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Date draws near to allow firearms in national parks |
GLO’s Patterson weighs in on
new law, Christmas Mountains
By MARK GLOVER
PANTHER JUNCTION - There are still a few places in Texas where loaded concealed weapons are not allowed, but come February 22, strike another 1,200 square miles from the list. Just inside Big Bend National Park a sign reads “Loaded Firearms Prohibited.” Because of a bill passed last summer, that sign will likely be replaced by: “Loaded Concealed Weapons Okay.”
Don’t expect a happy smiley face next to it. There is plenty of opposition to the idea of allowing loaded firearms inside national parks.
“The national parks are one of the safest places to be,” said Don Dowdy, president of the Big Bend Sierra Club. “I don’t think loaded guns have any place in our national park system.”
But Jerry Patterson, Commissioner of the Texas General Land Office, author of the Texas Concealed Hand Gun Law when he was a state Senator in the 1990s and a gun-toter himself – a .22 caliber stainless steel 5 shot magnum that he keeps in his sock – thinks otherwise.
“I hiked to the Christmas Mountain last time I was in Big Bend National Park and found two spent 9mm shells and a wadded cigarette pack stamped ‘hecho en Mexico,’” he said. “Probably dropped out of a plane. There is definitely narco traffic going on in the park and people need to be able to defend themselves.”
“Protecting Americans from Violent Crimes” is the provision sanctioned by Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla) that will allow concealed weapons inside national parks this month. It was stitched into a credit card reform bill that was approved on Capitol Hill in May 2009.
“It’s a shame,” California Senator Barbara Boxer told the Los Angeles Times. “But you have to come to a realization around here that at this point in time the National Rifle Association gets the votes.”
The confluence of guns, bullets and national parks has been debated since the 1930s. Should hunting be allowed? What separations are needed between hunters and the general public? Who owns the wildlife?
And incongruities exist between national and state lands. In Virginia for example, a state that has ratified concealed handguns, the six-lane Blue Ridge Parkway cuts through the Shenandoah National Park, creating transitory criminals of otherwise legally gun-toting citizens.
During the Reagan Administration loaded firearms inside national parks were severely restricted. In his final 60 days as President, George W. Bush reversed the 25 year restriction, allowing licensed gun owners to carry concealed weapons in national parks.
The matter was promptly taken to court in January of 2009 by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the National Parks Conservation Association and the Retired Park Rangers Association. The US District Court granted a 90-day injunction, but by May the new law was on the books.
Patterson was president of the Western States Land Commissioners Association in the summer of 2008 when the inner workings of the concealed weapons in the parks provision was being drafted.
“We worked hard during the comment period to get the language right that would allow lawfully carried firearms in the national parks,” Patterson said.
The Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights Act of 2009, including Sen. Coburn’s “Protecting Americans from Violent Crimes” amendment passed 279-147 in the House and 90-5 in the Senate.
The new law throws new light on an ongoing land dispute between Texas and the federal government. In 2008, Patterson opposed the transfer of the state-owned Christmas Mountain to the Big Bend National Park, stating “No guns, no hunting, no sale.”
“Should I transfer 9,300 acres to an agency that ignores the Bill of Rights? I don’t think so,” Patterson said.
According to the GLO, the Christmas Mountain parcel remains “technically for sale but not actively marketed.”
With the legality of loaded guns in the park now established, the Christmas Mountain parcel transfer to the adjacent Big Bend National Park may be closer to a reality.
If hunting were allowed in the park, would there be no more hurdles between the GLO and the National Park Service acquiring Christmas Mountain?
“Yes,” said Patterson, who is up for re-election this year. “But I think Big Bend National Park has more than they can say grace over right now. I think if NPS gave Superintendent Wellman $750,000, he could think of a lot of other things to do than buy 9,300 acres of raw land in need of much management and repair.” |
