Over the weekend, a 24 year old vet with PTSD and a restraining order (read: Prohibited Person) shot a bunch of people at a party and then took off to Mt Ranier National Park. When he ran a snow chain checkpoint, Rangers followed him. He killed one of them before evading the other.
Clearly, this is the NRA’s fault:
The shooting renewed debate about a federal law that made it legal for people to take loaded weapons into national parks. The 2010 law made possession of firearms subject to state gun laws.
Bill Wade, the outgoing chair of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, said Congress should be regretting its decision.
“The many congressmen and senators that voted for the legislation that allowed loaded weapons to be brought into the parks ought to be feeling pretty bad right now,” Wade said.
Wade called Sunday’s fatal shooting a tragedy that could have been prevented. He hopes Congress will reconsider the law that took effect in early 2010, but doubts that will happen in today’s political climate.
Calls and emails to the National Rifle Association requesting comment were not immediately returned on Monday.
The NRA said media fears of gun violence in parks were unlikely to be realized, the NRA wrote in a statement about the law after it went into effect. “The new law affects firearms possession, not use,” it said.
The group pushed for the law saying people have a right to defend themselves against park animals and other people.
The shooter died from exposure.
because a law against that would have totally stopped him from bringing a gun into the park. don’t you know its impossible to break laws!