Many people have felt for years that the only safe way to traverse the Parkway in the North Sacramento area is with a gun.
No guns in parks
A government push to end a ban on guns in national parks must be aimed at making the NRA happy.
May 10, 2008
President Reagan's administration banned easily accessible, loaded guns from national parks where hunting is not allowed. That seemed logical: It decreased the risk of violent encounters among visitors, improved safety for park rangers and reduced the likelihood of poaching. Today, the parks, monuments and recreation sites overseen by various divisions of the Department of the Interior are among the safest places in the nation. Statistically, visitors stand a better chance of being hit by lightning than of becoming victims of violent crime. And yet in the world of gun lobbying, no place is safe from irrationality, as Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has demonstrated with his proposal to end the 25-year ban.
Currently, visitors who bring guns to the parks must unload them and place them somewhere out of easy reach, such as in a car trunk. Under new rules proposed by Kempthorne, people who have permits for concealed weapons would be allowed to carry them in national parks if the state in which the park is located so allows. This would create a hodgepodge of policies that would be a nightmare to enforce. Take Death Valley National Park, which straddles Nevada and California. California prohibits loaded and accessible guns in its national parks, and Nevada does not. Visitors carrying guns could break the law simply by entering the wrong part of the park.
