Judge Blocks Rule Permitting Concealed Guns In U.S. Parks

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Washington Post

A federal judge yesterday blocked a last-minute rule enacted by President George W. Bush allowing visitors to national parks to carry concealed weapons.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit brought by gun-control advocates and environmental groups. The Justice Department had sought to block the injunction against the controversial rule.

The three groups that brought the suit -- the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the National Parks Conservation Association and the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees -- argued that the Bush action violated several laws.

In her ruling, Kollar-Kotelly agreed that the government's process had been "astoundingly flawed."

She noted that the government justified its decision to forgo an environmental analysis on the grounds that the rule does not "authorize" environmental impacts. Calling this a "tautology," she wrote that officials "abdicated their Congressionally-mandated obligation" to evaluate environmental impacts and "ignored (without sufficient explanation) substantial information in the administrative record concerning environmental impacts" of the rule.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/19/AR2009031902801.html?hpid=moreheadlines

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Damn! What environmental impacts? If the gun is not fired there's no damn environmental impact IMHO!