If the Department of Interior has its way, you will soon need more than a map and gas money for your Parks vacation: you will also need a guide to guns in your National Parks.

In response to Congressional pressure, the Department of the Interior is proposing new regulations allowing park visitors to carry guns in areas managed by the National Park Service and/or the US Fish & Wildlife Service’s National Wildlife Refuges. While there has been no groundswell of park goers seeking a right to carry concealed weapons in those management areas, the new regulations in this election year would allow concealed weapons.

But the changes would not be in all the managed areas – only in states that allow concealed weapons in their own state park – a move that lets individual state laws determine federal park rules.

Two issues are at stake: the wisdom of introducing concealed weapons into park areas and the bureaucratic nightmare such changes might make. According to the National Parks Conservation Association, “Statistics show that the probability of becoming a victim of a violent crime in a national park is 1 in 708,333, which is less likely than being struck by lightning during one’s lifetime.”

The original reason for gun regulations on these federal lands was to prevent poaching, first created in 1981 for wildlife refuges and then amended in 1983 to include parks.  The poaching issue would still be there, perhaps would even increase.

Obviously one’s response will be on whether one feels safer with or without a concealed weapon. Will more people go to the parks because they can carry a concealed weapon? It seems dubious. More likely, some who have felt safe will not want to camp and take their children to campgrounds when the next tent over may have someone who shoots first and checks later.

A major controversy has arisen.

Proponents point to existing regulations on lands managed by the US Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (they too only allow guns in states that allow guns in state parks.). They insist that right to bear guns should exist in the parks. Others support existing park regulations and worry about the poaching, safety to visitors and park personnel as well as additional burdens for the park personnel. Battle lines have been drawn. 

While the pro and con arguments are raging in the press, the potential bureaucratic nightmare has not received as much attention as it too deserves. Take, for example, Death Valley National Park. It is in two states: California (doesn’t allow concealed weapons in state parks) and Nevada (does allow weapons in state parks). According to the Dept. of the Interior spokesperson Chris Paolino, one may have the concealed weapon in the Nevada portion but not in the California portion. In the California portion, the current gun regulations will be in place (One may have an unloaded gun, which is inoperable or not readily accessible.).

Paolino also explained similar changes in Yellowstone National Park located in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. You will not be allowed to have the concealed weapon in the Idaho part, but will in the Montana and Wyoming parts, with one federal regulation covering both.

The new regulations will still ban hunting unless currently allowed, and will prohibit the guns in visitor centers and other federal buildings and concessionaires buildings. Changing the regulations will create major confusion. The parks belong to all of us, not just particular states. We have done well with existing regulations. Perhaps the old saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” works here.

Remember also that the new regulations would be administered in all units of the National Park Service plus the National Wildlife Refuges administered by the US Fish and Wildlife Service – that means the changes would affect national parks, monuments, preserves, historic parks and sites, military parks, battlefields, memorials, rivers, parkways, trails, seashores, cemeteries and wildlife refuges.

In Texas that includes places like Big Bend and Guadalupe National Parks, Big Thicket Preserve, Ft. Davis National Historic Site, Amistad National Recreation Area, Padre Island National Seashore, Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River, and Santa Ana WLR, as well as others less well-known areas. It is hard to image how the visitor, say, hiking the trails, or on a scenic river or a parkway, will handle such changes.

Following are instructions for sending in comments. You may mail your comments 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 go on the internet to Federal rulemaking portal: www.regulations.gov. Go to comment, put in 1024-AD70, and then click on the icon for submitting comment and you will find a form to fill in and submit.

A spokesman from the Dept. of the Interior said that the number of comments and their scope will be taken into account. Remember, the last day to to make comments is June 30, 2008.

Fran Sage is the founder of the Big Bend regional Sierra Club and an active spokesperson in our community. She lives south of Alpine.