No

by Stephen E. Wright

Created on: May 05, 2008   Last Updated: December 07, 2008

Twenty years ago civilians were generally banned from carrying firearms for self defense in most public places. But times and laws have changed and the rules for National Parks must change with them. Because National Parks were created for American citizens to enjoy, not to drive political policy.

The real question we have to face is: if a law, however politically correct it may sound, protects no one and actually makes the general population less safe, is that a law we want to maintain?

This National Park/Monument gun ban became outdated in 1987 when state legislatures began giving civilian's the right to carry concealed weapons. The logic for this movement was simple: If every street thug who wants a gun carries one regardless of the law, why should law abiding citizens be forced to leave their firearms at home? The effect of bans on concealed carry was that being armed was limited to criminals because law abiding citizens who owns guns follow the laws.

Florida, in 1987, was the first state to pass a "shall issue" concealed weapons law, meaning no law abiding citizen can be refused a concealed carry license. More states followed and in 2008 no less than 40 states are "shall issue."

The majority of American citizens live in a state where the law allows any trained, law abiding adult to legally carry a firearm. And in the decades since these laws have been enacted, there has not been one study that would indicate anything but positive effects. On a daily basis civilians in the U.S. successfully defend themselves or others with legally carried weapons.

And the results of civilians taking responsibility for their own protection are dramatic. Such as the armed civilians who stopped the mass murderer at the New Life church in Colorado Springs in 2007, or the two civilian's with concealed weapons who ended the rampage of a shooter at the Appalachian school of Law in Virginia in 2002 (vs. Virginia Tech, where guns were banned and the results were far different). Or the countless other armed civilians who saved their own lives, or the life of a family member or even a police officer, with their legally carried weapon.

So with all of this positive history for legal civilian firearms carry, what is the justification to take away the right for armed self defense at the border of a National Park? My personal experience illustrates the real effect of the current ban, and it has nothing to do with making anybody safer.

Last year my wife and I loaded the kids in the Family Truckster for a short vacation through New Mexico. I reviewed the laws of both states, and knowing we would be driving through some lonely country roads late at night I decided to take along a small revolver.

Of course I would not have been afraid to take this trip unarmed, but since I own firearms and am trained in their use why wouldn't I want to include this free insurance in case the unthinkable happens? As a family man, would I not be remiss if I didn't take every possible precaution to keep my family safe? As I often say: I don't have life insurance because I expect to die, I don't have smoke detectors because I expect a fire, and I don't have a gun because I expect to be attacked. I take these precautions because if the unthinkable does happen, I want to make sure I have the best tools possible to take care of my family.

I love them too much to do less.

On the drive home we stopped at some of the magnificent National Monuments New Mexico has to offer. Because of the archaic gun ban in effect, however, at each and every Park I had to stop to unload my firearm and lock it and the ammunition in separate boxes. Most often I would just leave them there for the rest of the day.

So whom did this law, this gun ban, make safer? Did it make my family safer that I was forced to lock away the protection I already owned and legally carried everywhere but the park? Did it make everyone else safer that my gun was locked away?

If I and my gun were a danger to anyone, I wouldn't have cared one whit about the gun ban. That's the problems with gun laws , they only affect the people who choose to follow them, and those people are already law abiding and not a danger to society.

But as for my statement at the beginning, how did having to disarm somehow make the park less safe for others? For two reasons:

1. A properly holstered or stored gun is of no danger to anyone. Bullets don't spontaneously fire, so a gun can only be discharged when it is being handled. The most basic weapons protocol is to handle firearms as little as possible. While the chances of any individual having an "accidental discharge" is virtually nil, if you have several hundred thousand people across the nation clearing and reloading weapons daily at the entrances to National Parks the chances of an accidental discharge begin to rise. So a gun is much safer left safely holstered than constantly handled.

2. In the highly unlikely event a mass killer does appear and start shooting your only chance of having someone fight back to end the rampage is if there is an armed civilian at hand. Because if the history of mass shootings in this country has taught us anything, it's that the police never arrive until after the killer has had his way and committed suicide. So just like at the church in Colorado Springs, trained and armed citizens do make us all safer.

The only people this gun ban makes sense to are those with a clinical hatred of guns and gun owners. There are never rational arguments presented against this proposed rule, just the "Wild West, shootouts over camping spots" rationale and supposed concerns over poaching. The former is an emotional but meaningless image that has been disproven by 21 years of history and for the latter ... the most obvious sign of a poacher is not the small handgun in his fanny pack but the 200 pound deer strapped to the hood of his truck.

So let's get rid of this archaic ban on handguns in National Parks and Monuments that dates back to the Reagan era. It makes no one safer, infringes on the rights/freedoms of others for no reason except political correctness (as some would define it, anyway), and is unsupported by any facts or studies at our disposal. And if removing it saves just one life, while endangering no one, isn't it worth it?

And are laws that restrict freedoms without serving a purpose to protect society the American way?
(NOTE: NPS has just changed rules to allow legal concealed carry license holders to carry their firearms in parks. Common Sense has finally prevailed).

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