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

Try almost 6! For an understanding of what this took check out http://www.bighammer.net/timeline.html

The VCDL has been working on this for longer then the NRA. www.vcdl.org

I believe *A* (as in ONE) letter asking the National Parks to change their rules is up to 51 supporting senators now. Gee, a bi-partisan effort that includes over half of the senate. What a convenient fact to leave out!

The Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL) has been working this issue for going on 6 years and has already filed a Petition for Rule Making that requested this change. All it asked was that the gun laws of the state you are in apply to the National Park property that (NP) that reside in the state that you are in so you do not, all of a sudden, find your self to be in a NP with your gun and thus a lawbreaker. This is a much bigger issue in Virginia where just driving down a road, making no turns, you can suddenly find yourself in an unmarked National Park. This is a self defense issue. The National Park service, after it denied the VCDL Petition For Rule Making 2 years after it was submitted, stated the NPs were / are safe, but about the same time several stories appeared where researchers we no longer going into some NPs based on the meth labs, pot farms, and drug mules that were using the NPs.

Yes, the NPs may be safe, but they are not perfectly safe. If you are not a crime victim the crime rate is 0%, but if you are a crime victim the rate is 100% no matter how many crimes there are in the park. Therefore I prefer to have my gun holstered at my side. The same as when I go to Walmart or Home Depot. Guns SAVE Lives!