Critical Gun Law Help Needed

What you can do ... Contact the Interior Department and ask to comment on the proposed rule changes. Add your voices to the fray, the right of self defense should not be denied. Here is the NRA bulletin on the subject.

I live on the edge of Everglades National Park, and I can tell you, it is a pretty deserted place. Everglades National Park is in the back county, as we locals like to call it, you could be lost forever. Yes it's that dense. The tall mangroves are high, you can't see over, and the twists and turns of the good fishing spots makes for easy disorientation. . The first time you go, you turn around and all the mangroves look the same. Without GPS, a good compass and some savvy about the place, you would be sunk. Being spotted from the air in the back country is likely not going to happen, the over hang is that thick. But you never know who waits around the next bend. I sometimes fish alone and when another boat approaches too close, you never know. I always have a very large fillet knife close at hand, and a long handled gaff, it's all that is allowed.

It's not for the faint of heart. But the fishing is the best there is.

If you are stopped by one of the various law officers, and it seems fishing rods are the key law enforcement attractor, the first question asked is "are you carrying". Been there plenty of times, stopped plenty of times -- The answer must be NO!. If you have ever been down in that part of Florida, you also know that neither radios nor cell phones reach help. The only thing that works reliably is hugely expensive satellite phones.

Typical article from the very liberal Miami Times ...

More guns may enter U.S. parks

Florida has currently relaxed the law on carry on it's parks and forests and now the Federal Level we are trying to do the same thing.

Of course, the usual suspects are out in force, the same ones that told us the "castle doctrine" would cause blah, blah, blah ... hey you know, they just make it up, but they do squawk loudly..

More guns may enter U.S. parks National parks may follow in Florida's quiet footsteps in relaxing gun restrictions in wild lands. Marion Hammer is the executive director of the Unifed Sportsmen of Florida and the NRA's chief lobbyist in Tallahassee. She understand the problem and has been working tirelessly to change the rules and allow sensible carry in Nation Parks.

Along with cameras, coolers and camping gear, visitors to Biscayne and Everglades national parks sometimes pack something else: Guns.

Bonnie Foist, chief ranger at Everglades for a decade, said rangers encounter enough illegal firearms -- they wrote 132 violations last year -- that it's the first thing they ask about when stopping someone.

' `Do you have a weapon aboard or in your car?' It's the standard question,'' Foist said. ``We want to know what we're facing.''

Yes they allow guns, but ...

National Park Service rules already allow guns -- but only unloaded and stored so they are not ''readily accessible.'' Gun-rights advocates argue that restriction infringes on their ability to defend themselves.

Not readily accessible, same as for pilots, what use is a defensive firearm that 'is not readily accessible'? Only a bureaucrat gets that.

It's a shame that the responsibility and the right of self defense is so easily surrendered by most people, in exchange for a chalk outline. Never made any sense to me. Life, Liberty the two most important reasons we have a constitution.

Your responsibilities and rights are interchangeable. You shirk your responsibilities, you will have no rights.