I didn’t get this up on Friday as I was attending to other matters, but the Department of the Interior is officially going to allow carry in National Parks now.
DOI announced the rule change today and will publish the new regulations in the Federal Register. The new regulations allow right-to-carry permit holders to exercise their Second Amendment rights on national park and wildlife refuges in those states that recognize such permits. The move will provide consistency across our nation’s federal lands and put an end to the patchwork of regulations that governed different lands managed by different federal agencies. In the past, Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service lands allowed the carrying of firearms, while lands managed by DOI did not.
Now, this is different from the original proposed rule, which would have had the federal regulation simply match the state regulation: i.e. if it was legal to carry in a state park in your state of residence, it would then be legal to carry on DOI lands. The new rule has been written so that it is legal to carry on DOI lands, regardless of whether or not your state allows carry in state parks. From Sebastian:
Except that the rule that was eventually adopted differs from the original proposed rule, in that the state in question must specifically prohibit carry in National Parks, or federal lands.
This is good news for gun owners; as it allows us to maintain our self-defense standing without regard to National Parks.
And it gives good little non-violent, law-abiding, anti-rebellion folks like me (otherwise referred to as “prags”) some interesting leverage to use on our local representatives when we happen to live in states where it is unlawful to carry in local or state parks. I have already emailed both my representatives, and will probably be following up with snailmail.