EXCLUSIVE: GOP Rep Has National Park Gun Ban In His Crosshairs

Republican Indiana Rep. Rudy Yakym introduced legislation Thursday to end a blanket ban on carrying firearms in National Park Service facilities, saying it will allow park rangers to manage the parks as opposed to policing law-abiding citizens.

Currently, while visitors are allowed to carry firearms on National Park lands in accordance with state law, they cannot carry the firearms into buildings, nor can they carry on land owned or managed by the Army Corps of Engineers. Yakym introduced the Federal Lands Lawful Carry Act, saying it was time to end those policies.

“We should push the legislation now because we should not wait for a court to resolve what my bill can fix outright,” Yakym told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “If we can fix this permanently across the country now, we should do this now in the House and take action, as opposed to waiting for the courts to sort this out.”

The bill is supported by Gun Owners of America (GOA), the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF). SAF and the Firearms Policy Coalition sued the Trump administration over the ban in March before filing an amended complaint in June.

Yakym argued that law-abiding citizens should not have to give up their Second Amendment rights just because they needed to make a pit stop while visiting a National Park.

“You cannot walk into a building, a federal building with a gun, even in a federal park,” Yakyn explained. “So what made the most sense is to say the fact that just simply say you should not have to check your Second Amendment right at the front door when you walk into a building on federal land.”

The ban on firearms in park buildings dates to 1988, when it was passed as part of the Undetectable Firearms Act,