Peninsula Daily News news services
WASHINGTON — Here’s a list of stuff the typical American family can legally carry into Olympic National Park this summer:
Sleeping bag, toothbrush, change of underwear . . . loaded guns.
In a stinging defeat for gun-control advocates, Congress has voted to allow people to carry loaded guns in national parks and federal wildlife refuges if they abide by state weapons laws.
The House approved the measure 279-147 on Wednesday, one day after the Senate acted.
The bill is on its way to President Barack Obama, who faces a dilemma:
Gun rights advocates attached the provision to a sweeping overhaul of the credit card industry, an initiative Obama strongly supports, so he has little choice but to let the gun section become law.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said only that Obama “looks forward” to signing the bill “as quickly as possible” and didn’t mention the gun provision.
Gun control advocates howled Wednesday but to little effect.
Restores Bush policy
In the House, 105 Democrats, most from Southern, Western and rural states, joined 174 Republicans in backing the gun measure.
It essentially restores a Bush administration policy that briefly allowed loaded guns in Olympic and other national parks earlier this year.
Many gun-control proponents blamed the National Rifle Association, which pushed hard for the gun law.
But Rep. Doc Hastings, a Republican from Eastern Washington, said:
“The fact is American gun owners are simply citizens who want to exercise their Second Amendment rights without running into confusing red tape.”
Hastings and other Republicans said the bill merely aligns national parks and wildlife refuges with regulations governing the national forests and property controlled by the Bureau of Land Management.
The GOP called the current policy outdated and confusing to those who visit public lands, noting that merely traveling from state-owned parks to national parks meant some visitors were violating the law.
Scot McElveen, president of the Association of National Park Rangers, predicted that the measure would provoke problems at the parks.
“We believe this is a fundamental reversal from what preceding Congresses created the National Park System for.
“Park wildlife, including some rare or endangered species, will face increased threats by visitors with firearms who engage in impulse or opportunistic shooting.”
Legal Ping-Pong
President Ronald Reagan first required guns to be stored or inoperable in national parks 25 years ago, but last December, just before leaving office, the Bush administration overturned that rule.
That began a game of legal Ping-Pong.
In March, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly overturned the Bush rule, and the Obama administration said it wouldn’t appeal.
That action spurred Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., to include the gun rule in a popular bill imposing new restrictions on credit card companies.
It wound up winning by an unexpectedly lopsided vote.
Coburn and his backers said that they didn’t want, nor did they expect, people to be in danger of random shooters in national parks.
“It’s really common sense,” he said.
“This is not about guns.
“What I want is gun rights. I want our constitutional rights to be protected.”
National Rifle Association officials argued that weapons are needed for protection in parks that are becoming increasingly dangerous.
Asked why police couldn’t handle criminal activity, Andrew Arulanandam, the NRA’s director of public affairs, said:
“At that moment when you’re confronted by a criminal, it’s between you and the criminal. Law enforcement cannot be there in position at any time.”
Gun control groups said a new kind of danger would be lurking once the ban was overturned.
Guns on hikes
“Families should not have to stare down loaded AK-47’s on nature hikes,” said Paul Helmke, the president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
He added that Obama “should not remain silent while Congress inserts reckless gun policies that he strongly opposes into a bill that has nothing whatsoever to do with guns.”
Chris W. Cox, chief lobbyist for the NRA, disputed a claim by the Humane Society of the United States that the gun bill would lead to an increase in wildlife poaching in national parks.
“The NRA is opposed to poaching and always has been,” he said.
“We’ve supported enhanced penalties for illegal activities, including poaching.
“The Humane Society has zero credibility when it comes to Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners.”
