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> News-Miner Editorial
> Shooting for freedom
> New park rule well-intended but leaves some questions
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> Published Sunday, December 14, 2008
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> In most of the national parks in Alaska, carrying a firearm is neither illegal nor unusual. In fact, it is wise policy. Extending that right to visitors of all of the national parks is a similarly wise policy.
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> Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced this week that the federal government’s blanket prohibition on carrying operable firearms in national parks outside Alaska will end early next year. The National Park Service instead will follow state laws, he said.
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> In Alaska, state law allows most people to carry concealed firearms in most places, so all the national parks in the state will now be open to visitors with such guns.
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> Previously, all operable firearms were prohibited in the national parks created before 1980’s Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act: Denali, Katmai and Glacier Bay, as well as two smaller units in Southeast Alaska.
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> Unfortunately, the new federal regulation has an odd ambiguity. Here’s the actual language: “... A person may possess, carry and transport concealed, loaded and operable firearms within a national park area in accordance with the laws of the state in which the national park area ... is located ...”
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> That seems clear enough, but the preamble published by the department in the Federal Register indicates that this regulation only applies to handguns.
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> It suggests that the regulation does not allow the carrying of rifles or shotguns.
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> “Although we understand that there may be good reasons to update our policies with regard to these firearms,” the preamble states, “we have decided at this time to adopt a narrowly tailored rule to give greater respect to state laws which authorize law-abiding citizens to carry concealed firearms.”
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> But the actual regulation the department adopted doesn’t make any distinction between rifles, shotguns and handguns, as can be seen above. An Alaska park spokesman said last week, when asked about this apparent inconsistency, that the agency was looking into the issue.
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> So, as it stands now, the Interior Department appears to intend to allow a person to carry a concealed, loaded handgun into Denali National Park, but not a rifle or shotgun of any sort, whether concealed and unloaded or not. If that is indeed the intent, it’s a strange distinction to make and it needs to be explained more thoroughly.
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> Alaskans have carried all sorts of firearms all across the state’s “new” national parks for nearly three decades now. They do so not to hunt, which is prohibited on such park lands for anyone but local, qualified subsistence users, but rather to protect themselves from the very occasional ornery bear or moose.
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> This permission to pack rifles, shotguns and handguns in our parks has never been controversial. It is accepted, prudent practice.
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> Opening the old parks to only concealed handguns would be an inconsistent, unnecessary and confusing divergence from what otherwise is an enlightened change in public policy.
