I have lived through the change in the perception of firearms. When I was 10 years old, I lived in Columbus Ohio and I went into a store and bought with my own money a new .22LR rifle and 500 rounds of ammo. I placed the new rifle proudly across the handlebars of my bicycle and rode home through the streets of Columbus Ohio. There were no gun control laws and people thought of guns as just another tool from the hardware store. Crime was low. Now I can not even live in Columbus Ohio now because of the guns that I own are not legal there (although I bought them there legaly). Where gun ownership is easy, crime is low and where gun ownership is hard, crime is high. An armed society is a polite society.

Using a firearm for self defense doesn't mean that you have to shoot and kill or even shoot to wound. When I have used a firearm for self defense against a moose (in my OWN yard at -35F in the winter and the moose wouldn't let me in the house) I didn't kill or wound the moose, I took careful aim and clipped its front hoof slightly to persuade the moose to get out of my way before I froze to death. The front hoof was injured about the same as if you had clipped your finger nail into the quick. After that incident, the moose stayed around the yard for quite a few years but kept at least 25 feet from me, my family (including my 1 year old son and 3 year old daughter) and our dogs.

Owning and carrying a firearm doesn't make you any more susceptible to doing crime than owning and driving an automobile makes you suceptible to being a drunk driver.


David Ramey Photography
Re: Photography, Guns, and National Parks? [Re: DavidRamey] #13381
02/26/08 08:00 PM
02/26/08 08:00 PM
Joined: Feb 2005
Montana
Tony Bynum Offline OP
Pooh-Bah
Tony Bynum  Offline OP
Pooh-Bah

Joined: Feb 2005
Montana
we had a gun stock making class in my high school, we had to take the bolt out but otherwise we brought them through the doors. You used to buy guns when you were a kid, but what ever does that have to do with the society we now live in, except as a comparison to the "good-ol-days." We used to walk to school with our guns and go shooting like it was just what you did growing up. Okay, that was then this is now.

Dave, are you suggesting that it's because of the brady bill that our society now is the way we see it? Loaded weapons in parks is not wise. I guess we could say it's okay to have gun in a park, but it's not okay to use it. . .LOL

Dave, when I was 6 I used to walk a mile to get to school, I know zero children today that at age 6 walk themselves a mile to school let alone two blocks. . .

It's 2008 man. . .

Re: Photography, Guns, and National Parks? [Re: Tony Bynum] #13382
02/26/08 09:26 PM
02/26/08 09:26 PM
Joined: Jan 2006
Alaska
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DavidRamey Offline
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DavidRamey  Offline
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Joined: Jan 2006
Alaska
Quote:

we had a gun stock making class in my high school, we had to take the bolt out but otherwise we brought them through the doors. You used to buy guns when you were a kid, but what ever does that have to do with the society we now live in, except as a comparison to the "good-ol-days." We used to walk to school with our guns and go shooting like it was just what you did growing up. Okay, that was then this is now.

Dave, are you suggesting that it's because of the brady bill that our society now is the way we see it?




Actually, I never even thought of the Brady Bill when I wrote earlier. I was thinking of all the rights that have slowly been taken from us over the last 50 years.


Quote:

Loaded weapons in parks is not wise. I guess we could say it's okay to have gun in a park, but it's not okay to use it. . .LOL




Don't laugh, that IS the way the law is now.

Quote:

Dave, when I was 6 I used to walk a mile to get to school, I know zero children today that at age 6 walk themselves a mile to school let alone two blocks. . .

It's 2008 man. . .


I know it is 2008 and in a lot of ways I am glad it isn't 1950's, but we had freedoms then that we no longer have and our freedoms are getting eroded away at an alarming rate. My children aren't allowed to do the things that I was allowed to do when I grew up. I can't live where I grew up because they outlawed all the guns that I bought there when I lived there. How many freedoms will my grandchildren lose before they grow up? In a few more generations, we will have compromised the Constitution and bill of rights out of existence.


David Ramey Photography
Re: Photography, Guns, and National Parks? [Re: DavidRamey] #13383
02/26/08 09:45 PM
02/26/08 09:45 PM
Joined: Feb 2005
Montana
Tony Bynum Offline OP
Pooh-Bah
Tony Bynum  Offline OP
Pooh-Bah

Joined: Feb 2005
Montana
well, unless we find a way to curb population growth. . . we will have to adjust. If we cant stop population growth, we will continue to watch our "freedoms" eroded.

My great grandmother use to tell me about how things were before she was forced onto the reservation, she used to tell me how many salmon they use to get and how they could drink the water right out of the creek. She said the government came in and put in an irrigation ditch and dammed the river and all the fish soon dissapered. I guess each of us has our own perspective of free. . .

Re: Photography, Guns, and National Parks? [Re: DavidRamey] #13384
02/26/08 10:12 PM
02/26/08 10:12 PM
Joined: Feb 2005
Montana
Tony Bynum Offline OP
Pooh-Bah
Tony Bynum  Offline OP
Pooh-Bah

Joined: Feb 2005
Montana


Quote:

Loaded weapons in parks is not wise. I guess we could say it's okay to have gun in a park, but it's not okay to use it. . .LOL




Don't laugh, that IS the way the law is now.

Yes, but they have to be cased. . . I dont think you can carry a loaded or un loaded gun in to the backcountry. . .

Re: Photography, Guns, and National Parks? [Re: RomanJohnston] #13385
03/01/08 12:04 PM
03/01/08 12:04 PM
Joined: Dec 2007
MI USA
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John O'Connell Offline
Wanderer
John O'Connell  Offline
Wanderer
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Joined: Dec 2007
MI USA
As I understand this proposed change,it is aimed at people who have CPL'S.these are folks who have had an FBI background check,& passed a CCW course.In a nutshell,the most law abiding people out there.

Re: Photography, Guns, and National Parks? [Re: John O'Connell] #13386
03/01/08 02:28 PM
03/01/08 02:28 PM
Joined: Feb 2005
Manhattan, New York, New York
James Morrissey Offline
I
James Morrissey  Offline
I
Carpal Tunnel

Joined: Feb 2005
Manhattan, New York, New York
Hey John,

Welcome aboard. Just to clarify some terms a CCW, I believe, is a 'Conceal and Carry Weapons Course,' which is typically a 1 or 2 day training. I am not sure what a CPL is (I thought it usually referred to Commercial Pilot's License), so if you can help clarify that, I would appreciate it.

Cheers
James

Re: Photography, Guns, and National Parks? [Re: James Morrissey] #13387
03/01/08 04:53 PM
03/01/08 04:53 PM
Joined: Feb 2005
Montana
Tony Bynum Offline OP
Pooh-Bah
Tony Bynum  Offline OP
Pooh-Bah

Joined: Feb 2005
Montana

"As I understand this proposed change,it is aimed at people who have CPL'S.these are folks who have had an FBI background check,& passed a CCW course.In a nutshell,the most law abiding people out there. "

Can you cite for us how it is you came to that conclusion?

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