Pursuant to the US Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia vs.
Dick Heller, both the existing and proposed National Park Service &
National Wildlife Refuge weapons regulations are invalid,
unconstitutional and void. The Virginia Citizens Defense League and
over 4 dozen co-petitioning organizations advised the Parks service of
this as long ago as 2004. Since the holding in Heller is that their
total ban on handguns infringes the 2nd Amendment, DOI and NPS should
accept the VCDL petition language as follows and implement the
regulation IMMEDIATELY after the comment period closing.
Under existing legal doctrine, once a law is held unconstitutional, it
is stricken; in the case of the park service CFR 36, regulation 2.4,
it is almost exactly the same as the District of Columbia, and
therefore void. Further, the DOI proposed regulation with it's flawed
"analogous state lands" language and is thereby also in violation
since any state level bans on bearing arms in analogous state lands
would also be implicated under Heller. The Department of the Interior
is hereby instructed to IMMEDIATELY amend the current regulations
pursuant to the VCDL petition language, copied below and the decision
of the US Supreme court rendered in Heller. The Supreme Court held
that the 2nd Amendment is an individual right protecting the rights to
keep arms and bear arms which supersedes CFR 36 regulation 2.4.
I support the proposed change to permit loaded firearms / weapons in
National Parks and Wildlife refuges but comment that the proposed
regulation should be amended as follows:
"A person may possess, carry, and transport loaded, and operable
firearms or other weapons within a national park area in the same
manner, and to the same extent, that a person may lawfully possess,
carry, and transport loaded and operable firearms or other weapons in
the state in which the federal park, or that portion thereof, is
located, provided that such possession, carrying and transporting
otherwise complies with applicable federal and state law."
And for National Wildlife Refuges:
"A person may possess, carry, and transport loaded, and operable
firearms or other weapons within a national wildlife refuge area in
the same manner, and to the same extent, that a person may lawfully
possess, carry, and transport loaded and operable firearms or other
weapons in the state in which the federal wildlife refuge, or that
portion thereof, is located, provided that such possession, carrying
and transporting otherwise complies with applicable federal and state
law."