Gordo, Get Your Gun

[February 20th, 2008]

You can’t shoot wildlife in U.S. National Parks. And you can’t shoot your companions—no matter how often they sing that same Celine Dion song on the hiking trail.

Yet U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) is one of 47 United States senators who think you should be able to carry a loaded firearm while gazing patriotically at Crater Lake or Old Faithful. Imagine it: “Don’t blow, or I’ll shoot!”

According to a Dec. 14, 2007, letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne from 39 Republicans and eight Democrats, a movement is again afoot to repeal a ban on firearms on all lands belonging to the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

In liberal Portland and the Willamette Valley, Smith’s endorsement of the ban’s repeal is making him an easy target for most of his wanna-be challengers in the 2008 election, including Independent John Frohnmayer and two Democrats running in the May primary: activist Steve Novick and Eugene real-estate broker Candy Neville.

“This isn’t the Wild West, this is the 21st century,” Neville says. “We need responsible gun control.”

A third Democratic candidate, House Speaker Jeff Merkley, isn’t so ready to take aim at the letter.

Current regulations, which date back to the Reagan administration, do allow unloaded and inaccessible guns to be carried across these public lands. That means someone driving through Yellowstone National Park wouldn’t have to toss her gun out the window before crossing the park, so long as she had the necessary permits and was following all other gun-control laws. (Even then, it wouldn’t be a good idea to litter.)

Smith thinks the rules should be even more permissive.

“These regulations infringe on the rights of law-abiding gun owners, who wish to transport and carry firearms on or across these lands,” reads the five-paragraph letter he co-signed. “Such regulatory changes would respect the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners, while providing a consistent application of state weapons laws across all land ownership boundaries.”

As of Feb. 15, the Interior Department had not responded to the letter, according to a Smith spokesman.

Three candidates hoping to unseat Smith call bullshit on the proposed lifting of the ban anyway. At the same time, each knows that beyond the borders of the left-tilting Willamette Valley they must appeal to some voters who get both ballots and National Rifle Association membership cards mailed to their homes.

“I oppose it for two reasons,” says Frohnmayer, a former National Endowment for the Arts chairman who supports the Second Amendment, but calls the proposed change a “distraction.” “First, there isn’t any evidence that the present regulations are not working. The second is that the reason for not having firearms in the parks is for the protection of wildlife.”

Novick called the proposal “extreme” and “just plain silly,” even though he says he’s not an anti-gun candidate.“This is not some liberal regulation that has recently been put in place,” Novick says. “I don’t think the gun owners of Oregon are clamoring to charge into Crater Lake National Park with guns at the ready.”

Merkley spokesman Matt Canter points out an exception exists that allows hunting on some federal fish and wildlife land in Oregon,.Canter also points to Democratic support for the proposal from the likes of Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who endorsed Merkely.

Merkley “would have to discuss the issue further with these Democrats before he would move to make weapons more accessible,” Canter says.