CNPSR provides "Talking Points" for public comments opposing current rulemaking on guns in parks

On April 30, 2008, the Department of the Interior published proposed regulations in the Federal Register that would allow visitors to national parks and national wildlife refuges to carry concealed and loaded weapons in accordance with state law. CNPSR is opposed to this proposed regulation.

Following this introduction is a pretty comprehensive set of talking points that may give you some ideas as you prepare your own comment. Please consider using whichever points you want in your comments. I'll reiterate that your comments should be “individual” and should include your own concerns and your personal experience, as appropriate; and also whatever information that you might discover about how the proposed firearms regulation would be applied to national park areas in your state. Should we learn of new issues or ideas we'll forward them on later, but we think we should get this out now.

It is important that we provide individual comments on this issue, rather than resorting to a standardized template. The more individual comments received, the longer it takes the comment reviewers to review, analyze and prepare to respond to them.

You should also know that we are pursuing other concurrent actions, such as submitting a letter to DOI pointing out that we believe they have significantly erred by not applying NEPA to this proposed rule prior to releasing it; and requesting that they do that and suspend or extend the public comment period until that is accomplished.

Please share these talking points and whatever thoughts you may want to add with others you know who might be encouraged to comment.

The deadline is June 30; however, we're hoping that you might complete your submissions by about June 15.

As a reminder, the proposal in the Federal Register indicates that comments should be identified by the number 1024-AD70 and be submitted by one of three methods:

- Federal rulemaking portal: http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=SubmitComment&o=09000064805b0393 takes you direct to the comment form
- Mail: send to 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.
- Or hand-deliver comments to the 4401 North Fairfax Drive address in Arlington.


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TALKING POINTS IN RESPONSE TO DOI PROPOSAL TO AMEND CURRENT GUN REGULATIONS IN NATIONAL PARKS AND WILDLIFE REFUGES - CNPSR

The purpose of providing this menu of talking points is two-fold: To inspire as many members as possible to prepare written comment; and to provide facts and ideas that will help folks craft their own letters. Considerable feedback indicates that form letters will not have nearly the impact as individual comment that is comprehensive and unique to personal experience and the state from which each is written. We’re advised that given the absence of a record, or NPS-specific rationale, to support the proposal a strong showing of substantive comments from Coalition members will put the Department in the position of needing to refute the expertise and experience such comments represent.

The talking points presented in this paper focus mainly on comments that might be effective now that we’ve seen the actual proposal and also the DOI talking points and Q & A’s supporting it. Many of you may also want to include some of the wide variety of significant and legitimate concerns that were broadly communicated during a period of media outreach in March. Some of these arguments should be made again and be made more specific to the DOI Proposal. The following summarizes earlier talking points, and also some emphasized in more detail in this paper.

- Existing policies work - DOI is proposing to fix something that clearly is not broken.

- America’s Parks are national treasures, not simply an extension of state lands.

- More guns in parks may well lead to more killing of wildlife, often by law abiding people who react with lethal force to some behavior by an animal that they (incorrectly 99% of the time) perceive to be a threat.

- More guns in parks may well lead to more gun violence among visitors. The potential for lethal force is obviously greater when firearms are immediately available as a means to resolve the inevitable tensions that come when visitors are crowded into unfamiliar environments.

- A significant tool that rangers use to fight poaching (the prohibition against loaded weapons) will be removed in many areas. The outcome will be that poachers cannot be dealt with until they actually poach or clearly try to poach park resources.

- By any measure national parks are among the safest places in the country.

- The proposal demonstrates an alarming disregard for how our society views their national park areas - as a national system of uniformly managed sanctuaries of nature and culture where people (international and U.S. visitors) share a special place without fear of each other..

- The proposed rule to assimilate state parks gun regulations will create a confusing array of regulations that are difficult to understand and communicate, burdensome to gun users and NPS rangers and managers, and costly for NPS to administer.

- The proposal will confuse the public as the proposed regulation will lead to differing rules in parks from state to state and within many of the 39 park areas that occupy two or more states.

POTENTIAL POINTS TO MAKE IN RESPONSE TO PROPOSED AMENDMENT

1. Nothing in the proposed regulation, or in the public statements by the Secretary, or in the talking points or Q & A’s developed by DOI suggests that a change in the existing regulations is needed to improve achievement of the lawful purposes of the NPS. To the extent that the welfare of visitors and resources is even acknowledged in the proposal, the talking points and message from the Secretary make the very illogical presumption that providing for more weapons in parks somehow won’t result in more killing of wildlife and more gun violence among visitors. In essence this proposal seems based on the unsupported assertion that caving to the NRA vision of a fully armed America, and cloaking this in a deference to the states rationale, won’t do harm to our national parks.

2. The DOI position that states should control policies addressing concealed carry rules in national parks and wildlife refuges just as they do in their own state parks and on lands administered by the U.S. Forest Service and BLM, is flawed in several ways:

a. Conceptually, this appears to be part of an agenda to de-nationalize the national parks. In the Federal Register background to the proposed rule, DOI asserts that federal regulations should “defer” to state laws and “respect the ability of states” to determine activities within their borders. Throughout the country, and throughout the world, U.S. national park areas are regarded as part of a national system of national treasures. DOI and Bush Administration leaders should celebrate and support this reputation. Instead, they are proposing to significantly compromise it for no legitimate purpose.

b. 16 U.S.C. 1a-1 declares that the units of the National Park System are “united through their inter-related purposes and resources into one national park system as cumulative expressions of a single national heritage.” This law, and others, strongly indicate that Congress intends a uniform administration of NPS units, and the proposal to delegate authority to states to manage something as significant as firearms regulations is contrary to these basic legal foundations of the NPS. True, there are sections in Title 36, CFR, where state regulations are assimilated and made applicable in parks, i.e., motor vehicle and boating regulations. However, in these instances, such assimilation of state rules is made at the initiative of the NPS and to achieve park purposes. By contrast, in making the proposal to assimilate state park concealed carry rules in NPS areas, DOI offers no rationale at all suggesting this new regulation will result in any benefit to park resources or park visitors. Rather, logic and common sense suggests providing for more guns in parks will increase the likelihood that it will result in derogation of park values, which is prohibited by federal law.

c. Reference to BLM and USFS lands is not relevant For decades, and for legitimate reasons based upon very different and distinctive laws and policies, management of hunting, fishing, and other similar utilization of resources on these other Federal lands has long been delegated to the states. National park areas are different from national forests and BLM lands, and should remain that way.

3. The potential for inconsistency and confusion created by this proposal is virtually unlimited in its scope and complexity, and totally ignored by DOI in the narratives supporting this proposal. At the outset of this initiative, the NRA, their senate supporters, and DOI, trumpeted increased consistency as a rationale for this change. This argument is given little emphasis in the official proposal or the Q &A’s and talking points issued by DOI. Perhaps they now understand this notion of increased consistency is indefensible...even ridiculous on its face. However, we do need to examine and comment about some of the many ways that this proposal would result in significant confusion and inconsistency, and frustration, including:

a. Concealed carry regulations vary from state to state, within states, and within state park systems. Supporters of the rule change repeatedly highlight that some 48 states now have authority to issue concealed carry permits. They seem to avoid the fact that at present only 28 states provide for concealed carry of firearms in their state parks. We can certainly expect that should this rule be enacted the 22 states where firearms are now prohibited in state parks (including Idaho - wonder how that happened under the leadership of former Governor Kempthorne?) will come under siege from gun supporters to remove all such restrictions in their parks, and by extension the national park areas in those states.

b. Reciprocity agreements between states have yet to be fully explored and understood - and are totally ignored by DOI. Montana, for example, recognizes concealed weapons carry permits from 40 other states. Six states - Alabama, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, are not recognized because (contrary to comments by DOI in the proposal) those states require NO background checks for a concealed carry permit.

c. Qualifications necessary to acquire concealed carry permits differ widely among the states.

d. Some 39 park areas exist in two or more states; many have differing concealed carry laws in their state parks. For example, Nevada permits concealed carry in their parks and California does not, which means Death Valley will have two sets of gun regs. North Carolina and Virginia likewise differ, which similarly impacts the Blue Ridge Parkway. And Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho all have different rules for their state parks, so Yellowstone would have three sets of concealed carry regulations - all in one park.

4. Language in the Background section indicates that “the proposal is not designed to authorize possession of firearms in federal facilities....” It goes on to make a very vague stab at defining such facilities by suggesting that such federal facilities in parks might be identified in a fashion similar to how the USFS and BLM apply state firearms regulations to their management units. In essence, it mostly ignores the requirements of some significant Federal legislation. Title 18, U.S.C. 930(g) authorizes prohibition of firearms in federal facilities, and defines them as “a building, or part thereof, owned or leased by the Federal Government, where Federal employees are regularly present for the purpose of performing their official duties.”

This law further states that to comply, the Federal facility must have prominently posted notices prohibiting weapons at each entrance. The DOI staff who wrote this proposed regulation work in offices where entry requires passing through a metal detector; and the Washington DC offices of the 51 senators who signed the petition are likewise protected by metal detectors. Some senate field offices are posted with conspicuous signs prohibiting firearms; others are not.

Under long-established firearms restrictions NPS managers have rarely seen the need to add such additional layers of more specific restrictions concerning firearms possession in such park facilities as administrative offices, visitor centers, historic buildings, amphitheaters, concession facilities, etc.

Should this proposal be enacted, park managers will face difficult decisions from park to park. In some instances, new authority to carry concealed weapons may lead some park managers to decide that employee safety requires posting signs prohibited firearms at entry points to any building where employees routinely work. Such signs, however, will be a chilling reminder to visitors that a park is no longer a sanctuary generally free of the potential for gun violence that they wish to leave behind. And what will those who are carrying concealed weapons do when encountering such a sign when needing a bathroom, a park brochure, or to learn why a particular building is special. Will they violate the law and carry their concealed weapon into a posted building? Will they leave without benefitting from the purposes offered by the building? Will they remove their weapon and place it in their car? How will park staff (law enforcement and otherwise) monitor and enforce this new layer of gun-related rules?

5. In their proposal, DOI reports that “We are currently working to determine the appropriate level of NEPA assessment and documentation that will be required for promulgation of this regulation” Veteran regulation-writing specialists among the Coalition view such a position and statement as virtually unprecedented - they never saw such a significant failure to address NEPA. DOI needs to be reminded, repeatedly, that lawful and comprehensive NEPA assessment should have been done before the proposal was issued, and must be done before any further action is taken.

6. Relative to NEPA, DOI seems to be asserting that the proposed rule is no more than a minor refinement to existing practices. How are those concerned supposed to provide thoughtful comments about impacts to visitors and resources without the benefit of a NEPA analysis? Those involved with CNPSR’s opposition to the Hoffman rewrite of NPS’s Management Policies recall that one of our most effective arguments against that effort was our assertion that it radically departed from previous policies that had evolved over a long period of time. While amending long-standing firearms regulations is certainly not as comprehensive as rewriting management policies it seems reasonable to make the argument that, after 70+ years of prohibiting loaded firearms in parks, this proposal is, indeed, radical in terms of its potential impact on our ability to protect resources and visitors - and the visitor experience.

7. A good case might be made that this proposal triggers a consultation under the Endangered Species Act because the outcome may be more shooting of animals listed under the Act. The threshold for consultation is low - “that the proposed action may affect a listed species.” It seems likely that the Fish & Wildlife Service will address this issue in more detail; however, Coalition members are encouraged to reach out to folks they might know in government or the non-profit world, such as Defenders of Wildlife, who may have ideas and more knowledge about how this proposal might legitimately trigger the prescribed consultation process.

8. Visitors to National Parks often do so to “get away” from the pressures and conditions they face in their everyday lives. National Parks are sanctuaries of nature, landmarks of history and culture, places of contemplation, discovery, and adventure. But there is another quality, an ambience of shared sociability and pleasure in these welcoming, neutral grounds. One assumes that the strangers approaching on a remote trail were, like yourself, carried away by the esthetics, the illuminations of knowledge, the wonders of this treasure-trove of intellectual or physical exploration. Based on that assumption, one often approaches those strangers with a confidence that in the here and now, in this special place, the clangor and controversies of the daily world would not intrude. One can give a friendly wave and make room on the narrow trail for them to pass. One can look them in the eyes. Say hello and maybe exchange "Where-ya-froms" and describe some striking scene just beyond the bend. Before you wave goodbye you might have a scrap of paper with an address on it and promises to stay in touch. This social dynamic is likely to change – for the worse – if these visitors suspected that those they come in contact with in parks could be carrying guns.