Loaded guns in Glacier National Park?

Montana's senators back proposal to allow loaded firearms in national parks

By RICHARD HANNERS / Whitefish Pilot

Glacier National Park, which receives more than 2 million visitors a year, would be a different place if visitors were allowed to carry loaded guns as they snapped photos along Going-to-the-Sun Road and hiked along the Highline Trail.

But a change in the law banning loaded guns in America's national parks is under consideration by the nation's leaders in Washington, D.C.

Forty-seven of the nation's 100 senators signed a Dec. 14 letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne in support of an exception to existing federal law.

The letter was signed by Montana Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester and leading Republican presidential candidate John McCain. Baucus is up for re-election this year.

"We write today concerning the long-standing effort to have the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service remove their prohibitions on law-abiding citizens from transporting and carrying firearms on lands managed by these agencies," the letter states. "We appeal to you on this matter in the interest of Second Amendment rights and consistency in firearms policy across federal public land management agencies."

The letter points out that "other federal land management agencies, such as the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service, allow transporting and carrying of firearms on these lands in accordance with the laws of the host state."

Noting that current law prohibits "even citizens with valid concealed weapons permits" from carrying firearms through national parks and certain other federal lands, the senators called the inconsistencies "confusing, burdensome and unnecessary."

The National Parks Conser-vation Association responded to the senators' letter by pointing out that under current law, it is legal to transport firearms through national parks.

However, federal law states, firearms must be "rendered inoperable or packed, cased or stored in a manner that will prevent their ready use."

"The regulation's reasonable 'unloaded and stored' requirements were established to ensure the protection of park visitors, wildlife and iconic American treasures that have been identified as possible targets of terrorist activities," the NPCA said.

The NPCA also noted that poaching has been a problem in national parks since the Yellowstone National Park's inception in 1873, and that there are "too few law enforcement rangers to effectively combat poaching."

Will Hammerquist, NPCA's Glacier program manager, based in Whitefish, expressed concern about people carrying guns in crowded areas of Glacier National Park, such as Apgar and Many Glacier, and out on backcountry trails deep in the Park's wilderness.

Removing the firearms prohibition could threaten public safety and increase risks to the Park's wildlife, including endangered species like grizzly bears. Hammerquist said more bears could end up being shot if Park visitors had ready access to guns.

"The National Park Service has not received any complaints on this matter," he pointed out.

The rule change that would allow firearms in national parks was included as an amendment to a public lands bill. On Friday, Feb. 8, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, backed out of a formal unanimous-consent agreement to move that bill forward.

When Reid made the agreement, he was not aware that Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, would use one of his five amendments to insert a rule change allowing firearms in national parks.

Reid said the amendment put many Democrats in an election-year bind because the public lands bill had turned into a vote on the Second Amendment.