Guns in local parks

Friday, May 29, 2009

By Matthew Irwin

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-Local officials will have a “back-and-forth dialogue” with the federal government to implement a new law allowing concealed weapons at Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks, officials said Tuesday, but regulations will be consistent across all national parks and monuments, as well as national wildlife refuges.

It is too soon to know, they said, how regulations will address local concerns about poaching and “self-defense??? wildlife shootings.

Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights Act of 2009, H.R. 627 – to which the gun bill was attached – puts gun control in national parks under state governance, though a Department of Interior spokesperson said her office will provide guidance to states that allow guns.

Wyoming senators Mike Enzi and John Barrasso, and Representative Cynthia Lummis (all R-Wyo.), praised the bill, signed by President Obama last Friday, in a joint press release citing the Second Amendment and states’ rights.

But Ted Kerosote a Kelly resident and author of Merle’s Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog, spoke out against the bill) in a New York Times forum that same day the day President Obama.

In an interview with JH Weekly, Kerosote said that both animals and humans deserve a refuge from guns, and in national parks, where wildlife is habituated to humans, they run the risk of deadly encounters.

“I fear that wildlife will be shot because of frightened, armed people,” he said. Here, with so many black bears habituated to people, and now grizzlies, I worry about people carrying firearms, using the rationale of self-defense. “

Jeff Ruch, spokesperson for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), also said that the legislation may create “some unpleasant situations” at national monuments near his office in D.C. In a release last December when President Bush failed to push through guns in parks, PEER expressed concern over the increased likelihood of poaching, the parks being so large and the rangers being so few.

Kerosote said that signage encouraging park visitors to use pepper spray, which he says works better than guns, should be a priority.

GTNP spokesperson Jackie Skaggs said that signage was likely, but deferred to the National Park Service office in Washington, which directed Planet JH to the Department of Interior. Interior spokesperson Kendra Barkoff, deferring to an official statement, said it has nine months before the law will go into effect, giving it ample time to put “public safety and the safety of our employees as our foremost consideration.”  JHW
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