Blogger Under Fire for Bucking Park Guns
by Dave Workman
Senior Editor
The proprietor of a popular website called National Parks Traveler found himself in hot water from gunowners recently when he posted a column declaring that firearms for personal protection in national parks is a bad idea.
Gun rights activists have been campaigning for the ability to carry their defensive handguns in national parks for some time, in reaction to what appears to be a growing problem of crime in those parks. While murders are rare, other types of crime appear to be on the rise, from physical assaults and rapes to illegal marijuana growing operations and methamphetamine labs. This comes at a time when national park budgets are being reduced, so there is little funding to hire additional rangers.
Outgoing Virginia Republican Sen. George Allen has introduced legislation to legalize concealed carry in national parks.
But National Parks Traveler host Kurt Repanshek does not believe the answer to these problems is a change in federal law that would allow armed citizens to pack iron in the parks. In his column, he wrote, “Great. That’s all we need, a backcountry full of pistol-packing hikers ready to take you on. …Do we really want to legalize toting guns around in national parks? Frankly, I’d feel safer in the backcountry knowing that guns are prohibited rather than worrying that the next person I encounter might be packing heat.”
A link to this column was circulated across the Internet by at least one Virginia-based gun rights group, and it spread quickly. Reaction was virtually all negative. Several posts alluded to an increasing crime problem in national parks, at least one challenged Repanshek’s maturity and sexuality, and others reminded him that criminals ignore the current gun ban. A few simply told him that their safety was not for him to decide.
Gun Week forwarded the original column and gunowner response to a handful of Pacific Northwest hiking enthusiasts, and got a mixed reaction from those who responded. While some aren’t in favor of legalizing concealed carry in national parks, contending that it would not make them feel any safer, others have no problem with people carrying concealed handguns, figuring “out of sight, out of mind.” The Northwest is home to several of the nation’s most popular and heavily visited national parks, and they encompass for the most part pretty wild country.
But even those hikers who are not opposed to the idea insisted they personally would not carry firearms in a national park.
Therein lies the debate. Armed citizens argue that their safety, and the safety of their families or friends who come along on a trek to a national park requires their ability to act in self-defense should the need arise. Others who have not encountered problems in the parks disagree, suggesting that guns in national parks makes them even less safe.
Repanshek noted in his follow-up column, “…the general thinking seems to be that to protect ourselves we all should be carrying our own gleaming, semi-automatic, or perhaps even automatic, pieces to ensure safety in society. Frankly, folks, I don’t see how that’s going to accomplish much beyond an increase in the number of shoot-outs.”
Joe Waldron, executive director of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, told Gun Week, “Parks have gotten less safe over the past 20 years. If they’re just as safe, why do you see armed rangers when you never used to?”
He alluded to the rare killings that have made headlines in recent years, including homicides in Yosemite, Organ Pipes and Shenandoah National Parks.
Gun Week submitted several questions to Repanshek but he did not reply by press time, explaining that he was trying to dig up recent national park crime statistics.
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