Editorial: Keep sensible rules on guns in national parks

When visitors go to a national park in the United States, signs tell them that loaded guns are prohibited and must be stored. Guns must be out of sight and not pointed at a person or wildlife. This is perfectly sensible. In our national parks, wildlife is protected and visitors have a right to safety.

Nonetheless, for the last five years, the National Rifle Association has been trying unsuccessfully to reverse these rules. Now, by spreading misinformation about gun rules in the national parks, a handful of senators has somehow managed to get 47 senators to sign on to a Dec. 14 letter seeking to overturn the national parks rules on loaded guns.

That letter falsely states that people currently are prohibited from transporting guns in national parks. In fact, the rules simply require that guns in the national parks be unloaded and stored. Hunters can transport their unloaded hunting rifles through a national park to hunting grounds. This is well known and has not been a problem. The 59 national park units that allow hunting allow hunters to carry loaded weapons during hunting season.

This week, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., plans to try to pass an amendment, from the Senate floor and without committee hearings, that would overturn the national parks gun rules. He would do this by attempting to attach it to an important and noncontroversial bill (S. 2483) authorizing projects in the national parks, national forests and other public lands. Or some other bill.

Senators need to kill this gun amendment now. It would set a terrible precedent for holding public lands bills hostage to gun issues.

The Association of National Park Rangers and field law enforcement rangers in the National Park Service strongly oppose Coburn's amendment. As they note, there is no public demand for a change in the rules. That's hardly surprising. Who wants to visit national parks if people wander around campgrounds and trails with loaded guns?

The amendment also is a law enforcement issue. The current rules enable rangers to confront potential wildlife poachers and drug dealers. As the field law enforcement rangers wrote in a letter to Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, rangers have found that loaded rifles often indicate a potential poacher. And in parks such as Yosemite and Sequoia/ Kings Canyon, where illegal drug operations are a problem, the current rules give rangers a tool to bring gun charges against drug dealers.

Coburn's amendment would require that the secretary of interior not enforce the Park Service's current gun restrictions. Instead, the national parks would have to follow a patchwork of state gun laws. That would cause all kinds of problems. Here's just one. Death Valley is in both California and Nevada. What laws would apply there? Further, Nevada has no state restrictions on possession of military-style semiautomatic assault weapons. Who wants these weapons in the national parks?

California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer oppose Coburn's amendment and plan to fight it. To defeat it, they'll need to educate their fellow senators on what the rules about guns in national parks really are. Once that is clear, the Senate should do the sensible thing and vote this amendment down.