With the latest debate over whether the National Park Service should allow visitors to carry live weapons in the national park system, much has been made over whether parks are safe. While even one murder is too many, the crime statistics for a park system that last year attracted some 277 million visitors would seem to indicate parks are relatively safe havens from violent crime.
During 2006, when 273 million visitors toured the parks, 11 deaths were investigated across the system. Two involved women who had been pushed off cliffs (one at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and one at Lake Mead National Recreation Area), one was a suicide (at Golden Gate National Recreation Area), and one was the victim of a DUI accident (in Yellowstone National Park).
National Park Service records also show that one of the 11 deaths, reported in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, involved a stabbing that was spawned by an alcohol-fueled altercation. Great Smoky also was the setting of a fatal shooting of another woman with three others arrested for the crime.
The suicide at Golden Gate involved a man who "began shooting at hang gliders. He did not hit any of the hang gliders, but then he shot a stranger. Then he turned the gun on himself."
At the Blue Ridge Parkway, a woman parked at an overlook and wearing headphones while studying for final exams "was killed by a handgun by a suspect on a killing spree," the Park Service said. In another case involving the parkway, the body of an individual shot and killed outside the parkway was dumped there.
At Amistad National Recreation Area, a woman was found floating in a reservoir in about 5 feet of water. "She appeared to have blunt force trauma to the head and was possibly stabbed," the agency said.
The last two murders were reported in Washington, D.C., area park units. In one case a victim died from a gunshot wound to the head, in the other U.S. Park Police found a partial human skull, with an apparent gunshot wound, on the shoreline of the Anacostia River, a crime that didn't necessarily occur in the park system.
Most folks, I think, would agree that the suicide, two pushing victims, and the DUI victim couldn't have been prevented if guns were allowed to be carried in the parks. And, of course, there was the victim who was murdered outside the Blue Ridge Parkway. That lowers to six the number of violent deaths investigated in the parks, one of which involved a stabbing in a drunken brawl, an outcome that could have turned out just the same -- or worse-- if either individual was carrying a gun.
During 2006 there also were 320 assaults without weapons, 1,950 weapons offenses, 843 public intoxication cases, and 5,752 liquor law violations. How many of those might have turned deadly were concealed carry allowed in the park system?
I think much of the concern over this move by the National Rifle Association to see visitors allowed to carry loaded weapons does not center on the majority of the "law-abiding" gun owners in the country, but rather around the accidents waiting to happen involving folks who either aren't so law-abiding or so careful.
Comments
Good point, Anon. The same could be said for Organ Pipe Cactus. The cross-border human and drug smuggling is very bad there. It's a no-go park for the average traveler.
I'm with Anon and Kath. Some of the Parks I want to visit have backcountry so far "back" that they're probably not visited by Park Rangers more than once or twice per season. I might be illegal when I carry my gun, but i"m going to carry it.
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument is so dangerous that backcountry overnight camping is prohibited and certain roads are closed due to the danger from illegals and drug smugglers. They trample the rare plants and litter the park. It's more than a little odd that while environmentalists get very upset about snowmobiles destroying Yellowstone, no one ever mentions that hundreds of square miles of this national monument are effectively closed and being trashed by pollution from illegals.
Dear Anon, if you put your personal interest over the law, you are by definition not a responsible gun-owner. By every standard, including that of the NRA, your gun should be taken from you, if necessary by verdict and for life. And those who support him should start to think. If an area is unsafe without a personal weapon, don't go there and demand from the authorities that they resolve the issues. It's their job to keep the country safe.
C'mon, Fred, using those comments to project an outcome is about as scientific as Sen. Coburn's "poll" on the question of concealed carry in the parks on his web site. I think it's fairly well-known how organized the NRA and its supporters are on these issues. As soon as I started posting about guns in the parks at least one gun rights site -- The High Road -- pointed its readers in my direction, as did another site that I can't immediately recall.
Valid point Kurt. I was just curious how the folks who visit this blog feel about the issue. I can't help but wonder how the comments will go during the 90-day period after the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) is presented on April 30th. If 80% of the comments support carrying loaded guns in the Parks, what will that tell us?
It's not a poularity contest, but it is important to allow people a voice. I certainly wouldn't want folks to avoid the Parks simply because my Dad, my brother, and I were hiking in the backcountry of our beautiful National Parks.
Say, if traveling and choosing to camp amidst deep in the border parks with full knowledge of its danger...so be it..no one said you cant have that gun in your car. If you're back packing there you're probably nutts and you'll probably take a gun any way. So be it. Its likely a good issue to bring to light that the border parks are getting trashed from the illegal entry and/or drug smugglers. I hadnt been aware of such.Could be an issue gun talk has no bearing .......... I really believe Most National Park visitors that actually have a repeat camping, hiking, picnicing...national park experice would say NO, NO, NO for any change to existing law. I spent many years working and living in 3 major west and east coast parks/seashore. (many of those years in L.E. as well as working in campgrounds)
On the "Parks are safer than cities so you don't need guns." argument;
If that is true then drivers in rural areas don't need insurance because there are fewer fatalities - even on a per capita basis.
It also seems like every time I read about a mass shooting / crazed parent / gang shootout (no drugs in parks right?) / or run of the mill assault, the reporter will elicit a response similar to "We're just shocked that something like that could happen here, So-and-so always seemed so nice...".
Crime is not restricted to any particular class of people; not by race, religion, ethnicity or geography. How many grains of sand in a heap? How many murders in a "safe park"?
"Gun crime" (ever hear of knife crime or club crime?) is used by unscrupulous politicians in an effort to control other peoples' behavior and expand government's power in an effort to protect their jobs at the citizens' expense.
Criminals in parks or elsewhere will continue to be armed, even if just with fists, if they plan on raping a wayward hiker. Law-abiding citizens have the right to be armed in defense. This is not a privilege granted by the government, but in inalienable right recognized as such in the national and most states' constitutions.
The argument that law-abiding citizens will all become drunken, enraged murders if "allowed" to be armed has been dis-proven 44 times in the past 30 years or so. That's how many states allow concealed carry. And each time before the law was enacted the press wailed about the rivers of blood to follow. And they were wrong every time. The fact is law-abiding citizens don't turn murderous if they come in contact with a pound or two of steel in the shape of a gun, or a knife (kitchens must terrify some folks), or a club, etc.
It is not the governments job to limit the options of free people unless those people are proven guilty of a crime.
Carrying a handgun for self-defense is a major responsibility that I would not demand of anyone. However, for those of you who have accepted that responsibility and cause even a little caution in the criminal population, thank you.