Our View - Monday

Pursuing safety

Half of Senate backs firearms in parks

Talk in political circles often centers on bipartisanship. If politicians want to portray a bill or program as something few would quibble with, they reach across the aisle and find at least a handful of supporters in the other party. Then they can say their proposal is bipartisan and the rest of us are supposed to go along. If bipartisanship effectively gets everyone on board, a proposal to change some rules in national parks shouldn’t have any trouble.

Last week, 47 senators from both parties sent a letter to Interior Secretary Dick Kempthorne asking him to change rules that restrict firearms in national parks and lands managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The letter asks that Kempthorne rescind regulations put in place by Ronald Reagan’s Interior Secretary James Watt that require park visitors to make firearms inaccessible during their visit. Some parks have even more restrictive rules and require firearms be inoperable and cased. (Title 36 of the Code of Federal Regulations has all the rules for parks. You can find the rules pertaining to firearms at www.access.gpo. gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_01/36cfrv1_01.html. Part 2 contains the pertinent rules on firearms in national parks.)

The senators’ letter asks the rules be relaxed to allow visitors who are legally allowed to own firearms to be able to take them into parks and wildlife refuges and keep them accessible during their visits. The senators believe it’s a matter of consistency in federal firearms regulations. Most other federal lands, such as national forests, allow visitors to carry firearms. “These inconsistencies in firearms regulations are confusing, burdensome and unnecessary,” according to the letter.

The request, signed by Colorado Sen. Wayne Allard and 38 other GOP senators along with eight Democrats, is spot on. Government regulations should be consistent from agency to agency and should be no more intrusive or limiting than absolutely necessary.

Jerry Case, head of regulations and special park uses for the National Park Service, says the rules were adopted to address problems with park visitors shooting wildlife, either for sport or because they felt threatened. Banning accessible firearms to address that problem is typical of government’s clumsy regulating. A better approach would have been to make it clear to visitors that shooting wildlife is illegal in all but the most extreme situations.

On a more basic level, current regulations ignore the reason many people carry firearms: personal protection. Requiring firearms to be inaccessible makes it impossible for a park visitor to defend his or her life and property on federal property. Is that a common problem in our national parks? Probably not. But there’s a saying among gun rights activists that when you need a gun, you really need a gun. Having it in a case in the trunk of your car helps only if you’re in the trunk with it.

“There’s no reason to need a gun in a national park, and it would possibly lead to unfortunate accidents and other problems, so we’d rather not see them in the parks,” said Laura Loomis, spokesperson for The National Parks Conservation Association, in an Associated Press story.

Loomis, and other supporters of the current regulations, likely worry that changing the rules will lead to more violence. That’s the same argument anti-gunners have used for years since cities, counties and states have liberalized concealedcarry laws. Those concerns have proven to be unfounded. Armed law-abiding citizens aren’t the source of violence, criminals are.

She’s right that firearms can lead to unfortunate accidents. So can myriad other things. Should we expect the government to restrict those things as well, or just the ones unpopular with a certain segment of society? And what “other problems”? Maybe that the mere sight of a firearm gets some people all atwitter? That’s no reason to for the government’s ham-fisted regulations.

In a free society, people should have the liberty to do what they wish without infringing on the legitimate rights of others. If they restrict others’ rights, the state should step in to adjudicate justice. That’s the way textbooks teach freedom. The senators simply want the Interior Department to hew a little closer to that ideal.

Smoke-ban battles create strange bedfellows

Indoor smoking bans are all the rage these days, sweeping the nation and pitting powerful entities against one another. Sometimes, as these battles evolve, former foes find themselves on the same side. Rarely will an organization find itself on both sides, but that seems to be the case in Ohio.

The Ohio Licensed Beverage Association, a trade group representing bars, fought to keep fraternal clubs and veterans groups from landing special smoking privileges, The Associated Press reported. Bar owners believe the exemption for places such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars or a Moose Lodge would give those venues an edge over bars. So the association sued — and has won two court victories to prevent smoking in those places.

Ohio bar owners believe the exemptions to the indoor smoking ban would speed along the economic deaths many of them stand to suffer because of the ban.

But, there’s a little more to this strange bedfellows tale: A group calling itself Smoke Less Ohio offered an alternative smoking ban to the one voters approved. That smoking ban would have permitted smoking in bingo halls, bars and restaurants with physically separated smoking sections, as well as in bowling alleys, hotels and nursing homes.

Among those trying to create exemptions was the Ohio Licensed Beverage Association. Strange bedfellows, indeed.