Congress increases danger in our national parks by allowing guns

Call it a bill for funeral homes

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Yellowstone Park's Old Faithful was about to erupt, as it has every 45 to 90 minutes from time immemorial. Yet that day another, less predictable, less peaceful, eruption was gathering steam.

Old Faithful's white geyser was silhouetted against an azure sky on a crystal-perfect summer day. Buffalo, squirrels and birds foraged, gathered pinon nuts, and built nests, savoring and sharing their glorious landscape.

As we pulled into Old Faithful Lodge, however, our parking lot entrance was blocked by another car. A young male driver got out as another approached his vehicle. Both feet were on the ground, his head just above the opened door. He got no further. A full-force fist caught his chin and snapped his head backward, bouncing it against the car roof. His glasses, a startled bird in flight, sailed 10 feet over the pavement and came to rest in the grass.

Half-conscious, the victim's head left a blood-track on the vehicle as he slumped to the ground. The assault was both physical and verbal. The assailant's curse words pushed the victim further into the pavement, each syllable punctuated by kicks and blows.

I was stunned. A pay phone hung uselessly a hundred yards away. If I could, whom would I call? I was not about to step in this rampaging bull's path. What to do? Finally, I did nothing.

Later, in the lodge café, the two of them were together, eggs and toast easing the morning bruises. The victim had missed an appointment to pick up his "friend" the day before at a trailhead after a hike.

The force of that violence remains with me to this day. It is one thing to read it in the paper; it's quite another to see it up close and personal -- or to be its victim.

Now, 10 years later, it's even more real. One of Congress' first progressive actions was to protect us from violently invasive credit card company practices -- while in the same bill sanctioning violence by allowing loaded, concealed weapons in our national parks.

That same enraged hiker, armed with a .38 magnum or AK-47, would not share a peaceful Yellowstone after-breakfast. He'd only reap carnage, grief-stricken loved ones and at least one burial. Call it the funeral home benefit bill.

In search of peace in the creator's most magnificent landscapes, I am willing to risk bears. Loose-cannon loonies are another matter, inside or outside national parks.

Today, there are few sanctuaries from guns, even in churches and classrooms. In Clay Center, a man with a realistic "toy" gun is cut down by law enforcement. Of 12 Salina gun murders in the last 18 months, three in recent Journal headlines, at least one was possibly fueled by domestic rage like that in Yellowstone.

Other unreasoning rages make national headlines. White male nobodies James Von Brunn and Scott Roeder gain notoriety by snuffing out a Holocaust museum guard and George Tiller. Hate is magnified, concentrated, and propelled with deadly force at the tip end of a life-ending bullet.

And it's not just disgruntled white males. Some recent mass killers are of non-native extraction: a Vietnamese in Birminghamton, NY, takes out 13 fellow immigrants; a Korean exchange student, Seung Hui-Cho, of Virginia Tech, takes the prize for deadliest peacetime shooting at 32 dead; an African grad student murders the dean and others at the Appalachian School of Law. In the land of opportunity, the one opportunity not denied is acquiring lethal firearms -- and using them.

America's staggering private arsenal now is at 290 million guns -- one for every man, woman, and child. We have tens of thousands of gun dealers. Mexico has one, state-run. Yet the cross-border exchange -- we get their drugs, they get our guns -- means 95 percent of Mexican artillery comes from the U.S., creating killing fields along the border and at home.

The old murders fade, only to be resurrected in newly fallen bodies. As the old folk song goes, "When will they ever learn?"

When the first act of the new, supposedly wiser Congress, is to make us less safe in our most beautiful nature preserves, we realize it's not our people who are hopelessly insane. It's our laws -- and the non-enforcement of good laws now on the books.

President Ronald Reagan's shooting and James Brady's attempts to reregulate automatic weapons shows this is not a liberal/conservative issue.

When our safety is as certain in national parks -- and at home -- as is Old Faithful's harmless blowing off steam, it will be, once again, a beautiful, peaceful, day.

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Cattle Kate says....
You did NOTHING? I would've made a dash for that pay phone. Or at least written down the tag info and called LE when the coast was clear. Doing nothing is part of the problem.
7/6/2009

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long time camper says....
Our nations parks have been safe haven for nearly all of scum our nation can produce.And if you think this law is introducing firearms to our parks. you're not in touch with all of your senses. It warms my heart to think I may someday buy breakfast for someone who saved my hide. how many people disappear without the help of lions and bears,oh my?
7/5/2009

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realist says....
I guess in california it's ok to pound someone near brain death as long as you buy him breakfast later. But here in the real and unperfect world were you can be sued for setting on you're thumb and doing nothing ,one is allowed and expected to help. p.s. it's 357 mag. not 38
7/5/2009

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Pay Attention says....
What's a 38 magnum? If you'd bothered to edit this silly ramble, you'd have found out there is no such thing. As well, what are the chances of a backpacker carrying an AK-47 into the wilds? A bit of quick research reveals that an UNLOADED AK-47 weighs in at a hefty 9.5 pounds! It's nice the author has an irrational fear of firearms, but there's no reason to publish such blatant stupidity.
7/1/2009

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Real American says....
Liberalism in a nutshell; an irrational fear of everyone and everything. Nice article. Next time try including some facts instead of blatant lies and incongruent ramblings.
7/1/2009

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