Senate passes handguns-in-parks bill

[BlueJessamine]

Source: The tennessean

People with handgun carry permits could bring their weapons into all state and local parks in Tennessee, under a bill the Senate passed on Monday.

The measure sponsored by Republican Senate Judiciary Chairwoman Mae Beavers of Mt. Juliet was approved on a 24-8 vote.

The bill would allow permit holders to carry handguns in all local parks, unless local governments specifically vote to ban them.

"The point of this bill is to give law-abiding and responsible permit holders a fighting chance when confronted by a rapist or a murderer while within a local or state park," Beavers said.


Read more: http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090519/NEWS01/905190329/1001/NEWS/Senate+passes+handguns-in-parks+bill

[msongs]

1. fear of a black president has gun nuts going whacko all across the nation nt

[customerserviceguy]

3. Fear of crime in a recessionary economy has caused people to worry

If you've ever been out past the range of city bus lines, you might observe that getting a cop quickly is quite difficult. In rural areas, protecting yourself is your own priority. I can imagine that campers look like tempting targets to those who are willing to steal from others.

[X_Digger]

6. Fear of a coherent response has msongs pulling the race card again. n/t

[rrneck]

12. It wasn't unusual

for people to be assaulted and occasionally killed in Percy Warner Park in Nashville when I lived there.

It's the largest municipal park in the United States I believe at just over two thousand acres. You can get lost just driving through it.

[Tim01]

42. You are the only one concerned with race.

[slackmaster]

53. Not everyone who carries a weapon for self-defense is a racist

No doubt some of them are, but that is by no means the only reason people carry firearms.

[dbonds]

2. Some nut drunk with a handgun at a 4th of July celebration in the park.

Yeah, that's a good idea.

[joeglow3]

7. A bit stereotypical much?

I know a few people who have conceal carry permits and they are some of the most responsible people I know. The nut you are referencing will be the one bringing the gun no matter what the law says.

[Bill McBlueState]

22. I'm more worried about the people you don't know

You say you only know a few people, and presumably, way more than a few people have concealed-carry permits.

[DonP]

10. That's the same guy already carrying in Nashville and Memphis

or anywhere else he or she chooses to.

The only people allowed to carry concealed in the parks are the same people already licensed to carry anywhere else in the state or the 32 other states that offer reciprocity to CCW permit holders.

These people have been fingerprinted, screened by the FBI, trained and had to pass a written and shooting test before being given a permit.

Do you have any reason, beyond a fevered imagination, why they would drive into a park and all of a sudden become a raging psycho when they don't anywhere else?

[dbonds]

26. If you don't know the nuts out there you need to pay more attention.

It doesn't take much to get a concealed weapon permit. I got one in florida. On a whim, went to a gun show, signed up for the 2 hour training course and test. They give you the answers to the test in a class then turn around and give you the glass. Never fired a pistol before, passed the shooting part. Got fingerprinted on the spot by the officer that was giving the class/test. Lot of wink, wink, nudge nudge going on when they talked about the 3 step rule and what counts as a step.

[joshcryer]

56. I don't know about FL, but in CO it is extremely difficult.

Not difficult as in "passing exams" but difficult as in "having a god-like pristine saintly non-criminal history."

A couple of speeding tickets can get you denied.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

31. A 4th of july party at a national park?

[demwing]

60. Yeah, I'm more worried about the drunk nut with fireworks on the fourth

who burns down the whole damne forest while she sits on her keg and laughs

[villager]

4. what are the stats on the current "wave of murders" in Tennessee's

state parks?

well, now we get to find out whether that number goes up or down...

[konnichi wa]

9. It goes down in every other venue where guns are allowed to be carried by responsible

citizens.

[villager]

17. you mean, like in America?

funny how you gun-lovers always cite pervasive gun violence in the need for more guns!

[anonymous171]

20. lol "gun violence" nt

[villager]

51. pretty goddamn hilarious, that gun violence!

Can't say the laugh surprises me, though...

[beevul]

73. Likewise...

You gun-haters always say we should diall 911 instead...


and call people in uniform with GUNS...


:rofl:

[ProudDad]

84. I find that if you act as a civil human being

instead of a gun-toting paranoid, locked and loaded and ready for a fight...

you don't have any problems...

[xxqqqzme]

5. ok that's the Tennessee

State Senate

[sinkingfeeling]

8. Sure hope to stay away from Tennessee's state parks. Hope the animals stay out of them as well.

[Renew Deal]

11. Beavers comment is crap

"A fighting chance" BULLSHIT!

[michreject]

13. 2 down and 1 to go

We need the loaded rifles in vehicle law passed. It looks like it will.

[ManiacJoe]

24. What is wrong with them being unloaded?

From a safety perspective, unloaded would be the better choice. If speed of loading is a perceived problem, get a semi-auto and keep the mag loaded but not in the gun.

[michreject]

34. When it's needed, it's needed now

not seconds later.

[ManiacJoe]

70. Thus the easily accessible handgun on your hip.

Your long gun is in a secured rack or the trunk. Neither of which implies speed of access. The extra few seconds to insert the magazine will be insignificant.

[Jack_DeLeon]

75. already legal in Texas.

:)

[nevergiveup]

14. I have no problem with this

as long as they also outlaw all people with a temper.

[2Design]

15. Yep we need more ubiqutous guns - memphis is highest crime city

in usa - murder is high - need more guns - lots more guns - these laws and states just don't put two and two together - florida is same way - usa is the most unsafe country to travel in compared to many european countries - but the only manufacturing and export we seem to still have is militaristic weaponry - go guns - go nra - go killing republicans - we love your hate mongers like Timothy McVeigh - you really have created monsters with your military killing and training children to be killers.

[michreject]

18. It's not the CCW gun owner that's doing the murder

It's the thug gang members killin each other.

[stlsaxman]

19. It's not the bullet that kills you- it's the hole.

[michreject]

23. I guess this means something

but it beats the hell out of me if it does.

[konnichi wa]

25. It's an unsuccessful riff on the old joke about falling off a cliff...

it isn't the fall, it's the sudden stop.

94% Fail.

[michreject]

32. It fell short

:evilgrin:

[stlsaxman]

29. "thug gang members"... I guess this means something- oh, right, it means

blacks and hispanics, right?

[michreject]

30. Your words, not mine

I guess I know where your heads at.

[stlsaxman]

36. self deleted.

[ProudDad]

85. Nope, you're wrong

it's the availability of a firearm (usually a handgun) in a domestic situation that kill MANY more than the apocryphal "thug gang members"...

Check it out...

[anonymous171]

21. Why are people killing eachother? Could it be because of the economy?

Or perhaps it is because our culture glorifies violence? I thought progressives always tried to attack the root of the problem.

[Thothmes]

35. Maybe it is over the right to sell drugs on this or that street corner.

[Celeborn Skywalker]

27. What about places like Montana or Wyoming?

Both states have VERY high gun ownership rates but are in the top 5 safest states in the country. Hawaii also has a low murder rate has low gun ownership. Chicago has strict gun laws and murder remains high. Mississippi has no gun control and a very high murder rate.

My point in all this is that, to me, there doesn't seem to be a correlation between gun ownership and gun violence.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

39. How many of those crimes happen in local and state parks in Memphis?

[Winterblues]

16. Fear drives the gun industry

America...Home of the Brave...What a Hoot..

[ohio2007]

38. that gave birth to drive by shootings...which are all the rage in some places nt

[MaineDem]

28. Pheww, only the TN Senate

I was worried there for a minute.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

33. Something needs to be done to curtail all these hike-by shootings.

I'm very concerned.

[ohio2007]

37. Hey, Central Park after dark is a no go zone...so I've been told

daytime joggers don't have a fighting chance either from horror stories posted here in the past.

urban life has gone country

[IndianaGreen]

40. I want to bring my RPG and 50 cal machinegun

and shoot at all them Freepers in the woods.

CHARGE!

[joshcryer]

59. Some sorry ass bitch was shooting a semi-auto 50 cal. into trees in our national park in CO.

Colorado National Reserve Park. We got down from the mountain and told the rangers and they went up there to see what was going on. It pissed me off so much.

Granted not all gun owners are like this, it just struk me as very strange, a woman and a 50 cal, destroying nature. Quite opposite the statistic.

[Blandocyte]

89. Them trees had it comin', officer

[rocktivity]

41. The law also gives give law-abiding and responsible permit holders

the chance to BE a a rapist or a murderer while within a local or state park!

:scared:
rocktivity

[Tim01]

43. Parks won't be any different than malls, or grocery stores, or anyplace else.

And those places already have lots and lots of people already legally carrying handguns that nobody knows about. That's because there is almost never a problem.

Are parks evil places that change people in to murderers? No they are not.


Criminals are dangerous and they will take their guns where they want to anyway.

If you go someplace where guns are banned there are still guns around you, but they are only being carried by criminals who are willing to hurt you.

[Lorien]

45. Yeah, except that murders DO happen more frequently in parks because

of the isolation factor. Poaching is also a big issue at many parks, and this will just give poachers another excuse . "Well, I felt threatened by that buck, so I shot 'em". Park rangers DO NOT want loaded weapons in their parks:



On January 9, 2009, the Bush Administration made effective new regulations that allowed visitors to carry loaded, concealed firearms in national parks. The Bush regulation replaced a regulation developed by the Reagan Administration that required that firearms in national parks be unloaded and put away. The Reagan regulation was developed in 1983, and had been successful at maintaining our national parks as safe, family-friendly destinations. In fact, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report, there were 1.65 violent crimes per 100,000 national park visitors in 2006--making national parks some of the safest places for families to visit in the United States.

National park professionals, including seven former Directors of the National Park Service, the Association of National Park Rangers, the U.S. Park Ranger Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police, the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, and the current career leadership of the National Park Service strongly opposed the Bush regulation. These national park professionals echoed NPCA's concern that the Bush regulation would increase the risk of opportunistic shooting of wildlife, and vandalism of historic monuments, structures, and archaeological resources, as well as increase the risk of gun-related accidents. We also believed that the process undertaken to promulgate the regulation was flawed because the Bush Administration failed to complete a review of the regulation's potential environmental impacts as required by law.

The American public also largely opposed the Bush regulation. All told, of the 140,000 people who voiced their positions on this issue during the comment period, 73 percent opposed allowing loaded, concealed firearms in our national parks.

On March 19, the U.S. District Court ruled overwhelmingly in support of the lawsuit filed by the Association of National Park Rangers, the Coalition of National Park Retirees, and NPCA, and issued an injunction against the implementation of the regulation. The judge found that the Bush Administration’s process was “astoundingly flawed” because they “abdicated their obligations” and “ignored substantial information in the administrative record concerning environmental impacts.”

The Reagan-era regulation, which NPCA supports, is effective once more.

At the court's direction, the Obama Administration reported on April 17 that it would not appeal the courts decision, but would conduct an environmental impact statement on the effects of the rule and develop a range of alternatives. We appreciate your support of America's park rangers on this important issue!

http://www.npca.org/keep_parks_safe/

[Tim01]

47. You say parks have more violent crime so the good guys should be disarmed?

It's only the good guys who will START carrying in parks. You just said the bad guys are already there and hurting people.

I am the one who will start carrying in parks. Poaching a deer for fun with my defensive handgun is just as likely as me shooting up a walmart over a dispute about somebody cutting in line.

Are you the kind of person to murder somebody over a parking spot? No? Me neither. Those people are criminals and they already have weapons and they carry them in places where weapons are not allowed. Like parks.

And if parks are dangerous they why in the world would you "feel safe" there? You have said you are not safe but you feel safe.

[Jack_DeLeon]

76. So you are saying that its a good thing for law abiding citizens to be armed...

since there is a bigger chance of needing to defend themselves when they are alone and isolated.

If so I agree with you there. :)

[Lorien]

44. Fuck. One more loss for wildlife and those of us who want to feel safe

in National Parks WITHOUT being armed. If being armed to the teeth kept us safer then we wouldn't have such a high rate of gun violence in this Nation to begin with. :grr:

[Tim01]

46. You are simply mistaken

I am the person you are concerned about. I carry my gun all of the time everyplace I can. Just about everywhere. It stays under my shirt day in, day out year after year. If you talk to me at the store you would never know it.
You have probably talked to lots of people who were carrying a handgun and you never knew it.
If you pass me on a trail in the woods I will politely exchange pleasantries with you and chat about the local wildlife.
My gun will just stay under my shirt just like it does everywhere else,day after day. Nobody will know and it won't matter.

The violent criminals are already in the parks same as they are in other places. Feel as safe as you like. But feeling a way does not make it true. And you are alone.

[joshcryer]

57. Erm, you have a better chance falling and breaking your neck in a national park.

Getting hit by an off roader or other vehicle. Really, you do.

[Politicub]

48. That's great! Never know when you'll need to take somebody out at the park

After all, you have to protect #1.

[Tim01]

49. I'm the one who will *start* carrying in parks.

I carry everyplace except parks now. I carry all day every day for about 10 years and I have never felt like taking somebody out. Is a park a place that will make me a different person? Does a park make you evil? No.

A park will not make me evil anymore than a mall or a gas station.

I disarm myself when I go to a park now because it is the law. That just leaves the criminals armed. Violent criminals are there and they are carrying guns and other weapons right now.

[Tim01]

50. Wasn't it a National park where 2 gay women were murdered?

Yes it was. With a knife. A most brutal crime in a campsite. Their throats were slit. Gross.

If I had been there I would have gladly shot their attacker. Of course without my gun I might just have got myself killed. I would have tried either way. I don't stand by and let bad guys hurt innocent people.

[Blandocyte]

54. I hope ya don't miss

when you're shooting your bad guy! I don't want me or the fam hit by your legally carried gun's bullet.

[joshcryer]

58. Tim01 comes off to me as a very responsible gun owner.

I'm pretty confident he'd check his LOS before shooting anyone.

[Blandocyte]

64. Check LOS

and squeeeeeeeze the trigger to keep the sights on the bad guy (and only the bad guy), and hope the bad guy doesn't move... Yeah, no. I'm not comfortable with that.

[joshcryer]

65. More than likely he would fire a warning shot, or get up very close to take the shot.

You don't shoot someone unless you know you are going to hit them.

[Tim01]

68. I would try to close the distance.

I have no patience with people who would murder other people for sport. Ideally my gun would be almost touching the badguy when I started shooting.But more ideally would be him giving up the fight at the sight of me pointing a gun at him.

[joshcryer]

72. Which is the likely outcome. Most CCP incidents in this way.

The vast majority. Show gun, criminal disengages and leaves.

[Tim01]

78. That is what happens most times. Criminals want victims, not a gun fight.

[Blandocyte]

77. Ah, the old good guys always win fantasy

In your good guys always win and never do harm fantasy, you are forgetting the deaths caused by stray bullets in shootings. Someone mentioned a "warning shot." What goes up must come down. You might have faith in your steely nerves and the ice water in your veins, but I don't, and the general public doesn't, and we don't want to have to be concerned that some vigilante will be shooting us via richochet or outright missing the "bad guy." Remember that even police officers have far more misses than hits in shooting incidents.

Your good guys don't miss fantasy endangers innocent bystanders in the park. The next time you're at the range doing your double taps and distance shots, refer to any shot that doesn't go where you intended as "a dead innocent bystander." Also remember it's not just you carrying-- there are many people with permits who don't practice. It's safer for all of us if no one can carry in the park.

And since the guy who slashed the women had a knife, sounds like you'd be plenty safe with a knife. The knife sounds pretty deadly in that incident.

[Tim01]

80. You are uneducated about this. If facts proved you wrong, would you change your opinion?

Bullets go up being pushed by thousands of foot pounds of energy, they come down by gravity, they are not dangerous. They hit terminal velocity in a hundred feet or so and wind resistance won't allow them to go any faster.

Misses and ricochets huh? Do you think a national park has a high population density like a carnival? No, it doesn't.
Criminals like to attack people in UNPOPULATED areas. Seriously, 1000 acres of wilderness, one day out of thousands of days, this is the day a bad guy tries to hurt somebody, this is the one time the victim is armed, this one bad guy decides to fight instead of run. Do you see the odds were are talking about here? The chances of an innocent getting hurt from a justified bullet fired by a civilian are unbelievably low. Astronomically low. I have NEVER heard of it happening. Not once. Not ever.
Cops sure, they as a group, chase badguys in high population density areas.

I know it isn't just me carrying. I am involved in the training of people who carry so I know lots and lots and lots of them. How many do you know? ALL of them I know just have their gun in their holster and that's where it stays. I am very comfortable around all of them.

THE CRIMINALS ARE ALREADY IN THE PARKS WITH WEAPONS RIGHT NOW! Forget "feeling safe". You are not.
And the next time you are in the park bear in mind that violent criminals are often charming and personable. That is how they get close enough to you to hurt you.

Knives make good back up weapons. But if you are close enough to cut the bad guy he is close enough to cut you. The winner of a knife fight will probably have serious, permanent, life long injuries. If he doesn't bleed out before help arrives.

Me carrying a gun DOES NOT make you less safe. It certainly makes me and those around me safer, and it might make you safer. But in reality mostly it has no effect at all.

So once again I ask you. If the facts show that you are no less safe, and maybe even safer if we have guns, are you still against them?

[Blandocyte]

86. Misses and richochets will happen

no matter what the population density, and if it's me getting hit by one, it doesn't matter if it's in a park or a city street. It still could kill. Since people carrying guns doesn't have much of an effect at all, let's have fewer carrying them. Added benifit: that'll result in fewer charges of brandishing for the permit holders. I'm sure you hear about those incidents and talk with your students about that. I'm sure you've heard of the kids who've been killed by bullets shot up into the air (usually at celebrations) coming down and piercing their skulls. And the odds of that happening were astronomically low.

I guess we'll just have to disagree on this one. I don't want guns carried in parks, you do. I understand the reasoning, but I don't think the risk of letting people carry in parks outweighs the benefit.

I hope you continue to train folks and will continue to remind them that any shot that doesn't go where they intend it to on the practice range could be a dead innocent bystander as well as a lawsuit if they miss that shot on the street (or in a park.)

[Tim01]

90. You have said you don't care if the results are good or bad, fair enough.

And those are low angle shots that hurt people, not high into the air shots.
Like when the local Barney Fife shows up at a country house in response to a call about a snake in a tree and tries to shoot it, killing a kid with a head shot 1/3 mile away in a boat on a lake. Happened.
I don't take shots like that, I am better trained.Not surprising.

Because the average citizen who carries a gun is better trained than the average police officer. And on average a citizen who carries is less likely to be convicted of criminal activity than a police officer.

When I fired warning shots at 3 pit bulls coming after my livestock it was into the ground.
I've never had one bounce provided the angle is less than about 45 degrees.

As you said, agree to disagree. Fair enough.

[Tim01]

67. It just doesn't happen. I haven't heard of it happening even once. Not ever.

In 10 years of carrying I have never shot my gun or had it go off by accident or even had it drop out of it's holster. Not once.
You have a better chance of being hit by lightning than you do getting hit by a legally fired bullet.

Suggesting that that it could happen is equally as ridiculous as suggestion that gay marriage will destroy the country.

This boogy man of yours of stray bullets doesn't exist. How about the boogy man that slits the throats of gay girls in the park? He does exist.

You want to be afraid of the fake monster and ignore the real one who will kill you. That is irrational.

[Blandocyte]

52. More places to carry

means more idiots with permits carrying in addition to the "responsible" permit holders there. There are many idiots with permits and the number seems to rival the number of level-headed even-tempered permit holders. Even the staff at one of the ranges I go to have said that they've seen people who are so stupid that they shouldn't be allowed to own a gun.

Assaults in parks aren't a problem big/frequent enough to throw the gates open to idiots packing pistols legally. What will now occur is that two permit holders who also happen to be hot-headed idjits will end up in a drunken gunfight over some stupid-ass issue. And that will endanger everyone in the vicinity.

[slackmaster]

55. If that was true, then there should be a measurable spike in unlawful shootings in most states

Because nearly all states now have "shall-issue" laws, meaning permits are issued based on purely objective criteria.

But that has not happened.

[Blandocyte]

62. Letting people carry in parks

will result in more stupid people carrying there and that's bound to end up in an illegal shooting incident. Gun Guys dot com has a good number of stories of permit holders shooting illegally. Seems just a question of time till it happens in a TN park. Seems a shame to open the parks up to this sort of risk.

[slackmaster]

63. Why do you think people carrying in parks are any different than people carrying in shopping malls?

Gun Guys dot com has a good number of stories of permit holders shooting illegally.

A few anecdotes published by a highly biased source is not valid evidence of a real problem.

[friendly_iconoclast]

61. The "Blood will flow on the streets!" meme has been replaced by..

.."Blood will flow on the trails and in the camping areas!"

NEWSFLASH: The first didn't happen and the second probably won't either.

[slackmaster]

66. That, and "people who carry firearms are all poachers and racists"

:argh:

[Kablooie]

69. YES! Finally I'll be able to shoot those idiots who play their loud radio at camp grounds!

[Blandocyte]

88. Please, just shoot the radio

eot

[-..__...]

71. Meh...

I don't have a CCW permit nor do I visit national parks, but if it gets under the Brady Campaigns/gun grabbers dust ruffles, then it's
something I support.

[proteus_lives]

81. That's great!

Best Hello Kitty pic I've ever seen!

:rofl:

[proteus_lives]

82. I don't think there is anything wrong with this.

I should be able to take my gun camping or hiking. I'm a law-abiding citizen and it's my right as long as I'm responsible.

[Baclava]

74. TN bears get hungry too

I lived in Alaska for 3+ years. When out in the bush I always carried a .44 mag pistol and a shotgun loaded with 00 buck, slug, 00 buck, slug, etc

That's what I learned from the oldtimers - I did lot of deep backcountry hiking, hunting and fishing in brown and black bear territory. Saw a lot - never had to get defensive. When bears get hunted, they tend to get spooky and take off, unless you get a shebear with cubs, or you're sitting on a gutpile of moose or deer - then all bets are off.


Survey the scene, know your limitations.

I know it's hard for cubicle workers who never leave the pavement to understand, but I'd shoot a bear to save my kid.



go ahead, crucify me...

[bobmorr1]

79. pass this too

If Tenn. Congresscritters think its fair to pass this to protect its citizens, why not pass a law to allow people to carry a weapon in Gov. buildings. Fair is fair. We need protection from gun nuts in Congress too.:sarcasm:

[ProudDad]

83. Paranoid idiots win another minor battle (n/t)

[Blandocyte]

87. They're not paranoid

:evilgrin: