WASHINGTON, Dec. 30 — The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence today filed suit in federal court asking that the court strike down a last-minute Bush Administration rule change allowing concealed, loaded firearms in national parks and wildlife refuges. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and seeks an injunction to block the rule, which is scheduled to go into effect on January 9, 2009.
The rule will allow guns in rural and urban national park areas around the country. The suit was filed on behalf of the Brady Campaign and its members. Purportedly, some of those “members” include school teachers in the New York and Washington, D.C. areas who will cancel or curtail school trips to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty and the National Mall in Washington, D.C. because licensed concealed-carry owners will exercise their 2nd Amendment rights in those national parks.
The Brady Campaign suit charges that the Interior Department violated several federal laws in its rush to implement the rule before President Bush leaves office, including failing to conduct any environmental review of the harm that the rule will cause, as is required by the National Environmental Policy Act.
The Brady Campaign suit also charges that the Department violated a White House directive that no rules should be issued after November 1, 2008, except in “extraordinary circumstances,” issuing the last-minute rule change on December 10, 2008
The Brady Campaign suit also charges that the “carry” rule also violates the National Park Service Organic Act and the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act, which created the parks and wildlife refuges as protected lands for safe enjoyment of all visitors.
Attorneys with the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence’s Legal Action Project and the law firm Ropes & Gray in Washington, D.C. are representing the Brady Campaign in this case. To read the complaint, go to www.bradycenter.org/xshare/pdf/kempthorne-complaint.pdf.
The Interior Department announced earlier this year that it planned to allow concealed firearms in national parks and wildlife refuges. Concealed carrying will be allowed in every state that allows concealed carrying, even if the state specifically bans the practice in state parks. Only Illinois and Wisconsin prohibit concealed carrying.
Though this looks like a setback for gun owners legal carrying of self-defense handguns, this is a huge opportunity to discredit the Brady Campaign and its allies in court, where Brady’s deceit about the dangers of gun ownership can be questioned and disproved.
