I am a member of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees whose 640 members represent a total of more than 19,000 years of experience working in our national parks.
Recent proposals in the U.S. Congress and within the Department of the Interior seek to allow visitors to carry loaded firearms, including concealed ones, in our national parks in accordance with state laws. This is a terrible idea for many reasons.
First, it represents an attempt by special interests to advance their agenda by inventing a problem that doesn't exist. Loaded guns have been prohibited in national parks since the 1930s. These rules work, and have long contributed to the indisputable fact that our national parks are among the safest places in America.
The rules have also been an essential part of our efforts to protect wildlife and prevent poaching. Key to the success of this regulation is public support. Experience tells us that park visitors, including hunters and gun owners, seem to understand that parks are special places and that loaded guns are not needed and are not appropriate.
National Parks comprise less than 1 percent of the acreage of the United States; is it too much to keep these areas as special places?
The change in regulations advocated by these special interests could also break what is not broken and change the nature of our national parks.
We know that more and more of our visitors are urban-based and often out of their comfort zones while enjoying their national parks. Too often, visitors perceive the animals in our national parks not as wild but as safe, Disney-like things and thus believe there is no danger in approaching wildlife.
Unfortunately, we have seen incidents where an impulsive and inexperienced visitor has used lethal force when perceiving even the slightest threat from a bison, a bear, an alligator or even a much smaller animal. Under the regulations advocated by these special interests, park wildlife would be in far greater danger as more people would arm themselves with a gun and a false sense of security.
Equally dangerous; routine disagreements in campgrounds, parking lots, restaurants and lodges are more likely to turn lethal, just as they too often do in the cities and rural areas around parks where state laws provide for easy access to loaded firearms.
The propaganda by special interests suggests that existing rules are inconsistent and hard to understand. This is ludicrous. What can be easier to understand than current regulations, which apply a long-established single set of rules throughout our national system of parks?
Apart from these practical considerations, however, is the greater concern presented by this proposal, for it demonstrates total disregard for how our society values its national parks. The propaganda of the special interests suggests that we should regulate firearms so that parks are no different than other federal and state lands.
Yet, it is clear that previous generations of Americans meant these places to be special. Our national parks should not become simply another piece of real estate.
We urge those who want to keep visitors and wildlife in national parks safe to contact their elected officials, along with Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and express their opposition to changing the regulations that have served the National Park Service well for nearly 100 years.
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* FRED J. FAGERGREN was superintendent of Bryce Canyon National Park, Big Cypress National Preserve, Florida, and Mound City Group National Monument, Ohio. He lives in Santa Clara, Utah.
