Guns & Parks: A bad combo

The national parks are a place for recreation, reflection and conservation of America's wondrous natural resources. That's apparently not enough reason for some to maintain the peaceful, safe tradition of keeping ready-to-fire guns out of the parks.

Thanks largely to letters from 51 U.S. senators, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is looking at overturning national tradition with new rules to cater to the gun interests. The National Rifle Association has been working on the issue for five years.

Kempthorne said the new regulations will be proposed to replace the current rule that requires weapons in national parks to generally be unloaded and locked away or inoperable. In the letters, the 51 senators (44 Republicans and seven Democrats) talked of aligning park rules with state laws. Citizens with state concealed-weapons permits would be able to carry loaded guns in national parks.

This flies in the face of the parks' relative safety and the need to prevent poaching. But it fits the scared-of-everything mentality.

A recent guest column singled out U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks for criticism as one of two lawmakers threatening to block Kempthorne from changing the rules. Well done, Rep. Dicks. Block on, sir, if that proves necessary to prevent the radical overturning of America's tradition of weapons-free sharing of the parks.