By now I’m sure you’ve heard of Senator George Allen’s last piece of legislation, The National Park Second Amendment Restoration and Personal Protection Act of 2006 (in pdf here) , which will restore your and my 2nd Amendment right to carry a firearm on these rather large bits of federal land holdings.
Notwithstanding any other provision of law (including regulations), the possession or carrying of a firearm at a unit of the National Park System in compliance with Federal law and the law of the State in which the unit of the National Park System is located shall not be prohibited.
While that is the meat of S. 4057, I especially like Section 2, Part 5
The Federal Laws should make it clear that the second amendment right of an individual at a unit of the National Park system should not be infringed.
However, the left is not at all happy, calling this “A Parting Shot From George Allen”
The NYT, of course, isn’t even that nice about it
As a last little gift to America, Senator George Allen, who was narrowly defeated by James Webb this month, has introduced what may be his final piece of legislation: a bill that would allow the carrying of concealed weapons in national parks. The argument behind the bill is that national park regulations unfairly strip many Americans of a right they may enjoy outside the parks. The bill has passed to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, where we hope it will die the miserable death it deserves.
America’s confusion about the Second Amendment is now nearly total. An amendment that ensures a collective right to bear arms has been misread in one legislature after another — often in the face of strong public disapproval — as a law guaranteeing an individual’s right to carry a weapon in public. And, in a perversion of monumental proportions, the battle to extend that right has largely succeeded in co-opting the language of the Civil Rights movement, so that depriving an American of the right to carry a gun in public sounds, to some, as offensive as stripping him of the right to vote. Senator Allen’s bill is, of course, being cheered by the gun lobby, which sees it not as an assault on public safety but as a way of nationalizing the armed paranoia that the National Rifle Association and its cohorts stand for.
If Americans want to feel safer in their national parks, the proper solution is to increase park funding, which has decayed steadily since the Bush administration took office. To zealots who believe that the Second Amendment trumps all others, the parks are merely another badland, like schools and church parking lots, that could be cleaned up if the carrying of private weapons were allowed. The concealed-weapon advocates are doing an excellent job of sounding terrified by “lonely wilderness trails.†But make no mistake. Senator Allen’s bill would make no one safer. It can only endanger the public.
Great jumped-up Jesus on a pogo sitck, that sounds like it came right out of a VPC or Brady pamphlet. Full of accusations of fear lobbying, using, well, fear lobbying.
Now don’t go thinking that there is a left-wing bias in the media. And especailly don’t go around to any left-wing blogs stating that or going on about the 2nd being an individual right. I’ve found that they like to ban folks who do that.
The Virginia Citizen’s Defense League has all the pertinent info right here, including on how to contact you appropriate legislator. Make sure to be annoying on this one.
If that piece by the Times didn’t get your heart racing enough to do something on this, then email me and I’ll send you my shipping address so that you can just send your firearms and ammunition to me today. No need to wait for opposing legislation in your case, now is there?
It sucks that A. We have to put up with stupid gun laws on our own property (i.e – our National Parks), and B. We have to fight to correct said stupid gun laws.
