Reid would rather avoid issue of guns in U.S. parks

By Lisa Mascaro

Monday, March 17, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid owns 10 guns, and although he doesn’t hunt, he often takes the grandkids out for target practice when he is home in Nevada.

At a media event for the new Clark County shooting range in 2006, he brought his own shotgun — the one his dad gave him as a 12-year-old — and blew away the flying clay pigeon on the first try.

But just because the Democratic leader of the Senate is a Westerner who won backing from the National Rifle Association during his past election campaign, doesn’t mean his party has entirely put itself in the good graces of the gun lobby.

True, Democrats no longer fight on Second Amendment issues the way they once did. They have toned down the gun control arguments that cost the party dearly in 2000 and 2004, as they appeal to rural and Western voters. During the 2006 election, more Democratic candidates for Congress were endorsed by the NRA than in any other year in recent memory.

Yet plenty of Democrats remain in the sights of gun activists. Reid has an opportunity to protect them this election year from having to take a potentially tough stand on an issue being raised by Sen. Tom Coburn, a conservative Oklahoma Republican.

Coburn proposes lifting restrictions on carrying guns openly — or concealed if the owner has a state gun permit — in national parks, including Great Basin and Death Valley in Nevada. The issue would stir the gun debate in Washington. Coburn has said he might attach the proposal as an amendment to a popular public lands bill that enjoys bipartisan support. Reid, however, has quietly stalled the bill.

The issue Coburn raises is not new. A bipartisan group of 51 senators wrote to the Interior Department in December asking for the change, which would allow the carrying of guns for the first time since the earliest days of the national parks system nearly 100 years ago. The restrictions were intended to preserve wildlife in the parks, where hunting is banned.

Parks advocates are aghast, worried that allowing guns at the geysers of Yellowstone or on the trails of the Grand Canyon would irreversibly change the character of the nation’s special places and lead to increased poaching.

But Coburn, known for employing bold procedural moves to advance his agenda, seized on the proposal and tried pushing it into the 2008 campaign season.

Reid isn’t biting. He is trying to preserve and even expand the slim majority Democrats hold in the Senate and knows that the two Democratic senators running for president have earned F grades from the NRA.

Political realities aside, he also doesn’t want the gun amendment to derail the lands bill, which includes transfer of federal property in Southern Nevada for a National Guard depot.

Reid argues that the gun legislation can be brought up separately rather than attached to the lands bill. He will try to overcome Coburn’s tactic by holding up the legislation until he wins over enough Republicans with stakes in it to move it forward without the guns measure attached.

Reid also notes that to allow guns on parklands, the Interior Department can act alone to change the rules — which is exactly what is happening.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced late last month that he would develop new guidelines for firearms in the national parks and national wildlife refuges. The proposed rules are expected to be released April 30. Public review will follow.

Interior Department spokesman Chris Paolino said restrictions were last updated 20 years ago, and after the letter from the senators, “we think it’s appropriate to take a look” before the Bush administration leaves office in 10 months.

The existing rules were put in place by the Reagan administration. With exceptions for some parks in Alaska, the rules allow guns inside national parks only if stowed out of reach. They cannot be carried on your person.

Since those 1980s’ rules, however, the “right to carry” movement has sprung up and the number of states offering concealed-weapons permits has exploded. Nevada offers them, too.

The NRA has been working for five years to change park rules to reflect the cultural shift.

“A lot of people have a false misconception that national parks are safe and secure places where families can go and enjoy wildlife frolicking among wildflowers,” NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said.

“These parks are big. What happens if you’re attacked? ... The nearest help could be miles away. The predators aren’t just of the two-legged variety; there’s also the possibility you could be attacked by an animal,” he added. “Is it possible to allow these people to have a reasonable means of defending themselves? The answer is yes.”

As the Interior Department reviews the rules, gun advocates want the parks to follow gun rules on other federal lands, which in Nevada generally mirror state laws that allow carrying firearms in the open or tucked away on a person who has a concealed-weapons permit.

Another approach under consideration would allow each national park to hew to the rules for the host state’s own parks. In Nevada, anyone with a concealed-weapons permit could carry a gun at all times in a national park. The state’s parks law limits everyone else to carrying guns openly only during about three months during Nevada’s hunting season.

Here is where the many calculations of Reid play out.

On one hand he must entertain the concerns of park lovers, who cringe at the thought of concealed weapons in the backcountry. They argue the chance of becoming a violent-crime victim in a national park is less than that of being struck by lightning — about 1 in 700,000 — yet poaching is a serious potential problem.

But mostly, park lovers worry that guns would alter the mood of the park, bumming the natural high.

“Parks were always meant to be different places where the public could go see the country the way it was before it was settled,” said Kristen Brengel, director of the public lands program at the Wilderness Society. “I think it changes the atmosphere when the guy next to you has a gun and may shoot it.”

On the other end, Reid must be careful not stir up gun rights advocates, including 53-year-old Jill Andrews, a Fallon mother with a concealed-weapons permit who would “like to carry my gun, put it in a pocket, put it in my saddlebag,” when she visits Yosemite. “We’d love that.”

Reid’s strong score from the NRA may provide him credentials to navigate the divide. He boosted his grade to B when he stood for reelection in 2004.

The rest of Nevada’s congressional delegation, in a state that still reflects much of the Old West even as it develops new political and cultural sensibilities, is open to considering guns in the parks.

Republican Sen. John Ensign signed on to the original letter, and Republican Rep. Dean Heller, whose district includes almost all rural areas, said Nevada’s vast federal lands “should have consistent policies that do not infringe upon our ability to transport and carry firearms.”

Republican Rep. Jon Porter, who plays in a congressional band called the Second Amendments but represents a largely suburban Southern Nevada district that is trending Democratic, said as long as those carrying guns are following state law, the proposal “seems reasonable to me.”

Even Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley, whose urban and suburban Las Vegas district has been touched by a recent rash of street shootings, is willing to let the process play out.

Berkley’s spokesman said those on various sides of the issue “will all have the chance to add their opinion once these new guidelines are made public.”

Reid has a plan to move the popular lands bill forward, so the National Guard can officially own its depot land.

As for the gun proposal, he has not yet taken a position on the issue. He may never have to.