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"If you allow carry in a National Park, people will stop going"

dyver1

Regular Member
Joined
Aug 4, 2008
Messages
77
Location
Herndon, Virginia, USA
imported post

"If you allow carry in a National Park, people will stop going"

I saw the quote above or something very similar when I was reading all the articles put out by the ANTIS as the new National Park carry law was about to come into affect last month. Oh the horror of it all. "Blood would run in the parks, people won't feel safe so they will stop going" etc, etc.

It was a nice day here in the Washington DC area today, so I decided to take my trusty Sig Sauer for a walk at Great Falls Park in Northern Virginia. Well if the people are going to stop coming to the parks because guns are being carried there, someone forgot to tell the people.

Great Falls Park was packed. I went very late in the day. I arrived about 4pm, an hour or so before the Vistors Center would close and 2.5 hours or so before the park would close at sunset.

Parking lots were packed, trails around the park were packed, overlooks were packed. It was a very busy day at the park for the first weekend in March. I spoke to the ranger at the gate and she said that it was one of the busiest March days they had ever had.

What was amazing (at least to the ANTIS I am sure) is what did NOT happen. As I walked around the park and out to the overlooks and everywhere I went, not a single sole seemed to notice or care about the P6 on my right side or the 2 10 round magazines on my left side. No stares, no horrified expressions, no MWAG reports nothing. Even the 3 rangers I saw and walked by seemed to pay no attention to me and my 9MM. All as it should be.

I was amused when I walked down to one of the overlooks and across the river about 300 yards away there were people in the park on the Maryland side of the river looking at the same falls that I was. I smiled, because on their side of the river in Maryland, they could not exercise the same 2nd amendment rights that I was exercising because Maryland does not allow its citizens to carry like Virginia does.
I LOVE living in Virginia where my rights are protected and I can defend myself pretty much anywhere I go.

:celebrate

I did notice that all of the doors to offices, the visitor's center, etc were all posted with that familiar red circle with the red slash sign stating NO FIREARMS were permitted beyond those doors, but other than that no mention of firearms on any other signs that I saw.

So my friends, it looks like the ANTIS were once again wrong and blood will not run in our National Parks because those of us who carry open or concealed are the law abiding ones and not the ones that people need to fear.

Be Careful out there.

Paul
 

zack991

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 29, 2009
Messages
1,535
Location
Ohio, USA
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Never went to them very often as it was before and it wont change. The government destroying the last peacefully place we have left.
 

Overtaxed

Regular Member
Joined
Nov 7, 2007
Messages
221
Location
, ,
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zack991 wrote:
Never went to them very often as it was before and it wont change. The government destroying the last peacefully place we have left.
Death Valley National Park is perhaps my favorite of them all. Variegated terrain and unbelievable silence. Not sure how the government has been destroying that.

My girlfriend at the time and I stayed there two years ago. Went on an incredible moon and star-lit stroll around Zabriskie Point. We could see one or two fellow visitors out there in the wrinkled hills just beyond the viewing area parapet.

She was equally spooked and enchanted, and I felt just a tad uneasy, knowing that if someone out there wanted to do us harm, they could do it fairly easily and with no witnesses around.

Nothing happened to either of us, but I remember wishing that I had the explicit right to pack there.

I'm glad for everyone's sake that it is now law.
 
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