Don't weaken Park gun rules

National parks are special places that enjoy the highest level of protection provided to public lands by Congress. Originally, the U.S. Army, and since its creation in 1916, the National Park Service, have continually worked to protect park resources, including wildlife, and to inspire park visitors.

The Bush administration, in response to intense political pressure orchestrated by the National Rifle Association, has just announced it will re-open the regulations governing firearms in our national parks. This brings up serious issues for park rangers, visitors and wildlife.

Poaching and resource degradation have been problems since Yellowstone was set aside as the world's first national park in 1872. In 1936, to address this issue, the Secretary of the Interior issued the first rules regarding firearms in national parks.

The regulations prohibited anyone from carrying a gun within the parks unless they obtained written permission from a park officer and the weapon was sealed. The main objective of this rule was to protect park wildlife from poaching and to provide rangers with tools for enforcement.

In 1970, Congress declared that superlative natural, historic and recreation areas should be managed as one seamless National Park System. In 1983, during the Reagan administration, park regulations were modified to apply to all park areas in the system.

Firearms were allowed in national park areas as long as they were unloaded and stored out of easy reach. In those 60 park units where hunting is authorized, hunters are permitted to carry firearms during open hunting season.

The current firearm regulations have been in place now for 25 years; in my over 38 years as a park ranger and a park manager, they have worked very well. They were developed with full public input, and the only clamor for change has been lately from the political arena.

Crime in national park areas remains considerably lower than in surrounding communities, but when poachers, drug traffickers and other serious offenders are caught inside the parks, the current firearms restrictions add further weight to the government's prosecution of criminals. A person's failure to comply with the simple requirement of properly stowing a weapon can be an indication to rangers that something might be amiss.

Changing the regulations could open up some of the most remote parkland in the contiguous 48 states where guns are not allowed — such as backcountry in Yellowstone, Glacier and Grand Teton — to people with any type of legal firearm.

Increasingly, visitors to our national parks are urban-based and often out of their comfort zone while enjoying their national parks. As it stands, the wildlife is protected and reasonable precautions, such as bear awareness programs, food storage enforcement and the carrying of pepper spray by backcountry users, have reduced bear encounters.

If firearms are added to these measures, there could easily be unintended results that could be devastating to the individual, other backcountry users and the wildlife involved.

Like our military reservations, veterans hospital grounds and other controlled federal installations, firearms and their use have long been restricted in our nearly 400 national park areas. To travel through the entrance station of a national park is to enter a special place.

Long-time Park Service employee Bill Brown, in his 1971 book "Islands of Hope," characterized national parks in several ways "as sanctuaries of nature, as landmarks of history and culture, and as places of contemplation, discovery and adventure."

Brown goes on to say that there is another quality, an ambience of shared sociability and pleasure in these welcoming, neutral lands. Relaxing firearms regulations in the parks will be detrimental to this refuge ideal that national parks have come to signify for American families over the last century.

Our national park sites vary from Yellowstone to Independence Hall, and from Glacier to the Lincoln Memorial and Shiloh battlefield. They are meant to be special places of inspiration and education with a sense of tranquility, history and beauty.

The current regulations, which allow guns in parks with reasonable restrictions on how they are carried, have been working for many years. They protect the safety of humans and wildlife but do not unduly infringe on gun ownership rights.

The existing regulations do not limit the rights of law-abiding citizens any more than luggage searches or metal detectors at airports or federal buildings. Re-opening them for review is unnecessary, and any proposed relaxation of these rules should be shot down.

Pete Hart, of Livingston, is a former national park ranger and a current member of the Northern Rockies Regional Council of the National Parks and Conservation Association.