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Gun-rights activists across the U.S. joined forces to help pass new federal legislation that allows people to carry firearms in National Parks. KSMU’s Kristian Kriner reports.
There are six National Parks in Missouri that will now allow visitors to bring in guns-loaded or unloaded.
Missouri law, before this new legislation, stated that loaded guns could only be brought into National Parks that allowed hunting.
Ted Hillmer is the superintendent of Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield.
He says this new legislation will really affect Wilson’s Creek because no hunting is allowed there.
“We have about 235 million visitors in the park service that we’ll have to be concerned about. Our primary concern is safety; I mean that’s a paramount and we don’t have of course that many visitors that come to Wilson’s Creek. We have about 150,000, but we want to make sure they are safe also,” Hillmer said.
Hillmer says the park already has two police officers on staff and it may have to hire more.
He says the National Parks Service will have plenty of time to plan out how to deal with the new gun law.
“Congress gave us until February 22 of 2010 to come up with how we are going to react to this, but we have about 10 months until we have to actually come through with regulations that will comply with this,” Hillmer said.
Hillmer says he doesn’t think bringing guns into National Parks will affect visitation.
He says the park is still waiting for more information and guidance from Washington before it implements any safety regulations at Wilson’s Creek.
For KSMU News, I’m Kristian Kriner.
