Gun Ban in National Parks Ends on Monday
By Rocky Thompson on February 19th, 2010
Teddy Roosevelt was stopped from carrying his shotgun in to Yellowstone, but beginning on Monday Sweaty Uncle Teddy ‘Ted’ Nugent can stand on top of Old Faithful waving a Desert Eagle around if he wants to. The law that will allow guns to be carried into National Parks was a rider on a credit card reform bill that passed last summer. National Parks expect it to be business as usual after the ban lifts. When I lived in Minnesota, everyone was up in arms about a conceal-and-carry law that went into effect, but so far no one’s been shot. Just because someone likes guns doesn’t mean they like shooting people. Besides, I’m sure anyone who really wanted to carry a gun around National Parks was doing so anyway. State laws still supersede the new national law, so make sure your state hasn’t banned guns in parks before you strap on your bullet bandoliers to take in the sights.
Glad to see you’ve toned down the anti-gun rhetoric, Rocky.
“Uncle Teddy ‘Ted’ Nugent can stand on top of Old Faithful waving a Desert Eagle around if he wants to.”
No, he can’t. Wyoming has very specific laws against illegally brandishing a firearm.
“I’m sure anyone who really wanted to carry a gun around National Parks was doing so anyway.”
Like criminals. Exactly.
I as a Democrat am completely in favor of this rule change, and am glad that petty bureaucrats don’t get to infringe on civil rights any more.
“business as usual” …yeah, i wouldn’t expect much craziness.
I would have thought you’d write this post with a very anti-gun attitude. I’m not sure why. Glad you didn’t.
It’s ridiculous the way that whole “rider” thing works, with one law being packaged with another, completely unrelated law.
What about the people who like shooting people but don’t like guns. Nobody ever thinks about those poor folks.
I’m going skiing tomorrow!
Can you tell i’m bored right now?
Very glad to see this article. I too thought you would be anit-gun, and was ready to do away with my constant checking of your great sites. People who break the law didn’t care if there was a law on the books anyhow.
Yeah, the “rider” thing is pretty broken. Unless we’re talking about people using credit cards to buy guns … they don’t belong in the same legislation so that people vote on them together and them make commercials telling us about why we should elect them and not someone else, based on these odd couplings.
Probably nothing will happen. But if it does, it will happen in the parking lot.
[...] Gun Ban in National Parks Ends on Monday – The little blurb on this blog posts highlights what’s wrong with our legislative process. Congress passed a bill on credit card reform last summer. Someone attached a rider to that bill to allow guns in National Parks. How are those related, why was that allowed to be attached to this bill? [...]