The plan - crafted by the National Rifle Association - was pushed by Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn and is endorsed by 47 other senators, including Montana Democrats Max Baucus and Jon Tester.
Those lawmakers - 39 Republicans and eight Democrats - penned a Dec. 14 letter to Secretary of Interior Dirk Kempthorne, asking that rules be changed to allow loaded guns in national parks. Currently, guns are allowed, but must be unloaded and properly stored.
Coburn's amendment would forbid Interior from enforcing “any regulation that prohibits an individual from possessing a firearm in any unit of the National Park System or the National Wildlife Refuge System.”
It would create one uniform law for guns on all federal lands, including U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service lands - because the current system results in inconsistencies that “are confusing, burdensome and unnecessary,” the letter said.
Critics argue the change would prove dangerous, for many reasons, and this week Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., drew up an alternative public lands bill without the gun-rule changes.
That move has brought into question the timing of the vote on the overall public lands bill, which was set to go before the Senate this week, and could preclude Coburn from introducing his amendment.
“The law, as it stands now, is designed primarily to provide maximum protection of wildlife, and to ensure visitor safety,” said Jerry Case, chief of regulations for the National Park Service. It dates back to the earliest days of NPS, he said, and has its roots in poaching problems in Yellowstone National Park.
Today, the illegal hunt continues. In fact, according to a Park Service report, poaching has “been steadily increasing each year for the past several years” and “is suspected to be a factor in the decline of at least 29 species of wildlife and could cause the extirpation of 19 species from the parks.”
Under current rules, rangers encountering a visitor with a gun have probable cause to investigate, Case said. Under Coburn's amendment, there would be no such probable cause, eliminating that first level of contact with suspected poachers.
On Feb. 11, Congressional Quarterly reported Reid saying he would not allow Coburn's amendment to come up for a Senate vote, indicating the rule change had proved a “poison pill” for the broader bill. That overall legislation would, among other things, create new trails, study newly proposed park sites, and authorize a land swap in Denali National Park to improve passenger rail service there.
Lawmakers had hoped to vote on the bill this week, prior to the President's Day holiday, but Coburn's gun measure now appears to have complicated that schedule.
“There are a lot of implications to having people running around Glacier Park with guns on their hips,” said Will Hammerquist, of the National Parks Conservation Association.
Accidental shootings. Poaching. Vandalism.
Proponents have argued backcountry hikers need the safety firearms provide, but with more than 1.3 billion visitors to national parks since 2002, there have only been two people killed by wild animals.
And what happens when the tourist comes to rangers with the story that he shot at a grizzly bear, thinks he hit it and might have killed it?
“Or is there an injured and angry bear out there in the woods? It's just a recipe for disaster,” Hammerquist said. “Two million people a year come to Glacier Park, and the last thing we need is campers with loaded guns sleeping in tents next to one another in Apgar.”
In fact, Hammerquist said, many visitors to the nation's parks arrive from countries with strict gun laws, and encountering armed hikers on the trail might have the unintended consequence of alienating those international tourists and their much-needed dollars.
And, Case said, he's seen no language in Coburn's amendment that would exempt urban parks, such as those around the Mall in Washington, D.C.
“You can show up there with your gun,” he said with a laugh, “but make sure you have that Senate bill in your hand when you try to get through the gate. Seriously, though, that's a good question - what about these parks in the D.C. area?”
Despite the criticisms, however, Montana's proponents of the rule change remain firm.
“When it comes to Jon and guns, there's no gray area,” said Tester spokesman Aaron Murphy. “And he'll do everything in his power to keep politicians from watering down our Second Amendment rights.”
Baucus agrees, according to spokesman Barrett Kaiser. “Max believes that law-abiding citizens should be able to bring their guns through national parks,” he said. “It's that simple.”
Although current rules already allow citizens to do just that, Kaiser said unloading and storing the guns is “a burden on the Second Amendment.”
The current law, Case said, tries to balance the special nature of national parks - safe havens for both resident wildlife and the visiting public - while at the same time allowing people to travel through with their guns, so long as they're properly stowed.
Some parks, 59 to be exact, actually allow guns and even hunting, although most do not, and poaching remains high on rangers' priority list.
Mark Foust is chief ranger at Glacier, and he said that during the past 10 years about 20 poachers have been caught there. Park officials also have investigated seven cases of guns being fired, and five concealed weapons cases.
No one, he said, has filed a complaint with the park requesting that gun rules be relaxed.
“Glacier is not exactly a hotbed of violent crime,” Foust said. “These parks are awfully safe places to visit.”
But not safe enough for Coburn and the NRA.
“Unloaded and disassembled guns locked in your trunk are of no use when a rapist is attacking your family,” Coburn spokesman Don Tatro told Congressional Quarterly.
But Case said guns need not be disassembled, as the NRA claims, only unloaded and stored.
And Foust isn't hearing those kinds of gun-rights complaints from Glacier's visitors, and so far as the current gun rules are applied, he said, rangers “try to use some discretion.” Many hunters pass briefly through the park on U.S. Highway 2, which marks Glacier's southern boundary, and rangers are well aware of the importance of that corridor to hunters.
“We try to use some common sense,” he said.
Which, according to Hammerquist, is exactly what Coburn's measure is lacking.
The National Rifle Association, on its legislative Web site, specifically mentions the letter sent to Kempthorne by the 47 senators, including Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho.
“The NRA initiated this letter,” the group told its members, “and worked closely with Sen. Crapo to gather signatures from his colleagues. ... We have been working on your behalf for nearly five years to facilitate this policy change, and are committed to ensuring that it finally happens this year.”
The message goes on to urge members to lobby their state lawmakers in favor of allowing loaded guns in the parks.
Whether the NRA will see the legislation voted upon this year remains to be seen, however, as it has become something of a political hot-point. Put to a vote, it likely would pit Democratic presidential hopefuls against GOP front-runner John McCain, who is a co-sponsor on Coburn's bill.
“The entire public lands omnibus bill is being held up because of this,” Hammerquist said. “It's a bad idea, and we should move on.”
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