Fighting to Keep the Gun Ban

For over a century our national parks have been set aside for their natural beauty and cultural and historic resources. Many national parks also help preserve wildlife in their natural settings, and all attract visitors who come to enjoy the peaceful and beautiful settings.

Neither crime nor attacks by animals are typically associated with national parks. If anything, they’re atypical. And yet there are members of Congress who believe threats to visitors are so great that the existing ban against carrying loaded weapons in units of the National Park System should be overturned.

The Coalition of National Park Service Retirees does not share these concerns. Indeed, it is concerned that making weapons more available in the parks could lead to more problems.

"We believe that to change these regulations so that visitors might wear or keep firearms close at hand in national parks - guided by differing state laws -could significantly increase the danger to visitors in national parks," the organization wrote to U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall, who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee.

"Equally worrisome is that such a practice would almost certainly put wildlife in many parks at greater risk," wrote the Coalition. "Poaching would become easier. And visitors who believe that carrying a firearm provides them with extra 'security' and the authority to shoot animals would be far more likely to use deadly force whenever they feel the slightest threat. Information gathered by State and Federal wildlife management organizations throughout the country overwhelmingly indicates that both people and wildlife are safer when guns are not the first choice when people feel threatened."

Joining the Coalition in opposing a lifting of the ban is the U.S. Park Ranger Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police and the Association of National Park Rangers.