Weapons in the Woods
Guns are now legal in national parks. Are we any safer?
In Georgia a serial killer stalked hikers in national forests. In a Tennessee campground, a mother and her two small children were mauled by a black bear. Two Virginia Tech students were found shot dead at their Jefferson National Forest campsite, their killers still at large.
The outdoors is a dangerous place.
But will a new law allowing firearms in national parks make us safer—or actually put us in greater danger?
Last May, Congress passed new regulations to allow the carrying of firearms in National Parks and National Wildlife Refuges. The regulations were quietly added onto a credit card holder’s bill of rights and promptly signed by the President. Beginning on February 22, 2010, your fellow campers in National Parks may be legally armed.
The new regulations stipulate that National Parks will adhere to the firearms laws of the state in which they are located. In states of the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic, residents are allowed to carry concealed firearms if they have the proper permit. In some states, like Virginia and West Virginia, citizens are allowed to carry rifles, shotguns or handguns on their person without a permit as long as they are in plain view, a practice known as “open carry.”
The U.S. Forest Service has followed state law when it comes to their firearms policy for decades. If you can legally carry a weapon in public in the state whose boundaries the National Forest is in, then you can legally carry it in the forest.
Do You Need a Gun?
Even though it’s now legal to carry a firearm, does that mean you should? Those who choose to carry firearms into the woods are also choosing to carry a great responsibility with them—one that could ultimately backfire. Owning a gun dramatically raises your risk of being involved in an unintentional shooting or gun death.
Statistically, you’re far more likely to be mugged on the street than on a trail. Your chance of being assaulted in a national park is one in 1 million. According to the FBI Uniform Crime Report, your average chance of being assaulted in the country at large is 3,100 times higher.
What about those four-legged predators? The East Coast lacks the large carnivorous animals that inhabit Western states, like grizzly bears, mountain lions and wolves. In the East, the only animal that’s competing with us for the top of the food chain is the black bear. Recent surges in bear populations, combined with humans moving deeper into their territory, have led to more urban encounters between bears and humans. But how dangerous is this elusive animal? In the last 100 years there have been only 56 documented fatal black bear attacks in the United States. In the bear-heavy Great Smoky Mountain National Park there were three incidents between bears and humans that involved injury in the past decade, making the chance of being injured by a bear there one in 15.5 million. You’re more likely to be stuck by lightning (one in 700,000).
“Most experienced hikers don’t feel the need to carry a gun,” said Brian King, spokesman for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy.
But no matter how small the possibility, how remote the chance, crime does happen and animals do attack, which is reason enough to carry a firearm according to gun rights advocates.
“The right of self-defense does not disappear when the risk of attack declines below a certain likelihood,” said David Kopel, research director at the Independence Institute, a Colorado-based political think tank.
People who choose to carry firearms to protect themselves step into a quagmire of legalities. For example, an A.T. thru-hiker would need to be permitted in the 14 states the trail passes through, as well as abiding by the individual ordinances of the towns and counties they would pass through. Great Smoky Mountains National Park straddles the border between North Carolina and Tennessee, requiring separate permits within the same park.
Laws regarding when you can use your weapon to protect yourself also change at the state line. What is self-defense in one state is often murder in another. If you kill or wound an animal out of the legal hunting season or without a license, you can end up in serious legal trouble.
Spray Is Safer
There are plenty of ways to protect yourself in the woods that don’t involve carrying a firearm. If you worry about black bears, carry bear spray, which is more effective than a gun, according to a study by Brigham Young University biologist Thomas Smith, who analyzed 20 years of bear attacks in Alaska. His findings: Bear spray will stop an attack 92 percent of the time, while firearms succeed only 67 percent of the time.
In the Southeast, both Shenandoah and Great Smoky Mountains National Parks allow bear spray. Curiously, other non-lethal devices, such as pepper sprays and stun guns, will still be considered illegal weapons in National Parks even after the firearms laws change in February.
Your best weapon in the woods is still your brain. Says King, “Keep your street smarts, be prepared both mentally and physically, and trust your gut instincts.” BRO
The law prohibiting firearms in Jefferson Natl Forest didn’t prevent a bad guy from carrying a gun, did it? Nope. No laws will prevent bad guys from doing anything. Laws are only for the law abiding and feel-good policies don’t keep anyone safe from bad people.
Ironically, you’re more likely to die in a swimming pool or as a car passenger than die of an accidental/negligent gun discharge.
Jeremiah: Your post should be retitled “Guns SOON TO BE legal in national parks. Are we any safer?” The law hasn’t changed yet, and I’d hate to see someone arrested based on your erroneously titled story here.
Individuals have always had God given natural rights.
We overthrew a government and installed a new one over disagreements about this very concept.
To secure these rights, we instituted a government to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.
The resulting Constitution limits the power of the government and acknowledges individual rights, and further stipulates that one particular natural right … “shall not be infringed”.
All laws repugnant to the Constitution are null and void.
Hasn’t changed in a few hundred years.
Yes, we WILL BE safer when it is legal to carry concealed firearms into National Parks under the exact same condition and by the exact same people as can currently carry those firearms in that state outside the park.
How do we know?
Well, those people who are criminals will do what they wish in any case — they already do and represent a clear and present danger.
Those who follow the law will on occasion stop a crime, and even cause the criminal’s career to be ended (through death or incarceration) on some such occasions.
We know that this happens in American some 2.6 Million times per year so clearly it will happen sometimes within the parks.
Therefore, once the law is in effect WE WILL INDEED BE SAFER.
Especially those of us who carry legally.
Or a non-resident may obtain a CCW from the state of Florida or Utah which have reciprocity with: Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia.
Is your campsite your “home” with respect to the Second Amendment of the US Constitution? (Heller: The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.
Are we any safer carrying a cell phone on the AT or not? Maybe there’s no difference if you have no coverage and I don’t know how to operate a phone. Dial 911 and tell us how much faster it is in a forest than in Charlottesville.
Unconstitutional is unconstitutional. No government entity has the power to infringe upon and uninfringeable Constitutional Right, we may live under its rule, but that does not make it constitutional.
It’s unforunate to read postings that fervently defend the right to carry fire arms cause some bad person might get you. As also stated the odds of some one being victimised in the woods are very low. Packing heat in the woods is a grave responcibility and to do so requires a great deal of experience and a level head. The constitution’s 2nd Amendment was not aimed at protecting ourselves in the back woods, at that time most people were living there already, it’s goal was to protect us from a tyranical government that may want to limit the 1st Amendment. It is ironic that those who are most vocal about their right to carry a gun are the last to understand this point. Having spent many a night in the deep woods the only thing that really frightens me is my own imagination.
The law goes into effect on George Washington’s birthday, February 22nd, 2010.
If you decide to carry, keep this in mind. Also, of course, please get your training and do some research so you know what is and isn’t legal.
Don’t carry if you aren’t comfortable with it. But if you do, ignore the naysayers and do what you think is proper to protect yourself as a free man or woman. It’s your choice.
Also, before believing what you read on that chart, do your own research and actually read the state code with your own eyes. Do not rely on what cops or other “experts” tell you; they will not be the ones facing jail time if you get it wrong. In the end, you are responsible for both your own safety and for obeying the law.
I carry in Virginia all the time, both on the street and in national forests. VA DGIF allows carry in Natl. Forests concealed only with permit. For me the only real change here will be that I will have a greater stretch of woods to carry in while hiking.
“Owning a gun dramatically raises your risk of being involved in an unintentional shooting or gun death.”
Poor logic. Owning a car dramitically increases your risk of being involved in a car accident. Living in a house dramatically increases your risk of being caught in a house fire. Swimming in a pool dramatically increases your risk of being involved in a pool drowning.
“But will a new law allowing firearms in national parks make us safer—or actually put us in greater danger?”
There will be no net effect on your safety. A few individuals will protect themselves from critters (both two legged and four legged) but your safety will be unefected by this fix to the law.
“Even though it’s now legal to carry a firearm, does that mean you should? Those who choose to carry firearms into the woods are also choosing to carry a great responsibility with them”
The point, in case you missed it, is that it shouldn’t be illegal in the first place. The responsibility in the woods is no greater than it is in the street, in Walmart, or in a restaurant. Those who carry a gun every day know this already. Spreading the anti-gun fear doesn’t change anything. Guess what happened yesterday when hundreds of thousands of people carried a gun on their person… Nothing.
A huge amount of money and resources are spent protecting oneself from low-probability risk via health insurance, auto insurance, and homeowners insurance.
The individual who chooses to legally carry a weapon for self-defense is engaging in another form of action to protect him- or herself and others from a low-probability risk.
Argue all you want, but the ability to protect one’s person from violence by others is the most fundamental right possible.
Everyone had guns in the era of our nation’s founding only in part to hunt and form ,militias against tyrannical government power; the primary reason was to serve as a tool to protect self, family, and home.
The only folks who will soon be able to legally carry in the National Forests and Parks will be those who have concealed-carry permits (having gone through extensive background checks in order to receive such permits). Therefore, given the remote possibility of crimes against persons in the National Parks and Forests, I’d say there is a small net increase in safety. “If you outlaw guns, then the only ones with guns will be outlaws.” Soon, those few outlaws will have to think twice or thrice before choosing a victim in the woods.
Naturally, they’ll choose the defenseless first. Predator: meet prey.
The author is clueless with the “Owning a gun dramatically raises your risk of being involved in an unintentional shooting or gun death.” Statement…Maybe some research is in order before you post misinformation.
This story was poorly researched – the statement that “People who choose to carry firearms to protect themselves step into a quagmire of legalities. For example, an A.T. thru-hiker would need to be permitted in the 14 states the trail passes through, as well as abiding by the individual ordinances of the towns and counties they would pass through. Great Smoky Mountains National Park straddles the border between North Carolina and Tennessee, requiring separate permits within the same park,” is plainly incorrect.
Most states widely accept other states’ concealed carry permit. Further, most states require no permit to carry openly, including Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Virginia. Moreover, almost no state allows towns and counties to enact gun carry bans.
Great, just what we need: another dose of irrational nutters carrying guns in national parks and whining about how unsafe they feel. Here’s a suggestion: If the back county makes you feel that unsafe, then just keep your fat, lazy ass at home on the couch, with the rest of the paranoid right wingers, channel surfing from Limbaugh to Beck to Hannity. What is it like waking up every morning being this afraid? As for the crap about how hundreds of thousands of people carry every day and nothing happens, this doesn’t prove that guns deterred anything. It just proves that nothing happened. The presence or absence of a concealed weapon made no difference, but then, this requires logical thinking, something that is conspicuous by its absence from the rabid right and the loony left.
I just have to laugh at the morons who compare the risk of carrying a weapon on the trail with the risk of driving a car on the street. Make a note, morons – nobody straps on a car intending to use it as a weapon to deliberately harm someone. You carry a gun for exactly one reason, so please, stop trying to make the rest of us believe that this is no different than say, insuring your house against fire, because it’s not. The fact that you people can’t sort this out pretty much tells me that if there were any meaningful intelligence test required to possess a concealed weapons permit, all of you would fail. Just be honest: You want to carry a weapon in places that don’t warrant it because you’re scared. You’re scared of animals, you’re scared of people, you’re scared of the dark, you’re scared of the woods, and you’re scared of the unknown. It’s no way to go through life, but whatever. And yes, carrying a weapon DOES increase the odds of being involved in a violent crime. Read the stats. Anyone who says otherwise is just stoned or stupid. How can you people not see this? Oh, but I keep forgetting – these are data from the evil liberal government, which hates all of us and wants to curb our civil rights. Damn, no way we can trust the FBI. After all, they took down 2nd Amendment heroes like Timothy McVeigh. On the other hand, it’s not like the recently concluded NRA-fueled eight year fraternity party that was hosted by King George the Incurious and Prince Dick the Dimwitted was a blessing for personal liberty. Patriot Act, anyone?
You want to carry a gun whenever you drive to Walmart to pick up some more caramel corn and Bud Lite for your fat-assed wives and kids, knock yourself out. But people who are so afraid of the woods that they have to carry their silly concealed guns are just morons. “Predator meet prey.” “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.” Are you serious? Is this sort of third grade thinking really the best you can do? It’s bad enough that most of you write like third graders, but to think like one. Wow, that’s painful. No wonder the rest of the world is kicking our asses. I mean, really, where are your data that even hint at this being a problem? Look at the statistics comparing violent crime rates between urban areas and national parks and you’ll see that gun crimes in national parks are nearly non-existent as compared to urban centers.
There’s a reason why the rest of us go to national parks – it’s to get away from droolers like you who just can’t live without their Confederate flag tattoos and coolers of crappy beer. And don’t waste my time citing the odd murder in a park – no one is suggesting that they don’t occur, but they are the exceptions that prove the rule. Don’t believe me? Just read the Morning Report from the National Park Service. Oh damn, this would require the ability to read and comprehend big words, like “crime.” Never mind.
The biggest concern you have about being prey in a national park is from the wildlife, and when it happens, it will be because like most of the idiots who buy their gear and guns at Walmart, you screwed the pooch and couldn’t safeguard your food from the local bears. Oh, but then, I guess that’s why you’re carrying your silly little gun, the better to form your own little private militia in the wilderness. God knows, the liberals will be checking the camping permits and hunting you down in the back country to taunt you with veggie jerky and a plea to go green. Here’s a thought – maybe we should just establish parks specifically for the paranoid trigger pullers so that you can all shoot at each other and then slap each other on the backs over what a great job you’ve done protecting the Constitution.
Even better, just stay the hell out of the woods. If the most important thing about being in the back country is carrying a hand cannon and shrieking about how threatened you feel by non-existent human predators, then maybe you need to rethink your motives. One thing’s sure – the first one of you paranoid dumbasses that pulls a weapon on me is in for a serious ass kicking.
“Make a note, morons – nobody straps on a car intending to use it as a weapon to deliberately harm someone”
Read this moron. This happened in super safe Japan. The same Japan where private ownership of guns is not allowed. This a$$hat decided to strap a truck on and kill some folks, then carve some others up with a knife. Do some reasearch, before you prove that you are as stupid as you sound.
The Akihabara massacre was an incident of mass murder that took place on Sunday, June 8, 2008, in the Akihabara shopping quarter for electronics, video games and comics in Sotokanda, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan.
At 12:33 p.m. JST, a man hit a crowd with a truck, eventually killing three people and injuring two; he then stabbed at least 12 people using a dagger killing four people and injuring eight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akihabara_massacre