Political Aside

I’m going to apologize in advance for making this blog political for today. There is just one recent development I can’t help but post about. Last week, Congress passed a bill that made it a lot harder for credit card companies to take advantage of people through late fees and overlimit fees. Sounds great, huh? This bill would have been a lot better if there hadn’t been a certain “add-on” bill piggy backing on to the credit card legislation, making it legal for concealed weapons to be carried in national parks, as long as they are licensed and registered.
Now unless you are going into a national park to shoot condors or bald eagles (which is ILLEGAL!), I cannot think of a single reason why you would need to have a concealed weapon in a national park. It’s not like they are huge hot spots for gangs, thugs and violence. National Parks are set up as a refuge for endangered species and a place where wildlife can live uninhibited. Where a hunting license would be required to shoot wildlife previous to this legislation, people now have an “out” to kill any wildlife they happen upon, with the excuse of “self defense” should they be held accountable for shooting an animal. To me, this legislation is just going to give people an excuse to “accidentally” shoot wildlife when they feel threatened, thus completely nullifying the whole purpose of national parks.
Wildlife is not the only thing affected by this bill. I will certainly feel a lot more unsafe when camping in Colorado’s national parks now. Say I am hiking at dusk and someone mistakes me for a wild animal in the dim light. Or say one of my dogs accidentally gets off leash (they are allowed in the campsites, but not on the trails) and someone shoots it, thinking it’s a wild boar or something. I know, I’m being eccentric. But it is always a possibility. And why are guns allowed in the park, but I can’t even take my dogs ON LEASH on a trail hike? Maybe I should sneak that into some current legislation…
We have camped and hiked dozens of times on national land (parks and forests) and I have never felt the least bit threatened by neither wildlife nor neighboring campers. Cherry Creek State Park is filled with snakes (see previous post), but I don’t feel the need to carry a gun and shoot them. Likewise, I am glad I won’t have to worry about my dogs being shot at there. However, I will be much more on edge while camping and hiking now that I know that any person I encounter in a national park could be carrying a weapon.
It is sad when we have to attach legislation like this to other bills in order to get them to pass. This is not how bi-partisanship works. It is not the right way to run a government, and both parties are guilty of this!
I hope I have not made too many people mad with this post. You know I wouldn’t write this if it weren’t important to me. You can bet I will be contacting my Congressmen about this issue as well!