To let your thoughts be known on the issue of concealed pistol carry in your National Parks (do remember that they are yours).
A proposed change in federal gun rules would allow people to carry concealed firearms in national parks and wildlife refuges in states where such weapons are permitted. The proposal is now open for public comment.
The change, promoted by the U.S. Department of the Interior and some U.S. senators, would cause national parks and refuges to adopt the same concealed gun laws as those governing similar public lands in the states where they are located.
With concealed firearms banned in North Carolina state parks by state law, gun rules would likely stay the same in parts of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Park service officials are waiting until the close of the public comment period on June 30 before taking a stance on the proposal.
You can place your electronic comments here
Or you can write to them at the following address
Public Comments Processing, Attn: 1024-AD70
Division of Policy and Directives Management
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
4401 N. Fairfax Drive, Suite 222
Arlington, VA 22203.
A bit cumbersome, their “regulations.gov” site, but I left my comment there. I pointed out that the opposition seems to come from wonks or GFWs (to use OUR terms), and I listed my LEO experience in patrolling parks in my response.
BTW, the only homicide I ever had to deal with in about three summers of working as a Park Ranger was that of Vehicular Homicide as a drunken Park employee camping in my park tried to set a new land speed record in his ’68 Bonneville inside the (15 mph) Oxbow Regional Park. Failing to maintain control of his vehicle, stout old-growth trees did the job I would have needed several Jersey Barriers to do myself, and he was delivered to me by being ejected from the vehicle alive. His companion was ejected, dead, however.
Nope, the major problems in parks have absolutely nothing to do with guns. They have to do with cretins.