Guns don’t belong in national parks

Thank goodness we have the uninformed college kid opinion on this issue:

The National Rifle Association played the self-defense card as justification for lifting the firearms ban in national parks, but being safe at a park is about being smart. Putting food away properly, locking doors, closing windows and not approaching dangerous animals will make for a much safer park experience than just carrying your gun around.

It isn’t the bears that people need to worry about. It’s the rapist-murderers (who don’t care about how your food is stored) that people need to protect themselves from. Secluded areas like parks are ideal places for this sort of predators.

It is a constitutional right to carry a firearm, but there are some places where guns just don’t belong. A park is a place where a handgun is totally unnecessary. While I understand that most people with a concealed firearm permit will not use national parks as shooting galleries, the potential for damage to the indigenous wildlife population is just too great.

While I agree with the authors constitutional position, many state governments do not. “The potential for damage to the indigenous wildlife” is the same regardless of this of this law, unless we are talking about rapist-murderers: they are going to get culled.