Reid relents on guns in U.S. parks

By Lisa Mascaro

Sunday, May 24, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Take the freeway out of town and soon you’ll see the huge headquarters of the National Rifle Association just a short way away in suburban Virginia.

The NRA moved here in 1994, the year the gun lobby helped Republicans win control of Congress in midterm elections. The group’s logo, in a power font, bears down with influence.

The NRA exerts enormous sway over members of Congress. Lawmakers are reluctant to be at odds with the gun lobby. As much as this country may be shifting left on many issues, experts say voters remain solidly behind the Second Amendment.

Case in point: Every single member of the Nevada delegation voted recently to allow guns to be carried in national parks.

The legislation was tacked onto to a popular credit card reform bill that prevents arbitrary interest rate hikes and other practices consumers find unfair. President Barack Obama signed the bill into law on Friday.

Parks advocates are aghast at the notion of people packing pistols while coming to see Old Faithful or other national park treasures. The nation’s parks are special places, they argue. Current rules required guns to be stored and disassembled. The new law will take effect in nine months.

A duel had been under way for more than a year on the guns-in-parks measure.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid blocked the provision from advancing several times.

A supporter of gun rights who can comfortably fire a shotgun, Reid nevertheless held off attempts by Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma to attach the gun amendment to other bills.

The outgoing Bush administration eventually changed administrative policy to allow guns in Nevada’s Great Basin and national parks elsewhere.

But a judge early this year struck down the Bush-era rule, and Coburn pressed forward.

Finally Reid allowed the vote this month, and 67 senators, including Reid and Nevada Republican John Ensign, voted yes.

Every member of the Nevada delegation in the House followed suit.

Democratic Reps. Shelley Berkley and Dina Titus, both in urban Clark County, voted for the credit card measure with the newly attached gun provision.

In fact, given the opportunity to duck the vote by approving only the credit card portion of the bill, neither of Nevada’s Democratic lawmakers did.

Gun rights “is something that is important to a lot of people in Nevada and her district,” Titus spokesman Andrew Stoddard said. “I don’t think it was a difficult vote.

Berkley, too, said she felt comfortable allowing guns into the parks.

Republican Rep. Dean Heller voted for the gun provision, but against the credit card bill.

In the final Senate action, Reid voted for the full package, and Ensign was absent. He was at his son’s golf tournament, but would have voted for it, a spokesman said.

It’s hard to know what motivated Reid to move on something he had blocked so many times.

Reid had been seen as protecting reluctant Democratic senators from taking a pivotal stance in advance of the fall elections. A gun vote could help shore up the conservative credentials of red-state Democrats, particularly those facing scrutiny back home for their support of the financial bailouts and stimulus that some voters oppose.

Reid’s own reelection in 2010 cannot be ignored, as he burnishes his standing among Western voters in Nevada.

But perhaps just as likely Reid knew that Coburn would be back again and again, potentially holding up the Obama agenda.

Reid, ever the deal maker, called the vote to be done with it.

“We are very appreciative to Sen. Reid for allowing this common-sense measure to go through,” chief NRA lobbyist Chris Cox said.

On a beautiful afternoon in the Rose Garden, Obama signed the credit card bill into law. The sun was shining and, as Obama noted, “change is in the air.”

Not a single word was uttered about the newly-signed law also allowing guns to be carried in the nation’s national parks.