I have been bugged by this all day.
"Spineless Democrats caving to an eternal fear of the NRA" was my reaction initially. But the more I think about it, the more I think this is about a lot more than just gun control. This is about what it means to have something even RESEMBLING wilderness in our country.
More below...
Wilderness is, to paraphrase Edward Abbey, is where "nature bats last". It is where we should be able to go to experience raw nature, with all its beauty, scope and struggle. It is were we can go to know what it is like to truly be AWAY from civilization and to briefly be in touch with a larger, more natural experience of our planet's beauty.
There is danger in wilderness. There are natural predators, natural disasters, and just plain experiential dangers. But being in wilderness is not diminished by those dangers, but rather, it is enhanced by them. You learn to be more observant, more respectful, more SILENT as you move through a wilderness that can snap you like a twig.
Our National Parks are some of the last places in the country where we can truly experience that feeling of wilderness and our place in it. Adding unregulated guns to this experience fundamentally changes ALL of that for everyone.
It means that you no longer have to respect the fact that you are treading on territory that may already be claimed by another, more powerful species than yourself. Heck, see a mountain lion ahead on the trail? What do you do? Do you respectfully back away, following all your training about not running, and making yourself large and loud? No, with a gun you just fucking shoot the bastard and move on. Therefore taking not only the life of an animal with no greater or less claim to wilderness than yourself, but removing this beautiful creature from an ecosystem that depends upon it for its balance and production.
THIS is why guns in national parks is such a horrible, misguided, dangerous idea. Because the minute you let humans DOMINATE a wilderness (which is exactly what a gun does) it is no longer a wilderness. You might as well just start pouring asphalt on the trails and putting up motels, because you are no longer going to experience nature as it is in a natural state. You are experiencing man's exercise of dominion of other species and ecosystems.
The places where we can go to feel in harmony with nature, in diverse natural habitats, shrinks more and more with each passing generation. This saddens me and I want to see it arrested wherever possible. This means opposing the granting of man's unchecked domination of other species in natural settings.
If we give up this fight, we are giving up our wilderness, and that would have saddened John Muir, who once said:
"God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools. "
We are being fools to allow guns in our national parks. There are plenty of wild places you can go with your guns to hunt and feel powerful. The National Parks are here for ALL of us, and should not be that place, and should not be forever diminished because of fears of nature OR our fellow beings.
Frank